'Close your eyes and stand still.'
She was going to hit him. Dor knew it. But it seemed he had it coming. He had let the Brain Coral use his body; he was responsible. He closed his eyes and stood still, forcing his hands to hang loose at his sides, undefensively. Maybe this was the best way to settle it.
He heard her step close, almost felt the movement of her body. She was raising her arm. He hoped she wouldn't hit him low. Better on the chest or face, though it marked him.
It was on the mouth. But strangely soft. In fact-
In fact, she was kissing him!
Totally surprised, Dor found himself putting his arms around her, partly for balance, mostly because that was what one was supposed to do when kissed by a girl. He felt her body yield to him, her hair shifting with the motion. She smelled and tasted and felt pleasant.
Then she drew back a little within his embrace and looked at him. 'What do you think of that?' she asked.
'If you intended that to be punishment, it didn't work,' he said. 'You're sort of nice to kiss.'
'So are you,' she said. 'You surprised me yesterday. I thought you were going to hit me or yank off my panties or something, and I was all set to scream, and it was all awkward and bumpy, noses colliding and stuff. So I practiced last night on my big doll. Was it better this time?'
A kiss? That was what they had done yesterday? Dor's knees felt weak! Trust Grundy the golem to blow it up into something gossipy! 'There's no comparison!'
'Should I take off my clothes now?'
Dor froze, chagrined. 'Uh-'
She laughed. 'I thought that would faze you! If I wouldn't do it yesterday, what makes you think I'd do it today?'
'Nothing,' Dor said, relaxing with a shuddering breath. He had seen naked nymphs galore, in the tapestry, but this was real. 'Nothing at all. Nothing absolutely at all.'
'You want to know what yesterday was?' she demanded. 'It was the first time you really got interested in me, for anything. The first time anybody got interested in me who didn't want a plant grown fast, instead of calling me a palace brat who should have been a sorceress but could only grow stupid green stuff. Do you have any idea what it's like having two Magician-caliber parents and being a big disappointment to them because not only are you a girl, you have lousy talent?'
'You have good talent!' Dor protested. 'And there's nothing wrong with being a girl!'
'Oh sure, sure,' she countered. 'You never had no talent. You never were not male. You never had people being polite to your face because of who your father was and what your mother might do to them, while they cut you down behind your back and called you skunk cabbage and garden-variety talent and weed girl and-'
'I never called you that!' Dor cried.
'Not in so many words. But you thought it, didn't you?'
Dor blushed, unable to deny it. 'I?won't think it again,' he promised lamely.
'And on top of that,' she continued grimly, 'you know your own parents only stand up for you because they have to, but privately they think just the same as all other people do-'
'Not the King,' Dor protested. 'He's not that type-'
'Shut up!' she flared, her eyes filling with angry tears. Dor did, and she composed herself. Girls of any age were good at quick composures. 'So then yesterday you were different. You kept asking questions, and you paid real attention, just as if you didn't have a sexpot like Millie the ghost in your cheesy house to sneak peeks at and get the whole story, and you didn't say a word about magic, or make anything talk, or anything. It was just you and me. All you wanted to know was what it was like being a girl. It was as if something else were speaking, something awful smart and ignorant, wanting to learn from me. First I thought you were poking fun at me, teasing me-but you never smiled. Then you wanted to kiss me, and I thought, Now he's going to bite my lip or pinch me and fall over laughing, but you didn't laugh. So I kissed you, and it was awful, I bruised my nose, what the hell, I thought at least you'd know how but you didn't, and you just said, 'Thank you, Princess' and left, and I lay on my bed a long time trying to figure out where the joke was, what you were telling the boys-'
'I didn't-' Dor protested.
'I know. I snooped. Some. You didn't say anything, and neither did the golem. So it seemed you really were interested in me, and-' She smiled, and she looked brilliantly sweet when she did that. 'And it was the greatest experience of my whole life! You're a real Magician, and-'
'No, that has nothing to do with-'
'So I practiced kissing, just in case. Then you came in just now apologizing, as if it were something dirty. So I thought you hadn't meant it, had just been slumming, and-'
'No!' Dor cried in sudden anguish. 'That wasn't it at all!'
'I know that now. Can't blame me for wondering, though.' She smiled again. 'Listen, Dor, I know tomorrow it'll be just like before, and I'll be a snotty palace brat to you, but-would you kiss me again?'
Dor felt deeply complimented. 'Gladly, Irene.' He bent to kiss her again. He was young yet, and so was she, but it was a foretaste of what they might experience when they both grew up.
'Maybe again, sometime?' she inquired wistfully. 'I sort of like being a girl, now.'
'Sometime,' he agreed. 'But we've got to fight some, too, or the others will tease us. We're still too young-' But not very much too young, he thought. He could see the road ahead rather clearly now, after his tapestry experience.
