“Vah-gine-ah, you illiterate prick,” Hadriel said, looking at his nails in the corner of the room. “Get it right. It’s the toughest body part in the known world. It takes a beating, grins, and says more, please. Straight guys trying out men for the first time hammer into your ass like they have a vendetta. No, thank you. I am sensitive, unlike the mighty vagina.”
“You are a vagine-ah,” Cecil told him.
“I wish I were, I’ll tell you that much. I wouldn’t fear the demons then. I’d get bloody and be like—come at me! I can do this for days, no problem. Bleeding does not mean I’m dying; it means I’m readying to duplicate and come at you with an army!”
“Just…here.” Leala bustled over with a lacy thing that looked like it would cover most of my torso while revealing all of it. There was no crotch, either.
“I…don’t think that is better?” I said.
“Amateurs.” Cecil stalked across the room and grabbed a tiny little slip of red silk. The bust was red lace and nearly see-through, and the hem would barely reach beyond my crotch. It was slinky and sexy and felt divine in my fingers. “There. That will cover you. It is for when you bed the master.”
“Are you hard of hearing? She isn’t bedding the master.” Hadriel flashed his teeth at Cecil.
Cecil stared back with a flat face. “If the master were to employ a sack of shit, would he have to pay it as much as he does you?” Hadriel narrowed his eyes. “She can use it to seduce the master, then, whatever. Put it on. I will turn around.”
I pulled it on under the dress, removing my arms from the dress sleeves so I could hike it up. Leala pulled the dress off over my head, and I put my arms through the slip while Cecil waited with his back turned, sighing in annoyance.
“I have seen all the stomachs. Fat stomachs, skinny stomachs, stretch-marked stomachs, bulbous stomachs, stomachs with no ab muscles that men want me to pretend have ab muscles…”
“Please stop. Seriously,” Hadriel said. “You’ve seen a lot of naked people. We get it. She doesn’t want to be one of those people. Move on.”
“Asses,” Cecil said. “The problem is asses…”
Leala gave me some sparkly thong underwear, and it was definitely clear that I would need to do something about the lady beard growing up out of it. That was embarrassing.
“I cannot create a good pair of slacks with asses that do not exist,” Cecil muttered. “I can clothe wide asses, or saggy asses, or bubble asses, but no ass? What do I do with no ass? Men come in with no asses all the time. I wish I could turn them away. Are they afraid of ass work?”
“I need to visit the salon, I think,” I whispered to Leala. “But, like…not for the demons. Just to…landscape things a bit.”
She winked at me as Cecil moved on to penises.
“Men have no shame when they come in here. They do not even wash the peen half the time. They swing it around, they play, they laugh when they get hard while I try to measure—it is annoying, dealing with the peen. And the big peens?” He made an exasperated sound. “One of the dragons had a peen so big, I had to make extra room in the clothes. I had to make them extra durable. And he got hard all the time. It nearly poked me in the eye when I measured his legs.”
“Are you talking about Nyfain?” I asked.
“The master— Can I turn around now? How long does it take to put on a teddy? This is a problem. Any person will lose interest if it takes you this long to undress.”
“Yes, you can turn around,” Hadriel said. “We would’ve told you sooner, but you were having such a wonderful time commenting on all the body parts you’ve seen.”
“Not the master, no. He needs a bit more room, yes. He’s bigger than the average dragon.”
“And the average dragon is a lot bigger than the average anyone else,” Hadriel said. “It’s an eye-widener.”
Leala nodded with a small smile.
“Yes, but the master is not terrible,” Cecil said. “He has a good ass, too. Good, strong bubble. Easy to design for him. No, this was another dragon—he’s dead—with a huge peen. It was a job hazard. My eyes!”
His dead-serious tone made me giggle helplessly. The guy was a trip.
“Now. Here. You try this.” He held up a slip of material that didn’t look like anything special. The second I put it on, though, I knew I was working with a genius.
Eleven
Hadriel led me down the quiet hallway on the second floor. Everyone had wandered off, having finished their hobbies for the day. Most doors stood open, the rooms dark. At the end of the hallway, the wide double door stood mostly closed, only showing a slice of what lay beyond.