We went down to the river, my baby and I

“Whoa… this place really is beautiful…” Nick stared at the lake in amazement. The lagoon was gorgeous. Sparkling, crystal blue water glistened in the morning sun, barely displaced at all by the cool breeze. A long, slender waterfall arched perfectly off of a rocky ledge, landing like a ribbon without so much as a splashing sound. The sunlight streamed in through the branches of the trees, and the faintest trace of a rainbow could be seen dancing over the falling cascade.

“It really is…” Morgana mumbled, tugging at her fingers.

“You’re telling me!” Carly cracked a grin. “Let’s get to it already!”

“Carly, wait!” Dani gasped. Before she could stop her partner, Carly had already started stripping off her costume.

It was just as Dani feared/hoped. Unwilling to swim in the steampunk garb, Carly was more than happy to skinny dip. Something Dani had been too embarrassed to wish for when it was just the two of them; but now, with Nick here as well? Ogling her?

She felt her face heat up with shame. She glanced warily over at him, and he realized instantly what her issue was.

“Err… we’ll go this way,” he said, turning Morgana aside just as Carly reached her underwear.

“Really? I don’t mind, you know!” Carly called after him, unlacing her inner corset and unfastening her bra, allowing her massive breasts to bounce free. Without their restraints, they sat high on her chest, and wobbled with every breath she took.

Dani gulped loud enough to be heard across the lagoon.

“I know you don’t!” Nick called back over his shoulder. “But I’m trying to be considerate of your girlfriend! I don’t think she’d much prefer… well, you know!”

Carly blinked, processing what he just said. Then she gasped.

“O-oh!” Her eyes widened. “I didn’t even think about that! Oh, gosh!” She turned to Dani, her face red with shame. “I-I’m so sorry! I was just…”

“No, no, it’s fine!” Dani said, shaking her head. “I’m not jealous, it’s just… okay, maybe I am a little jealous,” she admitted, hanging her head. “But it’s a natural thing. I mean… I’ve gotta get used to it, right? Thousands of guys stare at your body every day. …And I don’t just mean the audience on this stupid show.”

She kicked a rock into the water and sighed.

“I’ve never been in a real relationship before,” she admitted. She glanced at Nick, and lowered her voice low enough so he couldn’t overhear. “With a girl, I mean. Not even… you know. That didn’t really count.”

Carly nodded sympathetically. “Well… if we’re going to make this work…”

Dani sighed. “I know. I’m going to have to get used to it. But is it too much to ask to have you to myself a little bit longer?”

She took Carly’s hand and gave it a squeeze.

Carly beamed at her, and bit her lip, a suggestive gleam shimmering in her eye. “Well…” She murmured, stroking her chin, “I suppose we could see if you’d like to join me…”

“I-I’m not going to skinny dip,” Dani said. “I don’t care if Nick checks out my body, but I still don’t feel comfortable swimming in the nude.

Carly knew that Dani’s lack of modesty where Nick was concerned was a result of her transformation, and so she didn’t press the issue.

“Well, I don’t want you to do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable,” she said. After a pause, she leaned in and kissed Dani on the cheek, startling the other girl.

“Wh-wha?” Dani gasped, her eyes widening.

“I just wanted to see how it would feel,” her partner confessed. “And it wasn’t any different from kissing a boy, really…”

It sure felt a lot different for Dani.

“W-w-w-weeeeelll…” Dani stammered, her tanned skin overpowered by a red blush, “I-I should… I should really… I’m going to go get changed!”

Just because Dani didn’t want to strip naked, that didn’t mean she had no intention of going for a swim. She’d brought her swimsuit just for the occasion. And she knew it was asking a lot of her girlfriend, but she really hoped that Carly might actually check her out in it.

A few minutes later, she came out from behind a tree, and presented herself for Carly’s appraisal.

“Pheeeeew!”

The long whistle she got did wonders for her confidence.

“Damn, you look good!” Carly grinned. Dani smiled, but she knew that Carly was saying that as an appreciative friend, not out of sexual arousal. But still, the compliment was nice.

“No, I mean it!” Carly continued, circling around her. “Hey, you ever consider starting your own account on the site?”

Dani’s jaw dropped. Carly was seriously suggesting…?

“N-no way!” She shook her head frantically. “Nick is one thing, but showing off to a bunch of guys…!”

