Vincent felt ready to collapse the moment he stepped foot inside. He hadn't read anything online or in pamphlets about whatever this building was—some ruins, a temple maybe—but he was too damn tired to worry about it.

He cursed himself for not listening, as he usually did, to that overcautious voice of doubt that frequently sat at the front of his mind. But he was doing it, wasn't he? Nearly two days into his climb, he was approaching his goal at the summit of Tiresia Mountain. So what if it was unusual of him, if his sudden determination and burst of preparation had been uncharacteristically brave, even brash of him? So what if that not-so-little voice had joined a few of his friends in trying to talk him down even after he was ready?

Vincent might not be a climber yet, but he could be if he wanted, that's what he'd decided before coming here. And with the top nearly in sight and shelter for the night finally in his grasp, Vincent felt more sure than ever that for once in his life, he would finish something he was doing for nobody but himself.

The icy wind blew behind him, whistling dramatically in the big, stone doorway Vincent had just stepped through. Hoping to put more space between himself and the cold, Vincent walked further in. He passed some crumbled statues of naked women which may once have been ornate, real Renaissance shit—or Greek, maybe, Vincent wasn't a historian—whatever this place was, it must have been important. As the fading daylight behind him grew further away, Vincent futzed with the lantern he'd brought, breathing a sigh of relief as its bright flame and accompanying warmth sprang to life.

Vincent made his way through several hallways and rooms, decorated with similar former-splendor: tapestries too faded for tired Vincent to make any sense of, beautiful stone archways coated in untold years of dust, and varyingly ruined statues of delicately posed naked women (each different than the last), all curves and soft edges. Vincent marveled that something as cruel and hard as marble, or whatever stone these statues were carved from, could be shaped into something as soft and perfect as a woman's bosom.

Eventually, Vincent found himself in a small room jutting out from one such hallway, with a stone table flanked by two stone benches—a dining area, maybe, strange as it was to imagine people dining here. The room was guarded by one untarnished statue and her perfect pair of breasts. Realizing he was much wearier than he thought, he laid down in the corner with his head on his bag before extinguishing the flame from his lantern and letting sleep take him.

-----

Vincent's dreams were fretful and feverish. He drifted in and out of sleep, with one dream melting into the next, never awake enough to clear the drowsiness blanketing him and never asleep enough to fully forget.

He dreamt he was running from something, something big. He couldn't remember why he was supposed to be running, or what it was that he was running from, but his heart raced and filled him with anxiety. So he ran away, faster than he ever could in real life, scrambling over obstacles like a feral animal to escape his mystery pursuer. But whoever or whatever it was, they caught him in the end, just like they always did.

He dreamt his first girlfriend was dumping him again, back in college. He had no pants on, and people at nearby tables were whispering about it, but he was glued to the seat as Christine explained that Vincent just wasn't who she was looking for, she was looking for someone a bit manlier. Not that there was anything wrong with how he was! Just that, well..

He dreamt he was slowly transforming into a monster, all claws and gristle and hair where it shouldn't be, but nobody around him seemed to notice. His mom smiled as he blew out the candles on his cake. The fork clattered out of his clumsy, misshapen hands when he tried to eat a slice.

He dreamt he was in the bathroom at night, lit only by the faint moonlight streaming through the window because he was too stubborn to turn the lights on for fear of cleansing his drowsiness too much to fall back asleep. He washed his hands in the dark, eyes fixed unwaveringly to his hands, too afraid to look at the mirror. Frustrated with his own childishness, he forced himself to look up, and he screamed but made no sound.

Vincent dreamt a beautiful woman smiled down at him as he laid with his head in her lap, her hair longer and more perfect than his had been when he grew it out in college. She, like so many of the crushes he'd had in real life, looked a little bit like him. Like him, if he had a gentle, easy demeanor instead of being a nervous wreck. Like him, if he was a pretty girl instead of a sad looking dude who could barely dress himself, much less climb a mountain. She didn't seem to mind though, she just smiled down at him like she knew something he didn't, and ran a hand through his hair, and whispered something he couldn't quite make out, and Vincent felt peaceful.

