Secret Novel Chapter 34: Need For Exploration (Patreon)

Light shone into Madelin’s bedroom as the sun rose over the edge of the hedge. Her curtains were closed, but there was a gap enough to give the room enough light to wake Madeline up. She groaned ever so slightly as she rolled over onto her side. She felt her ears lazily flop over, as well as the quite sizable lumps on her chest. They had grown quite a lot in the almost three weeks since the mages were at her doorstep. They were larger than both what her mom and sister had, which was a wonderful feeling, but also annoying. Having breasts grow in such a short time hadn’t allowed Madeline to fully get used to having them. They could get in her way, and she would even accidentally hit herself in the breasts, not really expecting them to be there. Training with Victor was the real problem though. She never knew they could move around so much that it hurt. Thankfully, Eda had left her some undergarments that helped, even if Eda was a good bit smaller than her. Madeline had to spend a few hours altering them to fit her size, which was something she had done before as a tailor. Then it was awkward trying to figure out how to put them on, because even though she could tailor them, no one had ever shown her how to properly put it on. Victor got tired of waiting for her figuring it out for a few minutes and making sure they all fit right, so he dragged Elliott over to help. Elliott was kind about it, even if a little confused because the undergarments beyonder’s use were different, if they used them at all. Madeline wasn’t sure about letting Elliott help at first, but after a confirmation the ze was not attracted to women it made her feel better. She really didn’t need the help in the end, but having someone else affirm that it was fitting right was nice.

The growing pains had mostly stopped. At least in some places. Her form was now almost fully female except for the parts between her legs, even if they were incredibly smaller. She knew the last week of the potions were actually more focused on the internal side of her transformation, rather than the outside.

Now when Madeline looked in the mirror she saw her true self. She was a middle ground between her mom and sister in appearance. Soft features and full lips that made her happy to see her own smile. She even now sported freckles like her father had, and a trait now shared with her sister. Though of course her non-human features still drew the most attention, but it wasn’t bad. She actually liked them all now. She found that with the right face she looked cute. The ears and nose even helped. The beyonder eye was admittedly a little intimidating, but it gave her a bit of an edge to cut the cute. The only part of her that she was maybe a little disappointed in was that her height hadn’t changed. Her legs had become longer and her torso shorter, but she still stood at a height taller than most men. Then again, the only people she interacted with were all still naturally taller than her, so for the first time in her life she knew what it was like to be the short person, and that was a good feeling.

She decided it was actually time to get up. If she didn’t get up soon Victor would barge in and drag her out of bed. He was getting really persistent about her training, which wasn’t a bad thing. He was teaching her how to defend herself with the new power that she had. It was a bit of a challenge. Even though she’d had magic for this long, spells without immediate access to plants were difficult. Yes, she was getting better at spells in her general studies, but for those she always had the resources and time to get what she needed. The essence of other things was important for spells, just like how the mages could use spells because they had stolen the essence from something. However, Victor was teaching her how to use spells with only her own essence: to alter her own in a form that mimicked those of any different essence. That was the direction she would be heading eventually, as Eda’s book taught her, but she was still not fully ready to be there yet. It was quite difficult, and Madeline didn’t see the need if she could have her satchel and cloak with dozens of pockets on her for all that she needed. Still, she trusted Victor enough to believe it was better for her to learn how to defend herself without materials to rely on.

Though that was perhaps the biggest challenge, the part that was really trying about the training was that Victor was clearly starting to get frustrated that Madeline only focused on the defensive aspect of her magic and not the offensive. She wanted to say she didn’t care that much about how much she annoyed Victor, but she did. She didn’t like making him upset and annoyed, but she didn’t want to hurt anyone with her magic. Even mages. She just wanted to make sure she could defend herself and get away safely.

Stretching out in her bed, she let out a sigh, feeling her new form. Something felt different, though. She couldn’t place it, but there was something that had changed. Slowly sitting up, Madeline rubbed her eyes while trying to figure out what she was feeling. Then she realized it wasn’t something that she was feeling, but something she wasn’t feeling. She froze in place as her heart began to pound. Had it happened? Looking down at herself, the witch grabbed the edge of her nightgown. She took a deep breath before slowly pulling it up her legs. She pulled it all the way up till she could spread her legs and take a good long look.

