"You'll have to forgive me," she said. "I don't know what to do. I mean, in this situation."

Althene had shut the door.

"Take off your dress."

Rachaela unzipped the dress and dropped it on the floor. She undid her bra and let it go, next her pants and tights, unrolling them from her body without artifice.

Althene watched her nakedness. She said nothing. Instead, more deftly than Rachaela, she undid the blue silk and the two pieces slid from her like a wave.

As usual her underclothes were astonishing. Dark holly-green satin, the high bodice trimmed with dark green lace, a corset that nipped in her waist, french knickers also trimmed, the gartered stockings with their stalks of butterflies.

So she came to Rachaela, and drew Rachaela's nakedness against the glide of fabrics.

Rachaela rubbed herself on these limpid textures. In the middle of lust, she felt a curious comfort. She buried her face in Althene's neck.

They went to the bed. It was a relief to lie down. Althene made warm circles on Rachaela's breasts with her ringers and her tongue. Her black hair mingled with Rachaela's, and all over Rachaela's body her perfume had anointed, so now they were scented the same.

Althene raised Rachaela's legs onto her shoulders.

She bowed her head to Rachaela's sex, and the wonderful tongue trembled there like a flame.

"Don't stop," Rachaela said.

"Just for a moment. Now do you want me?"

"Yes."

Althene kissed Rachaela's mouth. She drew Rachaela's hand steadily along her own belly. Rachaela reached out to feel the soft mound, the moisture and pliancy, the inverted lily of a sexuality like her own.

Instead a golden wand was put into her hand. Alchemical. Impossible.

Rachaela thrashed away. Before she knew what she was doing, she had jumped off the mattress. But her legs gave way. She fell on the carpet by the bed.

She could say nothing. She half lay on the floor. She was shocked as if she had been scalded.

The trap—

Althene kneeled on the bed, harmfully beautiful and clad in satin and lace. And from the center of her slender female body there rose the dark tower of male potency. Indeed the body was not female, it was possible to see that now. Slim, depilated, lightly muscled like the physique of a girl who swam and rode horses, smooth and almost poreless, blessed by sweet false breasts, by wonderful hair, and a face like a jewel. But still it was a man's body. It had a man's power now, and a man's penis, erect, and demanding.

So that was why—

That was why it did not matter.

It would not be two women in a sterile embrace.

Sasha, nodding and smiling…

"No." Rachaela tried to get up.

"Yes." Althene stepped off the bed. The grace was catlike, wolflike. Not female or male now.

"Yet more lies," said Rachaela. Her voice was hoarse, as if she had been screaming.

"No lies."