He dreamt (or was it the same dream?) that his could-be doppelganger was fucking him. He had his legs in the air as she gently guided her strap (or was it her cock?) in and out of his wetness, rhythmically and deliberately bringing him closer and closer to the peak of what he felt certain would be the best orgasm of his life, as she told him how good he was being. He felt soft and cute and good, just like she was saying, and wished this would go on forever.

He dreamt, and he thought distantly how strange it was he was dreaming of the same person for a third time, that he was face to face with her, seeing perfectly eye to eye in a way he'd never quite get used to. She reached forward and cupped his cheeks in her hand, and they suddenly felt very hot and he couldn't meet her eyes as she smiled at him. Then she reached up and touched a finger to his forehead. "Sleep for me," she said, snapping her fingers, "sleep, sleep, sleep." The rush of pleasure that washed over him as he sunk into her arms was euphoric.

-----

Vincent woke as restless dreamers often do, dream and reality mixing and swirling together until at last the cold stone floor beneath him resolved itself clearly, in sharp relief, lifting the fog somewhat.

The next things he noticed, after the cold floor beneath him and the accompanying ache, were the flush in his cheeks and the tightness in his pants. He felt his cheeks get even redder as he recalled a few details from the dreams he'd just had. He wondered how long he'd even been out for; it couldn't have been that long, but it felt like forever, owing to all the new and quickly fading half-memories. Groggily, Vincent relit his lantern before picking his bags up, resolving to explore a little more and find a better place to settle down properly for the night. If he was smart, he might even remember to use his damn sleeping roll, next time.

As Vincent explored, his mind kept wandering back to his dreams. Fuzzy and fading as they were, he remembered more about them than he almost ever did. He wondered what they meant and why they all felt so familiar and who that woman was and why he was so, damn, horny. And as he wondered, he wandered, down corridors and around bends and through great rooms whose purposes were lost to time, all decorated with that same long-lost splendor. Drowsiness crept back up on him as he meandered, but his dim arousal never quite faded as memories of his dreams continued to swim through his mind.

Just as Vincent grew convinced he'd had enough, but before he could unfurl the sleeping bag on his back, he found a particularly interesting room. It wasn't especially large, and there were no statues, but the walls were adorned with carvings that had stood the test of time: more naked women, who seemed like they might have been dancing, under what might have been the sun but Vincent felt sure was the moon. At the far end of the room stood a large, rectangular... a large rectangle, longer than it was tall and not protruding very far from the wall at all. Whatever the rectangle actually was was hidden from him by large curtains of faded red that still felt perfectly soft to Vincent's touch, regardless of age.

With a minor effort, Vincent carefully pulled the curtains aside to reveal a mirror. Shiny metallic frame matching the carvings on the walls, nude women stretching languidly around its borders, the mirror stood grand and imposing and protected from time by its dusty textile prison. From within, a phantom Vincent stared back at him, holding a lantern just like his own.

Vincent had never liked mirrors. Scary stories and movie monsters with boogeymen who came out of the mirrors always got him the worst. He was never particularly superstitious, but he never liked looking at mirrors even in well-lit rooms in the middle of the day, much less in the dark or at night. Even as he actively denied believing in the tale, he could never bring himself to say "Bloody Mary" anywhere near one. His mind drifted to his dream earlier as he looked at his counterpart warily.

And then his reflection did something reflections seldom do without permission, it held one arm up high above its head and, without Vincent prompting it to, snapped its fingers together. The sconces on the walls came to life, dancing mischievously with violet flames. And, as quickly as the snap or the lights, the figure in the mirror changed. One moment Vincent was looking his exact double in the mirror—tired, scraggly, with a forty-six o'clock shadow, strong but not muscular, and possessed of a metaphysical meekness that went deeper than his facial expression—and the next, he faced the woman from his dreams.

