"I am entirely convinced you have lost your mind, Vanity," I said. "What are we doing, here, exactly?
And move your hand so I can take off this smelly shirt."
She skipped a step back, still grinning. "Okay! But do it more slowly! And look like you are enjoying yourself."
She started to unbutton the top buttons of her blouse, too, but she was swaying her hips and rolling her shoulders, as if dancing to music I could not hear. I wondered if she were under some sort of spell or hex cast by the enemy.
"Do—what? What are you going on about?"
But now her eyes fell upon the transparent misty top of the fairy dress I was wearing, which became visible as I shrugged off my second shirt.
Vanity said, "You are going too fast! And— Wow! What is that?"
I bent to push the two pairs of pants off my hips. They were so large and baggy that I thought I could just slip them off without unzippering them, once the belt was gone. It was a little tight, but I wiggled and slid them down my legs.
"Now, that was really good!" said Vanity. "But you should be the other way around…"
I straightened up and put my hands on my hips. Vanity had her shirt off and was standing there in just her skirt and stockings. The bra she had bought in Paris was a lacy black thing with the tiniest little red bow deep in her cleavage. I don't think I had ever seen black underwear before, not in real life, and the bra must have been a padded support bra, because her breasts looked even larger and perkier than normal in it. I thought it looked very pretty, though maybe peach would have gone better with her light complexion.
"Vanity, what the heck is going on?"
Vanity bent down, pouting seductively, and with little, teasing tugs, tugged her skirt off with a slow, very sensuous motion, and it clung for a moment to her hips and buttocks, and dropped gently to the floor.
She was now posed with one hand on her knee, one hand caressing her own hip, and the shining curve of her slip exposed to the soft, sepia-toned light.
Why was Vanity smiling over her shoulder at me? Why were her eyes half-lidded, as if she were aroused by some deep romantic passion?
We undressed in front of each other naked every single night of our lives. Why was she making such a big production number out of it tonight? But there was no mistaking her attitude and gestures. She was doing a striptease. She…
She was not smiling at me. She was smiling at the bird. At Colin.
I turned my head. The bird was staring at me with bright, bright yellow eyes.
Vanity pouted and said softly, "Are you sure you don't want to be a man, Colin? There are soooo many things men can enjoy that birds can't! We'll both give you a kiss if you turn back into a man…"
I was wearing a floating cloud of fairy vapor, which exposed my nipples. My pubic hair was visible as a faint bluish triangle, at which all the pearl strands running through the wasp-waisted corselette pointed.
The bodice of this dress was webbed with something like a fishnet body stocking, exposing every curve and making them curvier. This dress left nothing to the imagination, except where it hid just enough to make the imagination of an aroused man more aroused.
And I was standing in it, naked, worse than naked, in front of Colin mac FirBolg.
I shrieked and yanked up the skirt Vanity had discarded, trying to hold it over me, yanking it high to cover my top, yanking it low to cover my bottom, and probably not covering very much.
Victor's voice came from the other room: "Is everything all right in there?"
Vanity called out gaily, "Yes! We are all fine here! Just fine!" She reached over and pinched me.
"Ow!" I said. "Stop that!"
Vanity said, "You've got to help! Why aren't you helping?"
"This was your plan? To wiggle and strip in front of Colin mac FirBolg? The world's only walking bag of hormones, the guy who uses testosterone rather than neural fluid to convey charge across his brain cells?"
"You know how much he wants to fly. We have to offer him something he wants more. Something he can't get when he is a bird! You are the one who told me his powers are based on desire. So!" And she took the skirt out of my hands and tossed it on the bed. "Start acting desirable!"
I stood there, my mind a complete blank. "How do I do that?"
Vanity said, "I don't know. Dance around a bit. Flirt. Make eye contact."
I tried striking a few poses. I tried folding my arms behind my head and arching my back. I wiggled my bottom at the bird. I gave him my best smile. The eagle stared at me with his yellow eyes.
I put my arms down. "I feel silly."
Vanity said, "Just do what comes instinctively. Girls know what turns boys on!"
She leaned over the footboard, pouting and making kisses toward the eagle, drawing her elbows into her abdomen so as to squeeze her breasts dangerously close to popping out of her black bra.
Looking at her sidelong, I imitated the same pose. "Is this instinctive?"
She tilted her head to one shoulder, then to the other, pouting and batting her eyelashes. And she was straightening one leg and relaxing the other, and then reversed, so that her hips cocked from one side to the other, over and over, a little sort of dance rhythm. It did not look particularly sexy or unsexy, one way or the other. More like the kind of thing a person did on an exercise bike.
She answered me: "You should know instinct girl stuff instinctively!"
"Remember, I am actually a squid with wings. I don't think I have those instincts."
"Well, he's staring at you. Project sincerity. Look at him sort of sideways and lower your lashes. Hmm.
More sincerity. Tell him you want him to rip your clothes off."
"Colin, please rip my clothes off, if it's not too much trouble…"
"No! No! No! Tell him with your eyes!"
"What? Blink in Morse code?"
She straightened up and put her hands on her hips, and her eyes flashed and her nostrils flared. "Amelia!
You're being obstreperous! He's trapped that same way you were trapped by Grendel! He rescued you, even though he got hurt! You can at least try to rescue him!"
That comment struck home. Here was Colin, my comrade-in-arms, who had jumped on Boreas the Wind god with nothing but a stick in his hands, risking his life so that we could get away. And he lost his life, his human life, at least, his ability to think and reason.
And when he was left with nothing but the miserable life of a bird in the wild, he risked that, too, and let himself get mauled by a bear in order to save me. The first feat had been to save the group. The second had been just for me, Colin's personal gift to me. My freedom and my life were from him.
Vanity was saying with angry passion, "Think of Colin! What would he do if you were stuck? If he thought stripping half-nude and wiggling his fanny at you would save you, he'd do it!"
What's funny is, I thought she looked prettier when she was angry. That stuff she was doing before looked silly and fake to me. But, if she knew what she was doing…
"Okay! Okay!" I pouted. "Just tell me what to do. I'll do anything you say."
"Well… it's clear we have to pull out all the stops… hmm…" She slipped out of her slip, so she was only standing there in her garter belt and panties.
"Hey, is that a garter belt? Why didn't you get normal stockings?"
She held out her leg, showing off her stockings, and looking pleased. "I thought Quentin might like it. Feel the fabric. Look at how sheer!"
I caressed her upper thigh. "That's nice. I'm sure he'll like it. Pretty color, too. I wished you had bought some for me." For the moment, we had both forgotten about the Peeping Tom with feathers.
Vanity glanced at the eagle, and I saw her face light up. "Oh! I've got it! I've got an idea! Here! Kiss me!"
I leaned down and gave her a peck on the cheek.
"No, no, a real kiss!" i straightened up. "Vanity, I am not going to give you a kiss on the lips."
She rolled her eyes in angry exasperation, stood on tiptoe, and threw her arms around me, holding me tightly. "This will work! Guys think this stuff is kinky!"