I realized I’d never be able to shape change into a pooka. That was not something a wife could expect when her pooka husband bit her, but still I knew that this second time had for sure pookatized me.
Timothy laughed when I told him that. “Pookatized,” he said. “There is no such word, my love. Besides that first bite should have produced all the changes needed to give you a long, long life, perfect health, and the ability, hopefully, to bear our child.”
“But you said that Andrew developed special benefits when you bit him, and I didn’t feel all that much different. I’d thought I had at the time, I guess because I wanted to believe it had happened, but it was nothing like how my body feels now.”
We were still lying in bed having this conversation, our after conjugal bliss, I guess you could call it. My head was lying on Timothy’s massive chest, comfortably so, and I was stroking his hair, which felt silky, not like a horse’s mane nor like a cat’s fur. Different, but agreeable to the touch, In fact, I craved stroking both the hair on Timothy’s chest and on his head. Silly, I know, but maybe it was a pooka thing, or rather a pooka’s wife thing.
“I see,” my husband said, nuzzling my neck where the new bite was located. “A pooka wife’s thing, huh?”
Apparently, he found that funny enough that his chest rumbled with a chuckle that vibrated against my ear.
I suppose that might have led us to doing other things, enchantingly pleasurable other things, but a sudden knock at the outer door sent Timothy springing upwards. He threw a cover over me, said, “Stay here,” then flung himself away from me and out of the bedroom.
Was Timothy afraid that Queen Moragana might attempt to slip into his bedroom once again, as she had done long, long ago? Did Timothy think the queen might be into a three-some? I didn’t know the woman well enough to predict. I wondered if I should jump up and climb back into my ragged, dirty dress. Or, maybe I should sprint into the shower and afterward clothe myself in bed coverings. But my body refused such ambitions. I simply waited to see what was going to happen. I knew Timothy would take care of whomever had knocked at the door.
I heard voices, several male voices, in fact, and it seemed that they’d entered the main chamber. Why would Timothy allow that? I gripped the cover tighter against my body, wishing I had forced myself into getting more presentable for company. But then the voices departed, the door closed, and the lock bolted shut.
I was just about to call out, to find out what had happened when Timothy poked his head through the bedroom’s door. “Shall we eat in bed or at the table?” he asked.
The question sparked my stomach into action. Well, actually not my stomach, although it was empty enough to be enthusiastic about food, but it was actually my legs and the rest of me that launched myself upwards. I seized the lightest covering, wrapped myself with it, and said, “Coming.”
Wrong thing to say, I realized with a giggle, but I saw that Timothy had retreated with a huge smile on his face because even if he hadn’t heard my actual response, he’d read it in my mind.