If you had quizzed him just a minute beforehand, he could not have recalled the details of her face to you, but looking at it now, there wasn't any doubt in his mind that whoever the woman standing on the other side of the mirror was, she had been in his dreams just earlier. She looked a lot like him; she was the same height she had just moments ago when she was his reflection, her hair still that perfectly manicured version of the hair he had once grown long before a need for "professionalism" got him to cut it again, and he could see now that she had a mole (beauty mark?) just under her eye in the same place as he had. At the same time, she looked nothing like him. Her skin was smooth and soft and perfect, she wore a beautiful purple and silver dress with so many layers and bits of translucent cloth flaring every which way, she carried herself with a smug confidence Vincent had never known in himself, and she had boobs. That twisted familiarity launched sparks down his spine, and she did something else that reflections rarely do, and stepped out of the fucking mirror.

Vincent heard someone scream. Which he figured must have been him, because he remembered his not-reflection sounding a little more feminine in his dreams, and he felt it in his bones that the lady he looked at now was one and the same.

She confirmed his suspicion by speaking in a voice that was smooth and rich and deep, and unmistakably feminine, "Oh calm down, would you? I swear, you add just a little bit of flare to your entrance these days and everyone's in hysterics."

"W-who are you? What do you want with me?" came his reply, still startled and more than a little unsettled, but disarmed somewhat by her easy demeanor.

"Are you really going to make me answer that, V? I thought you were a bit sharper than that." She called him V as casually as if she had known him for years, but nobody had ever called him that in his life.

Vincent thought about running. Or screaming some more. But he had a feeling that the person he faced was not someone he could run from. And he had a feeling that if he screamed, there would be no sound. So instead he stood there, stunned.

"Come on now honey, don't make me quote 'Matrix' at you."

Vincent blinked.

She began, "What you know, you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is–"

"–but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad," he finished.

"I'm the splinter, V."

Vincent blinked some more, mind reeling.

"I'm a part of you, V. I'm a very important part of yourself that you've been running from for a long long time. I'm not going to tell you which part because you're smart enough to say it yourself, it's looking you right in the face."

"You're a woman," he managed.

"Yes." She gestured, motioning for him to continue.

"You're..." he took a deep breath, "you're my gender, aren't you."

"Bingo," she said, snapping her finger and making a finger gun at him. He laughed at the absurdity of it, the ridiculousness of the situation and the lameness of her gesture, and he laughed some more when he realized he still found her attractive—magnetic, even. Even as she made a goddamn finger gun at him, she did so with such an easy confidence that he couldn't help but go along with it. He thought for a moment about whether it was weird or, indeed, how weird it was that he still thought she was more than a little bit fucking hot.

And V realized they were stalling. They thought about what it meant, if that guess was right.

Their mind raced.

They felt.

I felt.

I felt, just, so utterly overwhelmed, but at the same time, it all made sense. Or it was starting to. I had the feeling that there'd be a lot more introspection to come, but it was a little hard to ignore an answer who stepped out of a goddamn magical mirror in some kind of weird, undocumented temple in the mountains to beat some sense into me. After shock, the immediate feeling was of puzzle pieces falling into place, one after the other—a cascade of questions I hadn't known I'd been asking, questions that all suddenly had answers.

She watched me patiently as I began putting the pieces together and my mind raced.

I'd always thought I'd be the kind to panic in this kind of surreal situation. I guess I kind of did. But I thought I'd be the kind to run and hide in a corner while muttering to myself that it wasn't real and couldn't be real and I'd wake up any second now. But I guess I'd been in denial for a long, long time already.

The weird temple. The weird dreams the temple probably magically gave me somehow. The big, creepy mirror. My fucking villainous doppelganger made manifest to fucking kidnap me and take me away or whatever. It should have been too much. Fuck, maybe it was. Maybe I was losing my goddamn mind and this was what it looked like.