“Oh, it’s not just guys, though,” Carly assured her. Her eyes flicked over Dani’s figure appreciatively. “Believe me, you’d get all kinds.”

Dani’s heart skipped a beat at Carly’s insinuation. Maybe there was a bit of sexual arousal in that voice after all.

At the same time, while those two were playing around with each other, Nick and Morgana walked around the lagoon, heading towards the waterfall. They wanted some time to themselves, after all, and Nick wanted to be considerate of Dani’s feelings. And Morgana’s, as well.

This date was supposed to be just the two of them. A chance to get to know Morgana a little better, and forge a connection with her. They’d talked a little about books and TV shows she’d liked on the way there (she liked a lot of anime, he found) but they hadn’t connected as much beyond a superficial level.

“This place really is nice,” Nick breathed, as they crossed the grassy landscape and arrived at another small beach on the lake. “I can see why you’d want to come back here. I was surprised at first, when you proposed this.

Morgana swallowed. “R-really?” She asked, looking a little confused. “Why?”

Nick shrugged. “Well, I mean… you never really struck me as the outdoorsy type, you know?” He said. Then he realized how rude that sounded. “I-I mean, it’s not like there’s anything wrong with staying inside or anything, I’m not trying to say that, it’s just…”

“N-no, I get it,” Morgana said, shaking her head. She still looked a little sad, though. “Going on a hike… it’s definitely not the norm for me, either…”

Nick sat down on the sandy beach and stared up at her, curious. “So… why, then? Were you trying to shake off that stereotype? I mean, look, Morgana, you don’t have to do something like that…”

“No!” Morgana shook her head quickly. “It’s not like that at all, I promise,” she assured him.

Now Nick was curious.

“Not like what?” He asked. If he’d said something wrong, he certainly hadn’t meant to. “I’m sorry, I just put my foot in my mouth, didn’t I?” He sighed. “Let me guess, you’re like Dani and Carly, and like nerdy stuff AND the outdoors, huh?”

Morgana winced.

“It’s… more complicated than that,” she sighed, sitting down next to him. She hugged her legs to her chest, and shifted a little in the sand. She still wasn’t used to her large chest, even after almost two rounds of it. Her reflexive response was to hug her legs like this when she felt nervous, and having big boobs made that really difficult.

Nick stared quietly at her, and understood that she must have been coming from somewhere serious.

“Well… would you like to tell me about it?” He asked gently.

She looked up at him with sad eyes.

“…Okay,” she nodded. “See, the truth is… I didn’t always used to be a shut in, like I was when we met. I was always shy, but I still liked playing outside.”

That was a bit of a surprise. Nick expected that Morgana had always been shy, but to hear that she actually liked the outdoors? That was a shock. Her complexion was so pale, he’d have believed it if she said she’d never stepped one foot out of her house in all her eighteen years of life.

“…So what happened? If you don’t mind me asking, I mean?” He pressed, trying not to sound too insistent. Morgana didn’t seem to mind, though.

“It was a bunch of stuff,” she mumbled, resting her chin on her knees. “But mainly… it was because of my cousin.”

Nick blinked. “Your cousin?” He asked cautiously.

Morgana nodded glumly. “Her name is Karen. And she’s just so perfect.”

The word “perfect” left her lips like a slur. For the first time, Nick thought he saw a flash of anger cross Morgana’s face.

“Karen is a few years older than me,” Morgana said. “She’s twenty. When I was a kid, we used to play together. Back then, I thought I was a normal girl. But I wasn’t. I was a loser who didn’t know I was a loser yet.”

“Morgana!” Nick cried. He couldn’t believe she would say that about herself.

“What?” Morgana scowled. “It’s true. I was a loser then, and I’m a loser now! Whenever we played anything, Karen would always beat me. If I went on the swings? Karen would always go higher. If we played tag? Karen would always tag me, and I could never lay a finger on her. She beat me at everything, and she made it look so simple, I just-! Aarrgh!”

Morgana growled and groaned, and scraped up a handful of sand. She flung it at the water in frustration and let out a huff.

Nick was shocked. This level of aggression… he was used to Morgana collapsing in on herself and getting frustrated, but it usually manifested as sadness and tears.

Right now, he was seeing her angry.

Morgana seemed to realize that something was wrong herself, because her face reddened with shame.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized, looking down at the ground. “What an embarrassment. I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t be making this your problem.”

