A Taste of Thyme and Iron
Contains: Transformation, non-con, supremely bad usage of the German language. Also a single seven letter instance of unicode font bullshit which can fuck up screenreaders. Das Deutsch ist vielleicht schlecht, aber wie viel pornografische Geschichten über Transformation gibt es? Eigentlich, antworte nicht.
They always sent me out to the worst locations. The most benighted villages, the most boring dorfs out in the middle of the sticks as much as Germany has such things. And here, with little to do but work and drink, I found a little inn with a bar attached, as I am fond of, and started working until a waiter could come and take my order.
It was one of those old style buildings, I can’t tell you the name of the style, where the outside was crossed by visible planks of wood laid in front of painted plaster, you know, that Quaint GermanStyle with the text Der Gasthof von den Füchsin written upon it in 𝕱𝔯𝔞𝔨𝔱𝔲𝔯, the inside a vision of traditional german fare, stained wood tables of great age, plaster painted white, and women doing the service. It was sandwiched between two modern apartment buildings that contrived to look a lot more at ease in the present age, each dressed in the comparatively cheery colors that the Germans landlords seem less averse to than their American counterparts.
Across from it was a field being used to grow something or another, an another part overgrown with grass and shrubs from which the sound of animals crying out in the mid-afternoon light could be heard.
The question was whether or not I’d manage with my questionable Deutsch, it didn’t seem likely that I could be guaranteed a waiter who would use English with me.
“Hallo, was möchten Sie trinken?” My fears were confirmed, I would have to be an obviously ignorant person here.
“Uh, ich mag… ein bier?”
“Ah, Let me guess, Englisch?”
“Ja”
“Perfekt. What would you like?”
“A menu please,”
“Of course,” She hands me a menu with a friendly smile and goes away to give me time to think over my choices. Just as I opened the menu, my phone started to buzz, my stomach dropped, it was going to be another one of those nights wasn’t it?
Your Conversation with John Bossman
| I need you to look over this spreadsheet for me and make sure the numbers are right | |
| Sure thing. I can get that to you in a few hours. | |
| I need it in the next 30 minutes | |
| Okay |
I slammed my phone down on the table exasperated, this had been going on all day long and it was starting to make me feel like I was going insane. Maybe the work environment really was wearing me down.
The waitress comes over and checks on me, and I give her a sheepish look.
“Sorry, work is being unreasonable, I shouldn’t take it out on your table like that.”
She shrugs and an implacable smile crosses her face, and it occurs to me that she’s very pretty, with auburn hair and amber eyes, “Don’t worry about it, I know what it’s like. I used to have a way more stressful job than this.”
“I need another minute for food, but I could use the strongest drink you have.”
“I have a different suggestion for you, since I don’t think you’ll like the 80% liquor. I’d suggest our house Obstwein, it’s a bit unusual but it’s strong enough and I swear by it for hard days.”
I look at her a moment, “You swear on it?”
She takes her turn being sheepish, “It’s usually not too bad the next day, is what I mean. It’s made with strawberries, local apples, and some spices.”
“Sure, I’ll take a bottle of that then.”
“I’m Almyra, by the way”
“I’m James. Uh, thanks for being understanding”
“Don’t worry about it” She said that like she expected to get something of similar magnitude out of me, and I struggled to imagine what that would be.
I start working on the spreadsheet in the meantime, having already decided on the Schnitzel mit Gemüse. After ten minutes the waitress isn’t back yet and I’m starting to feel frustrated at the incompetence of the man I’m working for. For an engineer he’s terrible at putting the numbers in, it’ll take much longer than 30 minutes to fix this.
Your Conversation with John Bossman
| I’m not sure I can get this to you in the timeframe you requested. | |
| I’m not sure that your position is working out. | |
| Hey, that’s not necessary, there’s just a lot of problems and I’m working on my phone right now. | |
| Don’t worry about your current task and our customer in the area. Your colleague will handle it. But you should start seeking other employment. |
My boss had always been a bit mercurial, but this was beyond the pale. This was absurd, the union would probably be upset with John Bossman at this rate, but still, my termination would probably hold up just fine and I’d be out a job in a few weeks. Maybe the correct thing to draw was that it was not just him being a jackass, he also didn’t like me.
I place the phone down and stare forwards, my eyes unfocus. I can process this just fine, by letting the phantasms of regret and inadequacy assault me: What if I had said something else? How are you going to stay in the country? How are you a real fucking human, failing like this? Worthless as judged.
Almyra touches me on the shoulder, “Are you okay?”
“Well, I just got fired, uh, can I get the schnitzel mit Gemüse?”