And I laughed. I laughed because this situation was objectively like, at least three different kinds of fucked up and scary but all I could do was stand there with a dopey grin because I was so overwhelmed with relief and anticipation and anxiety and joy because I wanted to be a girl? Or I was one? And that was funny. So I laughed. I laughed harder than I had in years, it felt like.

When I could finally breathe again, the woman from the mirror regarded me.

"Thanks," I told her. It felt like I should have said so much more, but at the same time it felt like nothing would be enough. So 'thanks' was all I said. I hoped she knew, though. She probably had some idea, right? She was me. Or part of me. Or who I wanted to be, maybe.

"I'm glad you didn't make that more difficult than it had to be," she said.

And my laughter threatened to get out of control again, but I kept it to a good hearty chuckle. "I don't know how much more difficult it gets than, 'person goes on a spiritual journey filled with symbolism and metaphor before confronting the physical embodiment of her—I guess I'm her now?—gender, who forces her to face reality in a big moment of truth,' but I guess it would have been pretty embarrassing if I came away from this without learning anything."

"Well you've spent a long time looking the other way. I'm glad you finally stopped."

"I'm glad too," I said, and felt myself smiling widely. "I have a feeling there's a lot more questions and details and things to sort out later that you're not gonna have the answers to," I continued, thinking out loud, "but I have a feeling they're gonna fall into place as long as I keep asking the right questions."

She smiled back at me with a look that must have been pride, and I recognized the tilt of her mouth and the crease by her eyes as my own. I hoped hormones and whatever else transitioning (the word felt weird to even think about myself) involved could endow me with a fraction of her beauty. As I looked at her now, though, she was undoubtedly me in a way that I had seen before but did not understand, and I felt like there must be some hope.

"Now then," she said, taking a step closer, "I believe there's the question of whether you want to do something horny and more than a little weird that most people will never have the chance to."

"You don't mean..." I trailed off.

"Oh come now, how many magical soul adventures is a girl like you gonna have in her lifetime? Aren't you a little curious?" The casual–the casual gendering caught me off guard, sneaking up on me like a delightful new flavor I'd never tasted before. It took me a second to realize I liked it, and another to realize how much I did.

And then there was the question of, uh. Of her question. Which, gosh.

"We don't have to do anything if you don't want to. You can be on your way and finish your night of rest. You can find a better exit, finish climbing this mountain, go home, and kiss some girls who aren't also kind of you."

I felt my cheeks burning up as she took another step closer.

"Or," she drawled, stretching the word out with emphasis, "you can worry about that stuff later, and do something fun you won't ever forget and probably can't ever tell anyone about."

I looked at the ground, suddenly feeling much shorter than my doppelganger. I felt the words tangling in my throat as I thought about the 'fun' she was talking about having with me.

I felt her gaze on top of my head as she continued, "Nod your head for yes, shake your head or do nothing for no."

And I nodded. Of course I nodded! My cheeks were burning up and I was as nervous as my very first time and I had no idea what it would even be like, but she was right. It wouldn't be a loss if I didn't—one way or another I was going home with something a lot more important than sex—but I don't know if I'd ever forgive myself for passing up the chance to sleep with the sexy, confident, enthusiastic gender-ghost of my literal dreams. I wanted this, so I nodded my head.

And she took another step closer. And I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. And suddenly her finger was under my chin and it took all of my focus not to squeak. She lifted gently, but firmly, and it felt good to do what she wanted.

The eye-contact was electrifying and intense and gosh her eyes, my eyes, looked great the way her makeup was done.

