The days until the Luna Festival went by before I even noticed. Thankfully, Adelheid hasn’t started her lessons yet. It seems she wanted to give me some time after my coma to come to terms with things.
The only thing of note was when my students and I delved deeper into body-strengthening magic. At first, they were somewhat skeptical until I demonstrated it myself. I charged my lower arm and hand with as much mana as possible and crushed a fist-sized stone into nothing but dust.
I must admit that the classes after my demonstration were much quieter and more orderly than before.
Today was the last day before the Luna Festival, and Rika was in my room with me, helping me wrap up all my Luna presents. After we were done, I sat down on my bed while Rika deflated into my comfy armchair.
“So… have you done it?”
Her asking me a question didn’t surprise me; after all, she looked like she wanted to talk about something. What surprised me, however, was the unnamed subject of said question. I asked back without looking, because I was too scared she might see my embarrassment.
“…what do you mean?”
I hoped she meant something else and had just worded it poorly, but she just threw my question back to me again.
“You know what I mean.”
She sounded smug as she cornered me with her questions, and rightfully so, I absolutely knew what she meant.
“Well, obviously.”
…
I could feel Rika staring at me through the curtains of the canopy bed. Until I turned around in defiance and hugged one of the pillows close to me, fully intent on not answering her question. However, instead of letting the question go, Rika had to be Rika, of course, and stood up from my armchair, only to sit back down on my bed so that my back was now turned towards her.
“Come on, tell me. What I want to know is whether you two have done it since he proposed.”
Sigh.
I already knew that she wouldn’t stop and only push me further. These are the moments when I wonder why she was my friend. She behaved more like one of my older sisters, an annoying older sister. And just like my sisters, she knew exactly how to press my buttons.
“No… we have not.”
I bury my face in the pillow that had been crunched up by my fingers in a futile attempt to hide my shame.
“Care to tell me why. I mean, you obviously are attracted to him and… he is to you. You are both engaged, you are even already pregnant anyway. So what is stopping you?”
She was right, she was absolutely correct with everything she said, but that didn’t make it any easier. In fact, it felt like a massive weight was pulling me down when she listed all the reasons it should have already happened. Of course I have thought about it, but… I’m scared.
I wanted to have sex with him again, I really did, but would I behave like last time and pursue him without even asking for his consent again? Would I be too embarrassed to do anything without alcohol? Would he even like to have sex with me with my pregnant belly?
During my coma and in the following week, it had grown a lot. Now it was constantly visible, no matter how I dressed or breathed. My chest has also gotten firmer, and the areola and nipples have begun to darken. In short, I wasn’t really confident that he would want to do it with me while I was pregnant.
I also didn’t want to use any shape shifting, for I feared it might affect the babies somehow.
But instead of voicing any of those concerns, I shifted some of the blame to the other party.
“It’s just been a week, and it’s not just me,… he also hasn’t tried anything,” I said while pouting.
Night after night, he approached the door to my room only to turn back and spend the night alone in his room instead.
“You know you could just ask him.”
…
“Oh yeah, just ask him what a wonderful idea, who would have thought of that.”
The sarcasm dripping from my tongue was thicker than molasses
“I did”
…
““Hahahaha””
For a full minute, we just laughed in unison, allowing me to forget the issue of a potentially sexless marriage. But soon new worries filled the void, and I asked Rika another question that had been on my mind ever since the engagement, maybe even longer.
“Do you think I can do it?”
Instead of answering my cryptic question, Rika looked at me incredulously and asked, almost worried,
“Having… sex?”
I turn my head, my eyes looking back and forth between Rika and my swollen abdomen until Rika bursts out laughing again, and I redo my question.
“No, not that. What I meant to ask was, “Do you think I will be able to be a ‘real’ lady?”
“A real lady, huh? My mother tried to turn me into one, but it never worked, though… B-But I think you could be one.”
Rika spat out the word lady like something foul, only to remember that I would have to be one very soon, so she tried her best to reassure me. It just wasn’t very… convincing.
“Have you never been to tea parties or balls? I mean, your father is baron and a high-ranking knight and all that…”
Rika raised her eyebrow as if she herself disagreed with how I had described her father. But after much deliberation, she answered,
“I attended quite a few since I was twelve until I turned fifteen. Janus Family had sponsored the dresses I wore.”
“How was it?”
Maybe it wasn’t too bad.
“Awful, just pure torture. Everyone was so stuck up their own asses. All the men and boys who wanted to dance with me only wanted to get in my pants.”
“Eww”
An image formed in my head of an old, fat man asking the twelve-year-old, cute Rika for a dance.
“You can say that again, but that wasn’t even the worst. The worst was that they are all so fake. Every conversation is just another game for them. I was never good at it, and neither was my dad.”
Her description didn’t really sound that promising. This was definitely not like one of these balls and tea parties in kids’ movies and fairy tales. It sounded more like a nightmare for my introverted self. Rika sensed my downcast mood and tried to reassure me once more.
“But you will do fine. You are much older and smarter than I was back then, and you will have a strong husband by your side when you go there. But you should still be careful, after all, you know my father, and they knew him, and they still tried to swindle and pursue me. The food was good, though.”
I don’t think I would want to attend something like this just for the food, though. But hearing all this made me wonder,
“Why did you stop?”
Rika seemed to seriously ponder the question before standing up, almost rushing out of the room, mumbling something like,
“I… I will tell you that at a different time. Oh, look, it is already so late. Maybe today you will get lucky.”
I wanted to angrily throw my pillow after her, but she was already gone…
leaving the door wide open!
She really is my big sister, isn’t she?
Urgh.
Annoyed, I stood up and closed the door.
For a few minutes, I just stand in front of the closed door before making a resolution: I store the packages we had wrapped in the big chest that stood right before my bed, and I begin to look through my clothes. There, it was a thin red lingerie that only managed to “cover” my upper body. It would have also barely covered my lower body, but now with the pregnant belly in the way, the thin, see-through fabric couldn’t reach all the way down. Now, only a thick jungle of white pubic hair hid what was beneath.
I had bought it before that fateful night. I still remember how Rika dared me to buy it. Back then, I thought years would go by before it ever found any use.
I took off all other clothing, even my hairband, so my hair loosely covered my back and shoulders, and patiently sat down on my bed. Anxiously, I gripped my bedsheets and rubbed my toes against each other and waited.
And I didn’t even wait that long until I heard familiar steps approaching.