“Of course” She looks at me like prey, pity dripping from her voice, “Would you like company for the night?” My expression invites further elaboration, “I mean, as someone to talk to?”
“Sure… Is that okay for you to do?” I say, my stomach growls.
She growls, almost, “I am part owner of this place, I’ll take my time as I need it. Besides we’ve got more waiters here than usual on a slow night. I’ll put in your order and then join you.”
I take a sip of the wine, it’s… strange, strawberry and apple and… thyme? It tingles almost, it’s like glass beads bouncing along, and beneath that the merest hint of metallicity, iron. Complex and strange, it was a struggle to imagine how it has persisted for 250 Jahre, according to the label.
She came back, her smile becoming more friendly after her eyes dart to the glasses. “What do you think of the wine?”
“Bit strange”
“Yeah, it’s an acquired taste for sure, but our blood’s in there you know.”
“I can tell. It’s definitely had a lot of… character put into it.”
Surprisingly, the evening passes pleasantly, her awkwardness evaporating as we share stories from our lives. The sunlight outside fades and the room is lit only by old wrought iron fixtures filled with incandescents.
I look at her, both of her, I guess that she wasn’t joking about it being very strong, “I should really be getting going”
“Let me take you to my place, my guest room is more comfortable than the bed in your room.”
“Really? I don’t know that’s a good idea.”
She smiles, “Why? You know I kinda like you.”
“Why? All you’ve seen of me is how I am when I’m drunk and vulnerable.”
“What’s more interesting than a vulnerable young man with an engineering degree?” She coughs conspicuously, but still smiles at me, “Actually don’t answer that.”
“Fine fine, I’ll take you upon that offer.”
There was satisfied grin on her face again, a fixation on me that made me feel like I was being watched by every single bit of her brain, all in the service of making me do what she wanted me to. To be observed by a woman in this manner was something that was new to me, and it was as fearful as it is exciting. Sure, it might be a terrible day in my life, but this was something I had not expected, I might even get up to something with this very pretty woman, even if it was a terrible to get involved under this sort of influence.
She leads me outside wearing a raincoat, watching me carefully as though she’s afraid that I’ll lose track of her. The wind has picked up and clouds obscure the sky, growing increasingly dark and tempestuous as we turn the corner. Rain starts to fall, she isn’t bothered by it, but it starts to seep through my clothing almost immediately as it grows in intensity. We turn another two corners, she’s the definition of unperturbed, and in spite of the rosy glow of alcohol, it was hard to get past the way I was drenched, the way my clothing squelches with each movement made me feel like I was going to be ill. She finally turns into an apartment building, but when I look to the left I see the inn I had just come from. It didn’t matter, I needed to get out of the rain.
Her apartment is quaint, old decorations and well built furniture, it must’ve been handed down to her. She acts surprised that I’m as wet as I am, dripping onto the faux wood flooring, “We’ve gotta get you out of those clothes.” She points at a door and says “That’s where you’ll be sleeping, there should be a towel in there, I’ll toss your clothes in the dryer.”
At this point, my head is spinning, I’m freezing cold, wasted, and stone tired, I don’t care that she lead me on a circuit for no reason, “S-sure.”
She smiles at me, watching as as I close the door behind me.
The weather always seems to be like this when I acquire another potentiate, another creature that has caught my attention and imbibed our ichor. The way the ichor spreads from their stomachs into their veins, singeing them with invisible luminosity incites the sky into displays of wrathful impotence, or maybe it’s merely that they always come in late spring when such weather develops quickly to its fullest extent.
When the starvation stones last rose from the river, I attempted to call the rains in a last ditch attempt to avoid a disaster, but it remained bone dry.
Much like the candidates I most often choose, given the more recent lack of the other clades that once inhabited this land; I am given to reading too far into the actions of the skies and weather in relation to my own actions.
But like each sister, when I see their former shells wet and sopping, pitiful and drunk, all by my own designs, it makes my loins stir with the certainty of the success I anticipate, and the actions that I customarily take in celebration of the inductions.
Even now, as she sleeps uneasily in the alcohol haze, dry, but mercilessly cold, I can smell the change in her scent. Those oils that anoint fur rather than skin, the pheromones that signal readiness and emotion to anyone of our kind rather than the muddled soup that our perceptions grant us of our pray. The uneasy turning of her body beneath her sheets, even as she has yet to perceive her own changes, kept low by the ichor and the wine. The moments pass slowly for me, there’s that critical change that I must detect before I take my next action, that slightly tangy scent that marks the intrusion of new tissue, the extrusion of tail, and the scent of readiness for events beyond her own sense of anticipation.