A sob of happiness escaped her as her hands shakily clenched her gown. Her eyes stayed locked on the new part of her sitting between her legs. Gone was the thing that had plagued her for all her life. Replaced by what should have always been. Her tears fell freely as she laughed and cried her joy. Last night it had been still there, and she had called off their practice early because she was feeling a little too sore down there to focus properly. She even used some pollen from one of the plants she discovered would help her sleep because the pain was just too much to sleep comfortably. She had figured something would happen down there, because it had happened before. Pain the night before then waking up in the morning to find it reduced a decent amount. She had not expected it to be gone entirely when she woke! Even more so that it had been fully replaced! There was still some pain and soreness inside her belly but that was to be expected.

She took a few minutes of happy crying to herself before feeling like she should share this change with Victor. Getting dressed also excited her greatly. She could pull both her undergarments up and her pants up fully and there was no bulge or anything. It was flat and smooth and clothes finally felt right. Rushing out the door of her bedroom, she found Victor waiting for her, leaning against the table. He looked at her a little worried, obviously having heard her cry and laugh, but the smile on her face turned his expression to amused curiosity.

“It happened,” was all she said with a big smile on her face.

“What did?” Apparently her smile was infectious.

“Everything is finally right. I have the right thing,” she felt her cheeks flush at being so open about her privates.

It took him a second to catch on before his eyes went wide. “Oh! Well I guess a congratulation is in order. Though, I thought you still had to take another potion today.”

“I do, but that’s more to finalize all the inside changes, like a womb and such.” She felt so giddy that she was going to have a womb. Even if there really wasn’t much chance of her meeting a man in the Maze to have a child with.

“So you’ll be able to have children.” He gave her a warm smile. “That’s already far better than mages. I’m happy for you, little witch.” She flushed again, and ignored what he said about mages. This wasn’t a time to think about them. This was a time to celebrate! “I suppose you will ask me to leave you for a day or so then,” he said, pushing off of the table. He normally didn’t like her asking him to leave for whatever reason, but this time he didn’t appear upset.

“What?” Madeline looked at him with true confusion. “Why would I want you to leave? I want you here.” She was excited and wanted to celebrate, why would she want her one friend to leave her?

He looked down at her with wide eyes. “Oh, I didn’t think you would want that. I thought you might want time to do it yourself first, but I suppose you did offer it before. So if that’s what you want I won’t deny you.”

“What are you talking about, Victor?” She genuinely had no idea what any of what he just said meant.

“What am I talking about?” Now he looked just as confused as her. “Your virginity.” He said blatantly. “That's really obvious, little witch.”

Madeline’s eyes went wide as she took a step back away from him. “Whoa! No! I am not talking about that at all! I am not giving that to you! What the hell, Victor?!”

“Why are you yelling at me?! You’re the one that just said you want me here instead of—” He stopped himself, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “What did you mean by you wanting me here, Madeline?” He was calm again, if a little annoyed.

“I don’t know! I just wanted to celebrate or something I guess. Like make one of those stupid fancy meals you make sometimes. Maybe actually try your cheese. Not give you my virginity! What the fuck were you talking about?”

“I was saying I would happily leave you alone for a day so that you can explore yourself in peace, and then you said you wanted me here, so I thought that you wanted me here for that.”

“What does ‘explore’ myself even mean? I’m right here. All I wanted was a nice meal or something.” She sounded a little pouty, but she did feel that way. She just wanted to have a little celebration to acknowledge that her body was right.

“I mean for you to get to know yourself better in a sexual sense.” He sounded tired that he even had to explain that, and she still didn’t know what he really meant.

“What does that even mean? What has anything you said mean?” He was really starting to ruin her happy giddy mood. “How can I know myself in a sexual sense? You literally pointed out the fact that I’m a virgin!”

He said something in a language that didn’t even sound like words, that Madeline could only assume translated to ‘for fuck’s sake’. He put a hand on his face as he shook his head. “I meant that I would leave so you could mastur—” He paused and pulled his hand away to look at her with an expression of pity. “Oh, little witch. I knew you were innocent, but do you not even know what masturbating is?”