"Good girl," she said. And holy shit. If her casually calling me 'girl' and 'her' earlier were amazing and euphoric, this was exhilarating and electric and just so much. If she wasn't still holding my chin, I felt certain I would have collapsed into a squeaky puddle on the floor. Seeing my reaction, she smirked and said, "I was going to ask if that was okay for you, but I think I have my answer~"

She took her hand from my chin and ran it through my soft, medium-length (or, I guess, very short actually) hair and gosh. Gosh gosh gosh it was something else to be with someone who seemed to have, rightfully perhaps, an instinctive sense what I wanted and what I liked. She grabbed my hand and led me forward, and I guess my night was just too wild for it to even faze me when we stepped into the fucking mirror where she came from.

My brief confusion about why she wanted to be on this side of weird, magic mirror was immediately dispelled when she snapped her fingers and a huge, lush bed appeared just like that. Covered in plush, deep-violet sheets and draped in a translucent, silky canopy, the bed looked drastically cozier than any of the cold, dusty stone.

And she fucking giggled! She giggled, dragging me behind her before she kicked her shoes off and launched herself onto the magically conjured bed, tumbling gracefully before facing me and beckoning me to join her.

I joined her after carefully removing my boots and the woolen socks beneath them, climbing into bed gingerly to face her. And I immediately sank further into the sheets than I expected, losing my balance as I did and landing face down in her lap. This bed would kill my back in about two nights of rest, but god did it feel comfy right now, even without accounting for the soft thighs I'd just planted my face into.

"So!" she said, brightly, "Now comes the question of what exactly we want to get up to~ Based on the kind of smut I know you read and the way you reacted a minute ago when I called you a good girl, I think I've got a few ideas."

I thought about trying to deny it, but decided I probably couldn't convince someone made out of my own brain parts whose lap my head was currently in that she wasn't exactly right.

She ran a hand idly through my hair as she continued, "Does that sound palatable to my good girl? For me to take the lead tonight?"

I mumbled appreciatively before turning my head enough to say, "Yeah, yeah I think that sounds great, actually."

"Aww," she replied, "I thought it might~ I know you're not one for taking charge right now. Although I have it on good authority that you might find that changing if you look in the right places, that's a problem for future you. Tonight, you can worry about just being mine, alright?"

I nodded meekly, enjoying the sensation of her fingers running across my scalp.

"Good girl," she cooed softly, much closer to my ear. One of her hands wandered down the back of my head, fingertip gently tracing its way down towards my neck. When it got there, I felt my back arch and my breath quicken, it was an effort not to moan. Which was. Surprising? It felt feminine of me, and it felt good being driven to such breathlessness as her fingers danced along my neck, and it was so so delightfully different than any time I'd been with a girl before.

There wasn't any urgency as her fingers continued exploring my neck and down my back. She didn't seem to be in a hurry to get anywhere in particular, and she cooed softly every time she found a particularly sensitive spot that elicited a tiny moan from me. I felt relaxed and safe and peacefully, blisfully horny, and I thought to myself how this reminded me a little of trance.

Eventually, she turned me to face her before leaning down to plant a kiss on my cheek, and then a bigger one on my lips. The warm, wet sensation of her lips against mine was brief, but wonderfully pleasant, and it promised more.

"Hey this is really nice," I surprised myself by saying, "It's... really different, but I think I like it."

"I'm glad, sweetness. You've got a lot of catchup to play when it comes to being gay, but I have a feeling you're gonna do great."

I sighed happily and leaned into her, and she responded by smiling and scratching my head some more.

After what could have been one minute or six, she said, "Hey V?"

"Yeah?"

She leaned closer and lowered her voice, asking "Do you want to try some hypnosis? I know what kind of files you listen to when you have time alone, y'know, and this is probably your only chance to do anything in that direction with someone who has with reality-bending magic powers to cheat with."

"No hiding anything from you, huh?"

"Nope! And you seem to quite like it that way, if we're being honest~ So whaddya say?"

"Yes." I didn't even think before answering, it wasn't much of a question. "That sounds amazing, I can't think of anyone better to do my first actual hypno-play with than the sexy, magical embodiment of my gender, personally."