She shook her head.

“It’s just… when I think about Karen, I get so-!” She had to catch herself again. She was making those same mistakes. Again.

A sigh escaped her lips.

“My parents, they always liked Karen better than me. They were always talking about how great she was, and comparing her to me. They didn’t do it directly, of course, there wasn’t anybody saying ‘oh, Karen’s so much better than you!’ but when they do nothing but praise her achievements, and I’m just scraping by…”

She sighed again.

“Karen got a full scholarship to an ivy league school. That’s what my family told me, when I showed them a test I did really well on. She got to skip a full grade and go to college a year early, while I was practically flunking out due to all my bullying problems.”

Morgana looked like she was about to cry.

“I really tried, you know? When I was a kid, I wanted to be just like her! I tried out for peewee soccer, because Karen had been on the team when she was a kid! But I couldn’t move my body right, I had terrible coordination! And my parents… they cheered for me, sure, but I could see how disappointed they were… disappointed in me…”

No more “about” now. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. Morgana knew in her heart that she should be controlling her emotions, that unloading all this stuff on Nick was crossing a line. After all, just because he was trying to get to know her better, that didn’t mean he wanted to know about all of THIS. This stuff… it wasn’t the kind of stuff that she should be sharing on a first date. Or a tenth date.

But she couldn’t keep it in anymore. She finally had someone she could confide in. Someone who would take her side over Karen’s. And she wanted that more than anything.

“I stopped playing sports and stuff when I got to middle school… why even bother, you know? Karen can do sports. SHE can win trophies…” She gazed out sadly over the water. “At some point, I didn’t even want to leave my room.”

“Morgana…” Nick didn’t know what to say to that. He was an only child of two only children. He’d never been compared to a family member growing up, not the way Morgana clearly had.

“When I started dressing like this, wearing black, dyeing my hair, at first, I thought I was doing it for attention,” Morgana mumbled, tugging at her shirt. “So my parents would notice me, you know? Instead of only caring about my cousin? But after a little while, I realized that wasn’t it at all. I didn’t want them to notice me. I just… I didn’t want to be their daughter anymore. I wanted to be my own person. Someone who wasn’t related to Karen. A powerful, cool witch, who could do all sorts of things my cousin never could… and I just sort of ended up like this.”

Nick nodded numbly. Finally, Morgana was making sense to him in a way she never had before. “I… I know what you mean,” he admitted.

Morgana’s eyes widened and she stared at him in shock.

“You… you do?” She stammered, shaking her head.

He nodded. “Yeah. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think it’s really twisted, being put into a situation like that,” he sighed. “After all, you’re just a kid! Your parents shouldn’t be comparing you to your cousin, no matter what she does! You’re a great girl, Morgana!”

Morgana blushed, happy in spite of the fact that she knew he was probably just saying that to make her feel better.

“…No, I’m not,” she mumbled, shaking her head and burying her face in her knees again. “I’m just a loser.”

Her words were muffled, but Nick still heard them. He placed a comforting hand on her back.

“I’ve never had a Karen in my life,” he said. “But I know what it’s like to wish you could become someone else. Someone who didn’t have to deal with your problems. Who could live a better life than you. When I was younger… you wouldn’t believe how much I wished I could be someone else.”

His childhood, his real childhood, was filled with painful moments. Dakota had given him a false world, a reality where she had lived by his side, but he couldn’t open those memories anymore. Now that she’d become what she’d become, he couldn’t believe the pretty little lies anymore.

Nick could only see the emptiness of Dakota’s absence now. Both in the past… and, in a way, in his present as well.

“I wished I could be a normal kid, someone who didn’t have to deal with losing my best friend,” he confessed. “But I couldn’t. I had to accept that what had happened… it happened. That it was a part of me.”

Morgana knew she had to accept it, too. Accept that she was her cousin’s cousin, and no amount of wishing she was a witch would change that.

“I think I just realized why Dakota gave me that dream…” She mumbled to herself.

“Huh? What was that?” Nick thought he’d heard Dakota’s name, but Morgana quickly shook her head.

“No, it’s nothing,” she stammered. But the emotions she’d felt in that moment were real.

If I hadn’t touched that mirror… if I hadn’t become that person… then I’d still be clinging to that fantasy, she thought, turning to look out over the lagoon. She stood, and walked over to the edge of the lake, and peered down into the crystal-blue waters.