Her still slightly red face heated up again. Though her ears no longer did as well, they flattened in embarrassment, so maybe that was just as clear. “I-I know what it is. But I don’t have that anymore.” How did he expect her to masturbate without it? “And that’s just gross, Victor. I never did anything like that…”

“So you know what it is,” he said as if vindicated. “But you really never did it bef—” He was cutting himself a lot in this conversation. “I am sorry,” he said genuinely. “I understand that before it probably would not have been something you wanted to do, or enjoy.” He took a deep breath before becoming more serious again. “But you have the right equipment, so you should masturbate.”

“How can I masturbate without… that… between my legs? That’s something men do, and I’m not a man, Victor.”

He looked at her with more confusion than she had ever seen on him. More than that he was stunned. So much so that she watched him practically fall onto the bench. He looked around as if trying to gather his thoughts before looking at her again. “Madeline, as truly stunned by your lack of sexual education as I am, I will not hold it against you. And I am saying this, not to make fun of you, or to tease, or any other non educational reason. Women, men, and any other identity can masturbate regardless of what is between their legs. You can, in fact, masturbate with a vagina. You should masturbate with your vagina.”

She looked back at him with a wide-eyed and confused expression. He was being serious. He wasn’t lying. She could masturbate, which was news to her. “B-but, that’s weird.” She said without really thinking. “I don’t need to do anything like that.”

“Madeline.” His stare was unblinking. “Yes you should. It is very important that you understand yourself, and if you don’t believe me I will bring Elliott here to tell you the exact same. I would bring any of my family to tell you that. Fuck, I would bring my entire family here just to get through to you that, yes, masturbating is important. Even if you only do it once and decide that you don’t like it, which I highly doubt will happen since you finally have the right parts to explore.”

“You are really adamant about this.” It shocked her how important this all was to him.

“Yes! Sexual health is important, Madeline.” He did also appear to be exacerbated that he had to explain it all this much.

She didn’t know how to respond. She hadn’t really given much thought to sexual stuff in her life. Well she had but only in fantasies with the right body. Since she had never expected to have the right body she just thought it would never happen. She had the right body now, though. It could happen. Well maybe not sex since the only man around was Victor and that wasn’t going to happen. She could do what he was telling her though. “I… I still would like one of those meals you make…” She admitted sheepishly. “But fine, I’ll trust you.” She really did put a lot of trust in Victor, much to her own surprise.

“Good.” He finally stood up again and smiled. “And I’ll make you a dinner, but until then, I’m going to go.”

Before the witch could even respond the beyonder was gone. “He could at least say ‘bye’,” Madeline sighed before looking around wondering what to do. She did know what she should do, but it made her nervous and embarrassed. Perhaps food would be the best thing to do first. She bit her lip. “Fuck it,” Madeline said, turning on her heel and heading back into her room. Might as well get it over with.

Getting undressed and then laying herself down in her bed, Madeline felt her heart pounding. She was going to do this, but how? How could one do that with a vagina? Nervously she reached down between her legs and tried exploring herself like the beyonder had told her.

A number of hours later, Madeline decided that Victor deserved an apology. A massive one. He had been right. Oh so very right. Never had she thought something could feel so good and so right. Never had she thought she could feel so affirmed in her own body whilst experiencing pleasure the likes of which she could have never imagined. She had no idea how long she spent in her bed as she explored everything she could as thoroughly as she could. It was a truly blissful experience that left her panting and shaking on her bed. The sweat cooling down on her body was a relief to the burning pleasurable heat she had been entertaining for so long. She knew she should take a bath and let her sore muscles relax, but she couldn’t gather the strength to move. Instead she laughed. A giddy laugh that felt so incredibly freeing. Life was great, and Victor had been so incredibly right.

[I wrote this chapter long before I had bottom surgery and at the time I didn't really want to write in detail of an experience I hadn't had. I still stand by not getting smutty with this chapter, but being five months our from surgery and having the all clear from my doctor I can safely say what I did write is very accurate to my experience now. That also means in the future I will be a lot more comfortable with writing peoples experiences with having a vagina.]