Although Ligdus was merely a modest freedman, he had a wife, and although he was blind, his wife was with child. He wanted only a son and he swore to let a daughter die, but his wife bore a daughter. It was not for nothing that he was blind, for otherwise our story would end here; but his wife convinced him that his child was a boy and she even brought it up as a boy.
The child's father chose it's name, Iphis, the same as his father's. The name was neuter, which suited the mother well.
When the years slipped by, blind Ligdus found a golden-haired girl, Ianthe, for his son. Iphis and Ianthe were the same age and they went to the same school. Only their desires were different: Ianthe was looking for marriage with a real man, whereas Iphis loved more unselfishly, as if the sex of her loved one did not really matter.
On the evening before her wedding, Iphis' mother told her:
-You are not truly a boy, you are a girl. And that could present problems with your coming marriage. Iphis cried one hundred tears.
-But we have to tell this to Ianthe, sobbed Iphis. So they did, the same evening. Ianthe cried one thousand tears.
-I cannot do this, said Ianthe.
-Let us pray to the Egyptian goddess Isis, said Iphis' mother. For Egyptian gods were in fashion that year, along with shorter togas and longer asps.
So they did.
On the next evening, just before their ceremony, Iphis, looking taller. darker and handsomer than before, whispered into Ianthe's ear:
-There is no longer a problem. Isis has answered our prayers.
Ianthe's eyes brightened up. She relaxed and smiled. At the end of the ceremony they kissed without incident.
Later that night, their wedding night, Ianthe sat up in bed, naked, waiting for Iphis to enter the bedroom from the bathroom. Iphis took her time. When she finally entered the bedroom, she was wearing a long, Egyptian cotton bathrobe. She opened the bathrobe from the top, exposing the most amazingly beautiful female breasts seen anywhere around the Mediterranean. She continued to open the bathrobe and just under her waist out fell a large, stiff phallus.
-It is a miracle! cried Ianthe, you actually have become a man!
-Sort of, murmured Iphis, fingering the phallus. It had been conceived of by the goddess Venus and forged by her husband Vulcan, in vulcanized rubber. Two thousand years later it would be called a strap-on.
Ianthe's eyes were fixed on the phallus.
-I want you inside me, now!
-I desire nothing other than to bring you to ecstasy. Iphis let the bathrobe drop to the floor, kneeled on the edge of the bed and crawled over to her wife. She licked her hand generously, wetted her phallus with it and guided it gently into the waiting cunt of Ianthe. Ianthe gasped.
-Do I hurt you, my wife?
-Oh, please continue, my husband, for I truly desire your new body and my ecstasy.
Iphis started pumping with her hips, all the while her beautiful breasts hanging and swinging near Ianthe's face. It was a challenge for the virgin Ianthe, for Iphis' phallus was at least twice normal size.