Her face stared back at her, puffy eyes and all. She wiped some snot from her nose.

Dakota helped me realize that I can’t keep being a witch. I can’t keep running from who I am… even if it’s painful. My dream… it’s supposed to be to help please Nick, right? Maybe… maybe getting over myself… maybe that’s for his sake, as much as mine. So I can be free from my insecurities and doubts.

Morgana turned back to Nick, who was staring at her curiously. She took a deep breath, and let it go.

“I don’t know what I want to do with myself,” she admitted. “I’m a teenager who has no idea how the world works. My grades suck, my hobbies aren’t much better, and I’m completely unequipped for dealing with the real world.”

Those confessions were for her sake as well as his. She approached him with a sad, yet resolved expression on her face.

“I’m not pretty, or successful, and I have no idea if I ever will be, given how much of a loser I am,” she informed him. Nick’s eyes widened when he heard that.

“Morgana!” He said, standing up and reaching out to her, but she stepped away from him and shook her head.

“It’s the truth,” she said firmly. “Hell… I didn’t… I didn’t even know if I wanted to be with you or not! I built up some twisted, childish fantasy in my head, and where did it get me? Nowhere! I just… I just became someone who isn’t even really me! Fawning over a guy I barely knew, a guy I spent so long obsessing over… and I didn’t even try to get to know you as a person!”

She felt like such a loser. Tears started to well up in her eyes again.

“I wanted my first kiss to be special,” she admitted. “And it was on the Ferris Wheel, just as I’d hoped… but so what? It was just a kiss! I spent so long fantasizing about it, but it wasn’t anything special at all, just like me!”

Nick felt hurt when he heard that. “You didn’t like it?” He asked.

“Of… of course I liked it,” she stammered, realizing she wasn’t just ranting at the air. She was actually having a conversation with another person. “But it wasn’t like my fantasies.”

Nick sighed. Yeah. He’d been afraid of that.

“Morgana… life isn’t some big fantasy. It’s just life. I know you built up your first kiss to be some big, amazing thing, and you probably built up your first time having sex to be the same, right? But… the truth is, reality is a lot more boring than we’d like it to be.”

Morgana blinked in confusion and raised her eyebrow.

Nick realized how dumb that sounded. “…Okay, yeah, you’re right, we’re on a reality show set in a magic hotel that we were summoned to, but… okay, that’s not the point!” His cheeks flushed as his analogy started to get away from him. “The point is that what we’re going through… that’s not normal, no. But things like kisses and sex… those are normal. And it’s okay to be normal like that, and it’s okay when those things don’t live up to our expectations.”

“…Didn’t you have a threesome with two 10/10 beauties last night?” Morgana pointed out.

Okay, Nick wasn’t getting through the way he’d hoped.

“Morgana…”

“Look, my first time, it’s not going to be like that!” She wailed. “I get it, okay!? It’s going to be normal and boring, and I’m just… I…”

Nick saw her hands shaking.

“Morgana… are you afraid?”

She stiffened, and he realized he’d landed right on the money.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” He took a step closer to her. “You’re afraid of having sex?”

Morgana took a step back, closer to the water’s edge. She averted her eyes, knowing he’d see the truth in them.

“I just… I know it’s not going to be like I’ve built it up in my head,” she muttered, feeling disappointment and shame at her expected failure preemptively welling up inside her. “It’s going to hurt, it’s going to be awkward… and I probably won’t even be very good at it! In… in my fantasies… it’s something amazing and special and life-changing. But in real life…”

Nick nodded. As someone who’d spent a great deal of his adult life not even coming close to sex, most of his experience with it had been through porn. And he’d be the first one to say that watching all that porn had given him a lot of unrealistic expectations about what actual sex would be like. Sure, the fact that he’d been brought into a twisted show like this had softened the blow, compared to if he’d had a sloppy and fumbling first time with a girl back on earth, but that didn’t mean his own expectations hadn’t been wildly off the mark.

He could completely understand why Morgana was so apprehensive about this whole thing.

“Morgana…”

“And… and it’s going to be my fault, too!” She blurted out, taking another step back. Now she was right up to the edge of the lagoon. “You’ve had sex with so many girls, and they all loved it, and couldn’t wait to have more, but when it comes to me, I just know I’m going to be such a disappointment because I’m such a loser and I just won’t be able to satisfy you because I’ve never done it before and when I think about that and realize how much I’m going to suck I just get so worked up and I can’t even think straight and I feel like I just want to- WHAAAAAA!”

