“Are you now living in society under the guise of female?” someone shouted.
Salerno held up a hand, rebuffing the question. “The subject’s family forbids that question and all others that might lend clues as to its identity.”
Grumbles rippled over the audience.
“I object to the term it, which seems inappropriate and demeaning,” an Englishman wearing spectacles protested.
“What would you have me called?” Jordan snapped.
“An abomination!” someone shouted from the back of the theater.
Heads swiveled backward, peering toward the far end of the center aisle. Two men had entered unnoticed at some point and now stood there.
Jordan sat forward and shaded her eyes, trying to better see them. The one who’d spoken was rounded with too much flesh, but the other was broad shouldered, narrow hipped, and extremely tall. She felt the tall one’s eyes travel over her. Weighing her. Did he think her an abomination, too?
She squinted, trying to make out his features, but found it impossible to decipher them clearly through the dimness. His bearing was straight, almost rigid, giving the impression he was well over six feet.
Her cock perked to attention under his lengthy inspection and she hunched, hugging her arms around her knees to hide it.
The tall one’s gaze darted up to lock with hers. Sparks of silver caught the candlelight. He’d seen her desire, his eyes told her, and he wanted her as well. But somehow she sensed he didn’t like it.
“You’re a monster. A creature of the devil,” the squat man beside him stated with unshakable authority.
The taller one remained silent, ignoring his companion. So he would not defend her. But then why should he? No one ever had. She would defend herself.
Her eyes shifted from him to the other one. He wore the robes of a bishop. It mattered not what he thought, she told herself, but she could not let his slanderous comments pass unchallenged.
“Why should my external genitalia define me as a monster?” she argued. “For all you know I could be a saint in my heart.”
“Blasphemous creature!” the bishop snarled, shaking a finger at her. “It’s obvious you’re no saint.”
At that moment, a thin, anxious man stepped up to the pair of interlopers at the back of the theater.
Salerno moved toward the center of the stage, obscuring her view of them. Raising and lowering his arms in a flapping manner, he attempted to regain the attention of his audience.
“Gentlemen, please. Let us continue with our debate…”
Jordan pushed herself higher, trying to peer beyond him. But the two men in the aisle were gone now. Disappointment shot through her.
“You will note the presence of labia minora and labia majora as can be found in any female,” Salerno droned on, moving to her side.
Reluctantly, she released her grip on her knees and splayed them. With one hand, Salerno reached between her thighs.
“The labia majora is not fused—” He broke off, abruptly leaning closer to peer between her legs. “What the devil?” He grasped her phallus between his thumb and two fingers. Gently he squeezed.
His excited eyes came up to meet hers. “I’ll be damned. I do believe you have the makings of a hard-on.”
4
Once the velvet curtain had swished open, Raine’s silver gaze had been drawn as iron to a magnet to the figure that half-reclined upon a table ringed in candles. She was splendid.
In spite of her contradictory body parts, it didn’t occur to him to question for a moment that she was inherently female. He simply knew it in the marrow of his bones.
“Pardone, signore,” a voice intruded from somewhere nearby. Distantly, he noted the bishop engaging the annoying babbler in a discussion. But Raine continued to stare at the stage, transfixed.
His gaze made a slow sweep of the figure on the table. She was petite but held herself regally, exuding a presence that had captivated the interest of an entire audience. How many men or women could recline naked in a public auditorium and still retain an air of proud disdain toward the onlookers, he wondered.
The dull sheen of her golden complexion caught the candlelight. Her eyes and hair were dark and lustrous. Her breasts were high, plump, and well shaped, but modest—each of a size that would neatly fill his hand. Her waist and hips were slender but curved. And below, in the nest at the crook of her thighs, lay a shy, delicate cock.
A hermaphrodite.
But why was she here, allowing herself to be publicly displayed like the main course on a platter at a formal meal?
And why did he want to climb onstage, crawl onto that table, and make a feast of her? At the sight of her, his own cock had hardened into a thick, strangled bulge within the crotch of his trousers. A powerful lust had risen within him, almost as though it were already Moonful.
But the moon would not reach its ripest fullness for another week. He’d never experienced a Calling time away from the Satyr Estate, at least not since he’d become an adult. However, it seemed unlikely he could finish his business here in Venice and be home before then. He would have to plan carefully to satisfy his cravings, yet avoid discovery.
When the harvest moon rose in the sky in seven days, his body would alter, becoming more powerfully potent. It would change physically in a way that had once terrified his former wife. During the Calling his mind would be overtaken with the need to rut from dusk to dawn.
Much like it had been the moment he’d laid eyes on the seductive creature onstage.
“Eh, signore?” The apologetic voice nagged at his attention again like a buzzing gnat.
Raine tore his fascinated gaze from the woman at the opposite end of the theater and looked down to see an obsequious man standing before him and the bishop. He was speaking, repeatedly punctuating his words with nervous little half bows. How long had he been standing there?
“Pardone, pardone, biglietti—”
Achoo! Raine sneezed, silently cursed, and then asked, “What did you say?”
“Si, signore. Pardone, pardone. As I was explaining to your companion, tickets are required to attend Signore Salerno’s medical lecture this evening,” the man told him, obviously relieved to have finally snagged his attention.
“I assure you we have no interest in remaining here to witness such a disgusting display,” the bishop butted in.
Raine’s eyes went back to the stage, but the lecturer had moved in front of the woman now. Several in the audience were standing, hurling questions toward them, and their height further obscured her from his view. She hadn’t been struggling, and her eyes hadn’t been drugged. For whatever reason, he assumed she was here of her own free will. And he had pressing business elsewhere.
Without another word, he pivoted on his heel and exited the theater.
Upon Raine’s abrupt departure, the bishop ended his conversation with the ticket taker in midsentence.
He’d seen the bulge that tented the crotch of Satyr’s trousers. His moody companion might pretend indifference to anything sexual, but that horrendous creature on the stage had piqued his interest.
And since the bishop’s interest had been piqued by Satyr since he’d first seen him at the harvest festival nearly a year ago, he wasn’t particularly pleased to note the fact. He’d come all this way for the lecture on the off