She smiled the way I'd sometimes caught myself smiling when I try not to laugh, and said, "That's just what I wanted to hear. Now then, I've got an idea how I wanna handle the induction if that's alright with you. Before we get started, is it cool if I install a bit of a pleasure trigger, then bring you up so we can play with it a little? Does that sound good?"

It did. It really did, in fact, and I felt the same sense of salivatory anticipation when I found a file online or a piece of smut whose description made it seem right up my alley. I nodded enthusiastically.

"Alright then, what I'm gonna have to do is sit with your back to me. You can cross your legs if you like or keep them straight, whatever is comfortable."

I did as she said, and she continued, voice dropping into a relaxing half-whisper, "Then what I want is for you to breathe slowly and deeply, in through your nose and out through your mouth, just like you're used to doing when a pretty woman tells you to."

-----

Consciousness returned to me with a snap of her fingers as she said, "Up up up, wide awake and fully alert for me now."

I felt like I often did after hypnosis, the gentle haze of trance lifting slowly from my mind like fog clearing in the late morning, leaving simple relaxation and bliss in its wake. I couldn't recall when I'd gone far enough under to stop remembering, but I remembered the tender, almost-ticklish touch of her fingers exploring my neck, and her lovely honey-smooth voice continuing to whisper in my ear as she lulled me into trance.

"Thank you so much, I uh, feel amazing."

"I'm glad! I'm as confident about performing hypnosis as you are, which is to say, not very. But! The rules here work a little different, so I think you'll be quite pleased with the result." She flashed me a wide, wolfish smile and gave me a little wink, "If it still sounds good to you, we can make you feel even better in a second~"

"Oh, gosh, uh, yeah?" It surprised myself with how my same shy stammering felt girlish, suddenly, and right in a way it never had now that I felt like I had permission.

"Hmm~ I'm curious, V, what do you think the trigger is? Do you remember? I didn't even ask you to forget, but you're so good at not remembering for me."

"W-wait isn't that a bit of an unfair question? It could be anything! There's no chance I'll get it right unless it's something cliché like snapping."

"Hey what's wrong with snapping? You love snapping! You adore when a beautiful woman snaps her fingers and it sends a shiver down your spine and you feel your pants get tight just because she wanted you to!" Just as I opened my mouth to reply, she clicked her fingers, letting out a sharp snap. She giggled when I squeaked. "It wasn't that, though, by the way. If you felt anything just now it's only because you're such a good girl."

I stared hard at her knee, avoiding her eyes as my cheeks burned and I replied, "Okay, you got me, so what is it?"

She made a cute, contemplative sound and said, drawing out he first syllable dramatically, "I think it'll be more fun if we just do a little demonstration, don't you? Would you give me a kiss, darling?"

I forced myself to look up at her eyes before leaning in quickly to peck her on the cheek, enjoying how soft and smooth her skin felt on my lips. She smiled and said, "On the lips, sweetie, I know I'm intimidating or whatever, but I believe in you~"

So I leaned in to kiss her, tilting my head slightly so my lips could meet hers, and a wave of red-hot pleasure spread out from the kiss, warmth and wetness and pressure from her lips blossoming into heat and lust and passion which expanded to envelop me. I heard myself moan into the kiss, and she made a pleased little sound in response that would have made me blush if I wasn't currently flooded with pleasure.

She said, "I think she likes it!"

I nodded rapidly, "Holy shit, yeah."

"Y'know, it works if I kiss you other places, too. My lips are just like that for you now~ I didn't even bother making an off-switch for it, since it's not like I'm gonna be around once you leave this place." By way of demonstration, she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek and I couldn't suppress my moan as that same pleasure exploded outwards from her tiny little peck. "You make cute noises, by the way, you obviously haven't done any kind of voice work yet but you're already adorably feminine."