My head spins as I wake in the darkness of the room, the curtains drawn. I can hear quiet breathing and smell something earthly and musky right in front of my nose, I can’t tell what it is about it but it makes me salivate. My eyes open wider, the dark room becomes a more tolerable level of dimness, and I see it, attached to what might be the woman I met at the bar… No, she doesn’t have fur, and… Well, I can guess at the nature of that kind of protrusion, a throbbing spire, even if the overall shape is not the one I’m most familiar with. There’s that dreaminess that I’ve experienced before where the waking world and the dream mix together to form something decidedly more affective than otherwise, dreams of falling off of the bed where the floor telescopes away or where there are things in the darkness sneering and laughing silently, clearly moving, but bereft of the other signatures of existence. The phantasm crouches over me, pinning me to the bed, my chest sore beneath their bulk.
I bask in the situation before I see the teeth glint in her maw, long canines that were meant to tear and trap, and they were put to use just to speak to me, „Du hast heute viele Entscheidungen getroffen.” she looks down, her eyes in a line with mine, luminous in the darkness as I suspect that mine must be, what did I do? „Wenn ich ein rücksichtsvolles Tier wäre, würde ich mich fragen, was du über diese Entscheidungen denkst, aber ich ein selbstsüchtiges Wesen bin. Ich frage mich stattdessen, ob du die richtige Entscheidung erraten kannst.”
The german is mostly beyond my understanding, but I have a guess at what this figure wants from me. I lick it, it tastes like it smells, but as I lick it, the smell blossoms into a dizzying array of wider more specific scents flowing from an organ I am sure that I did not have before, and she moans, “Mach weiter, bitte.”
Easy enough, I take it further, licking along the length and pulling it into my mouth. I sputter when it goes too far, coughing against it as it probes the back of my throat. She pulls out, “Mmm, das ist nicht so schlecht, mein neuer Schatz. Jetzt wir jenseits der harter Parte sein, möchtest du der lustvoller Parte umzeihen?”
„Warum sprichst du kein Englisch, Almyra?“
„Es ist schwierig zu denken, geschweige denn spreche andere Sprache“ She rubs the top of my head, cupping my ears with clawed digits, „Also sei ein nett Mädchen, und lass ich dich lieben“
Es ist schwierig für mich, klar zu denken, wenn die Lust so stark ist, dass ich abgelenkt bin. Ich lege meine Hüften an ihre und stoße langsam in sie hinein. Ihre Stimme erhebt von einem weichen Gewisper zu einem Schrei. Wenn ich meinen Nachbarn keine Angst einflöße, würden sie mich hassen. Aber das ist der Vorteil der großer Kraft als sterblicher Mann.
Ich falle an ihre ein während keuchend, ich bin total abhanden, mein Körper entleert sich in sie.
She touches me in places I did not know existed, dragging her surfaces along crevices whose existence can surely be attributed to my interactions with her, where my new fur mercifully hasn’t spread, below an organ unused out of disinterest in its function and the fear of failure in the interpersonal connections such things require. My heart is full and beating fast as she pants against me. And I scramble to pull together my thoughts well enough to compress into my meagre vocabulary, „Was jetzt?”
„Geb es eine Pause, warum willst du in Eile? Dein neue leben kann noch ein bisschen warten“ She nuzzles against me, and as the wakefulness seeps into me and the afterglow recedes, I realize something startling, that this is entirely real. That I have been transfigured.
„Können wir jetzt Englisch sprechen?“ I ask, it’s hard trying to interpose a barely used language into such important discussions.
„Ich möchte lieber nicht. Du musst üben, schließlich du kannst den Staat nicht verlassen. Jedenfalls vorerst nicht“
In spite of the frustrating communication I was receiving, I did manage to get into an uneasy sleep for a few hours.
The sun showed through thin curtains and my head aches, I shield my eyes and see it through the fur between my… fingers is what I must call them. The sheet thumps behind me forcefully and I feel the shock echo up my spine. Another piece of evidence that there was nothing at all illusory about last night; much that I would prefer that there was.
I rub my muzzle and sit upright and for my effort the room spins until the blood rushes back in. I shouldn’t drink like I used to. Not new information, but an annoying reminder in this moment. I hear motion in the other room, the sound of claws clacking against the wooden floor, and inhaling I can smell the scent of some sort of breakfast.
I stand up, I think I’m a little taller, but when I look down at my feet, they are just articulated differently, I guess I’m a toe walker now. I step into the other room, and she smiles at me with a warmth that was wholly absent the last night.