Morgana had broken out into a explosion of words that would have given Nola a run for her money, while she flailed about and her eyes swam in her head.

And then she slipped.

SPLASH!

Morgana crashed down into the lagoon with a scream, and began to thrash in the water.

“Morgana!” Nick cried, rushing over to her. He was about to jump in and save her before he realized that they were on a beach. She hadn’t fallen into the deep end of a pool, or… a river.

She was flailing about in water that was less than an inch deep. And once he realized that, he pushed down his trauma-induced danger response and tried to calm down, as Morgana realized for herself that everything was okay.

She picked herself up out of the water, her clothes wet and clinging to her, and her face burning with shame.

“I can’t believe I just did that…” She mumbled, slapping the ball of her palm against her forehead. “Stupid, stupid!”

“It’s okay, you just slipped,” Nick said. He had finally gotten close enough to her now, where he could hug her.

To his relief, that seemed to calm her down. Unfortunately, there was a part of him that wasn’t calm at all.

Nick’s erection throbbed insistently against Morgana’s leg. They looked at each other, and blushed. Morgana’s spiel from moments earlier had been laced with her Sotto Voce transformation, and every word had ratcheted up his arousal until now he wanted nothing else but to push her down into the water and have his way with her.

If not for his awareness of her insecurities and fears about sex, he would have done exactly that. And in the moment, judging by her flushed cheeks and the desire burning in her eyes, she wanted that too, he could tell.

But they didn’t.

Nick pulled away from her, embarrassed.

“S-sorry,” he said, trying to adjust his clothes to hide the obvious erection, which only drew more attention to it. “I should have been a little more discreet… it’s just…

“N-no, it’s fine,” she mumbled. “It… it wouldn’t be the first time.”

Morgana was split in two directions if she was being honest with herself. On the one hand, every word she’d said about feeling unsure and unprepared for sexual intercourse had been the truth. She did feel inferior when compared to the other women in Nick’s harem; even Kim and Sylvia, her fellow virgins!

But on the other hand, she’d performed for him more than once, at the insistence of Nick himself and other girls as well. And when she saw that her voice had given him an erection, and feeling that desire for her throbbing even as he held her close and tried to comfort her…

It actually felt good.

I did that, she thought, unable to keep her eyes off the tent in his pants. I made him aroused, me. All on my own. He wants me, he really wants me.

It wasn’t just the transformation. She’d seen the hunger in his eyes when he looked at her. It might have been because her body wasn’t her old one anymore, but in the moment, what she cared about… was that he was seeing her for her.

He wanted her. He didn’t want Karen. He didn’t give a damn about her cousin. He’d listened to Morgana’s issues… and taken her side.

“I… I think…” Her voice caught in her throat. “I think… I want to do it,” she stammered. “Have sex with you, I mean.”

Nick’s jaw dropped. And so did Morgana’s.

She couldn’t believe she’d just said that!

“N-not right here!” She exclaimed, waving her hands frantically. “I just meant, um, eventually! That’s what I meant!”

They both noted that she hadn’t turned down the possibility of tonight.

“Morgana, are you sure?” He asked. “I-I don’t want to pressure you or anything like that.”

“You’re not,” she said, rapidly shaking her head from side to side. “What I mean is that… what you said to me… the way you’ve treated me… it’s made me realize… you really do see me, don’t you? The real me, I mean.”

“I’ve always tried to see the real you,” Nick said. “I don’t know everything, but… I know that I care about you, Morgana, and I’ve tried to get to know you as best I can. Today, and before that, too.”

Morgana’s eyes watered. “And that’s what I like about you,” she smiled, wiping her eyes. “How kind and understanding you are… how much you care.”

It might have been a small thing to someone else. But to someone like Morgana, who’d always been overlooked in favor of her cousin?

To have someone see her for who she was, was something special indeed. If she were the fanciful girl from a few weeks ago, she would have been certain it was love. But even if she had a better grasp on reality and wasn’t as inclined to flights of fancy, she was still sure- these strong feelings, they were real. And even if her first time wasn’t the special event she’d built up in her mind, it was still something she wanted to share with him.