Averting my eyes didn't feel like enough for that. I collapsed dramatically, falling onto my side before turning to bury my face in the silken sheets. I felt my legs kick up and down behind me as I did.

"Good girl, V! Good girl for responding so adorably, to the trigger and my compliments, too~"

Head still buried in the bed, I felt her weight shift next to me, and then I felt her finger on the small of my back, which I instinctively arched away from her as it traced its way up towards my neck. God, my back and neck are so sensitive, how the fuck has it taken 'til now for me to learn this?

I felt her weight shift again behind me, and then the warmth of her lips again, against the back of my neck. I was ready for it this time, but it was still just an utterly overwhelming amount of pleasure, especially as that warm blossom of hypnotically-induced pleasure mixed with the mundane but nonetheless incredible sensation of warm lips on the back of my neck. I let myself moan this time, enjoying the sensation and riding the wave of pleasure as far as I could before it faded, and then I sighed happily as I sunk further into the sheets.

"Gosh, such a good girl~" she said, before her lips found their mark again. "Doesn't it feel so good to be my helpless little plaything?"

"Yesss, yes yes yes!" It did, goshhh, it did.

"Do you want more?"

"yesyeyesyes"

"Tell me you want another, darling, use your words~"

"I uh," words were hard words were hard, but I could feel so good if I just. could find the right ones, "c-can I uh"

She cut me off, breath hot and close against my ear, "Can you what, sweetness?"

Her lips were so closeee if I could just find what she wanted me to say! She could make me feel sooo good. "c-can I have another kiss? Please?"

"There's a good girl~ There's my obedient little slut." And I got my kiss. And it did feel soooo good. I heard myself gasping breathlessly, felt my toes curl and my hands digging into the bed as her wonderful, wet lips danced up and down my neck.

"p-please! don't stop! please don't stop oh goddd oh god pleaseeee"

"Oh?" she said, in between planting those sweet, wonderful, incredible kisses on me, "Is my good girl getting a little close?"

"yes oh god pleassee don't stop it feels so good thank you thank you thank youuu"

She indulged me, continuing to give me the kisses I so desperately needed while her fingers delicately explored my body, pausing only to say "Good girl! Such a good girl~"

I felt myself grinding against the bed, humping mindlessly just to feel a little bit of friction downstairs while the hot red waves of pleasure from her kisses on my neck swept me away. Climax took me the way it only ever does with hypnotic assistance and a lot of teasing. Waves after euphoric wave of lust washed through my whole body as I convulsed helplessly, moaning desperately as kiss after kiss somehow found a way to rip yet more pleasure from me.

Well past the point when an orgasm would normally have subsided, the aftershocks of climax finally became small enough for me to breathe normally, and I collapsed with a sigh, happy and spent. I felt her hand tenderly running through my hair as I laid there tiredly.

-----

She and I cuddled, curled together with my back to her, my fingers intertwined with hers, her arm wrapped around my waist. It felt good to be the little spoon, for a change.

"So that's it, right? After I leave? No more you?"

She rubbed her thumb against my hand, comfortingly, "Not like this, not unless you come back to this place, I expect. But I'll always be with you, you know. I'm a Part Of You, one you'll always be able to find if you know where to look."

I squeezed her hand.

"It's wild that, that I came here to climb a mountain, but the mountain feels so small now. Or far away, maybe. I'm more worried about what I'm going to do about uh, you, I guess. I guess I'll have to do some reading, and buy some clothes. Fuck, maybe I've gotta learn how makeup works? I know 'trans' must be the right word, but it doesn't even feel like mine, like I'm putting my grubby fingers on something that doesn't belong to me. I guess that'll change too, with time."

"Lots to do!" she replied, "But I know you're gonna do great. One step at a time, right? Starting with the rest of this tiny little mountain."

I smiled widely, and thought about how much more and more genuinely I'd smiled today than I had in a long time. Whatever came next, I felt like I had a lot more courage to face it with than I had in a long time.