„Guten Morgan, meine Freundin.“ Her effort was placed in laying out cold cuts and rolls. I’m too much of an American for that to sound like breakfast, but I’m in too many entirely new states to feel like it’s an issue I can make. Not that it would be reasonable in the first place I suppose.
I’m torn between being a disobedient shit and just insisting on english, but honestly, that was never my strong suit. Pleasing others was always a core part of what my deal was, even if, I suppose, I was not benefiting as I should have been, and today I don’t think I can muster that resistance.
„Morgan“ I say, I yawn, and slink into a seat at a table.
„Die erste Nacht ist immer die schlimmste. Wie nimmt du es?“ She says, placing a plate full of cold cuts and rolls in front of me.
„Ich habe schlechter gesein“ I say.
„Du möchtest wahrscheinlich sagen: ‚Mir ging es schlechter‘, aber ich muss dir einen Englisch-Deutsch Wörterbuch kaufen. Es ist sehr hilfreich zum Lernen“
„Warum bin ich—“ Ich muss kurz darüber nachdenken „über dies ruhig?“
„Irgendetwas über unser Blut. Dein Körper ist gesunder als vorher, und mit so wenig Problem, er kann sich nicht aufregend.“ Sie deutet auf das Essen, „Iss bitte. Etwas neues zu werden, kostet viel Kraft. Sei vorsichtige mit dein Zunge; Das Beißen tut weh, und dein Mund hat eine neue Form“
Ich nicke, es hat Sinn. Ich reiße die Brotchen in zwei Teile und belege eine Hälfte mit dem Aufschnitt. Dann decke ich sie mit der anderen Hälfte ab. Das ist eine langatmige Art zu sagen dass ich ein Sandwich gemacht habe, aber wie man sonst üben kann? Sie lächelt mich an, und findet mich lustig. Vielleicht sie findet des Produkt von ihres Erfolg schön. Sie behält ihren Wunsch für sich.
Alles in allem, es war ein gutes Frühstück, außer einem Brötchen statt Brot zu verwenden; die Süße war ein bisschen zu viel mit der Salzigkeit und der leichte Schärfe von des Aufschnitt. Ich kann den Zimt schmecken wann ich mich meine Lefzen lecke.
Nachdem eine weile sie fragt „Also, Willst du machen?“
Ich fauche, „Was kann ich machen?“ Ich erhebe meine Stimme „Ich kann das Staat nicht verlassen, ich habe keinen Ausweis. Ich habe keinen Job. Was soll ich tun?“
Ihre Ohren liegen flach an ihrem Kopf an, „Diese Dinge sind klein. Die Welt werde stehen Ihnen offen, nur nicht jetzt.“
„Wie soll ich in der Welt der Menschen sein, wenn ich so aussehe?“
Ihre Hand wechselt ihre Gestalt, die Behaarung geht weg mit der klauen folgen gleich „keine Sorge. Alles wird mit der Zeit kommen.“
„Ob ich hier bliebe bis ich das tun kann, dann verliebe ich mich vielleicht in dich“
„Ist das so schlecht?“ Sie geht mich an, „Ich verstehe deinen Körper,“ Sie erhebt ihre Hände und legt Sie an meinen Kopf, „Meine Stimme ist sanft, mein Kontakt is weich, mein Mund ist lecker. Alles das, und ich kann dir einen neuen Ausweis holen.“ Ihr Fingers erreichen meine Ohren. Ihr Klauen kratzen entlang der Muskeln auf meinem Kopf.
Getreu ihrem Wort, Ich zittere bei ihrem Kontakt. Sie grinste vor mich hin und nimmt meine Brust.
Sie drückt meine Brustwarze zwischen ihre klauen, sie zieht Schrei von mir an. Sie schiebt mich auf des Sofa, „Ich frage mich, ob du so devot bist dass ich alles von dir ausziehen kann, was ich will.“
Sie klettert auf mich und nagt mein Ohr.
Ich verkrampfe mich, also sie kichert in mein Ohr, „Du hast nicht an Ihr Geschlecht gedacht. Oder vielleicht hast du, aber sagst nichts.“
„Was soll ich denken? Ich werde immer noch nicht haben, was du genommen haben.“ Ich blieb plötzlich stehen, von Furcht ergriffen.
Sie lächelt mich an, „vermisst du es nicht?“
Ich nickte einmal, „Ich denke nicht. Ich mag den Art, wie meine Brust beim Gehen hüpfen“
„Du sollst ‚mir gefällt‘ sagen stattdessen von ‚ich mag den art‘“
Das macht mir verarget „Sei ruhig. Du bist nicht hilfreich“
Sie presst ihre mund auf mein and beruhigt mich.
