Sondra woke up feeling slightly muzzy and possibly just a bit hungover. As she surfaced into consciousness she became aware of an arm wrapped gently around her and a warm body against her back. That brought her up with a start!
Oh crap! I must have gotten drunk and had sex with someone. I don't remember drinking that much. Damn, it's a good thing I've got some Plan B at home.
She carefully looked down at the possessive arm and was amazed to see that it was thickly covered in blond hair clear down to the second knuckles. She didn't know anyone that hairy so she'd gotten drunk and gone to bed with a complete stranger. Crap again! Supposedly this was a frequently occurring part of the college experience but she'd tried to be so careful . . .
Possibly she could ease out from under him, find her clothes and make a quick getaway? But when she tried, the arm tightened and drew her close to its chest.
"Good morning, sunshine," said a voice in her ear, "would you like some breakfast or shall we take up where we left off?"
Thinking fast, Sondra replied, "Uh—breakfast, please. And I really need get home and take a Plan B."
"No problem, Sondra," came the answer, "but I've got some here. The sooner you take it the better it works so I'll leave the bottle next to the shower. You can get washed up while I start the pancakes."
Whoever it was rolled away and out of bed. Taking a quick look, Sondra saw that it wasn't just his arms that were hairy. From the nape of his neck to his heels, her one-night-stand could have been a blond Sasquatch.
Whatever attracted me to a man like that? I'd better get clean and get out of here.
As promised there was a bottle of birth controls on the sink and extra towels on the rack. Sondra gulped the pill and turned to locate her clothing but the idea of a hot shower overruled her distress. Hot water. Such a delightful concept. Stepping into the enclosure, she saw a bar of French milled soap and a big loofa. Overcome with the idea of such luxury, her shower took longer than intended. And when she returned to the bedroom to hunt for her clothes, there was a fluffy terrycloth robe with a rosebud pinned to it lying across the blankets. Her clothes were nowhere to be seen. Swallowing, the girl wrapped herself up and mentally girding her loins marched out to demand 1) her clothes and 2) the promised breakfast.
"Well, you look much refreshed. By the way, my name is Orlando, Orly to friends and lovers. And since you're no doubt wondering, your clothes are in the washer on gentle cycle. They'll be clean and dry in an hour or so."
Orly slipped the pancake flipper under a stack of hot whole-wheat cakes, slid them onto a plate, poured melted butter over the whole thing and handed it to Sondra.
"There's maple syrup, assorted jams and apple syrup on the table. Dig in, girl. I know you're famished."
Surprisingly, she was. And this was unusual for a woman to whom the idea of food before ten in the morning was slightly nauseating. But the cakes smelled divine and tasted better. Soon she'd finished off the stack and was about to ask if she could have just a little more when Orly dropped another half dozen on her plate.
"You're going to be eating more for the next month or so," Orlando stated calmly, "Once you begin to change, you burn calories like a teenager. It passes."
Sondra was about to indignantly yell something about "What change?" when it hit her. Orly was a satyr. That's why he was so hairy and no doubt why she'd had sex with him. She'd heard rumors about men like that. They broadcast weird pheromones that made you helpless to resist. And there was something about them causing changes in the women they slept with, too, though she couldn't remember the exact details. There'd been quite a bit of alcohol involved in the telling of that tale as well.
"You're a satyr," she stated flatly.
"I am. And you're on your way to becoming a nymph. That, as I implied, is why you're so hungry."
"And if I don't want to be a nymph?"
"Why wouldn't you? It's great fun, you can't catch any STD's and you get total control over your fertility."
"Well, I was planning on other things in my life besides sex!" Sondra began to get flushed in the face. She was not happy.
"Well, of course," Orlando replied, completely at ease, "I'm a biomimetic engineering student. I can happily spend days and hours during the week researching, designing and building mechanisms. Sex is for weekends."
That kind of took the wind out of Sondra's sails. "I—I thought satyrs and nymphs spent all their waking hours fucking."
"Nah, we're pretty potent but all day and night? Not a chance. I mean it; look at the advantages you get. In a month or so you'll be built like Sophia Loren in her prime, have an immune system with serious teeth and only ovulate when you feel like it. Besides, think of all the cute guys you'll be able to seduce with a silent puff of pheromones. Why would you not want to be a nymph?"
Having it put that way left Sondra less angry than perplexed. She'd gone to bed with him of her own (drunken) free will and as her mother always harped, 'actions have consequences'. Still . . .
"Yeah, right! Are you honest enough to tell me the down side?"
Orly stuck another forkful of pancakes in his mouth and chewed reflectively. "I guess that kind of depends on what you mean by 'down'. For us, it makes buying underwear a bit of a challenge. The manufacturers are starting to make skivvies with expanded pouches so it isn't as bad as it was but tight trousers of any kind are simply out of the question. For you? Well, don't bother buying any bras when yours stop fitting in a couple of weeks, you'll just have to do it again when you're done. Unless you think that happily agreeing to sex whenever a man asks and you don't have anything more pressing to do?"
Sondra seized on that. "Damned straight!
Any
man? And just what does something 'more pressing' mean?"
"Whatever you want it to. If the guy is a positive creep, you just say 'I'm busy' and he'll go away. That's satyrs, I'm talking about. Basic men might try to push the issue if they're ill-mannered enough but if there's a satyr in the room he'll put a stop to it, fast. The whole thing about being 'mythic' is people behaving the way we all know we should—with added sex, of course. Have you seen the latest FBI stats? Violent crime is plummeting worldwide. The more of us there are the less crime there is."
"Yeah, well just in case you're thinking about it, I've a pressing need to go home. Are my clothes dry, yet?"
