In his years in Madam Esgara’s house he’d seen too many men who thought themselves tough and smart make fools of themselves over women and boys. He wasn’t sure if he would have become like that if he’d gotten his male parts back, but he suspected it was likely. It was probably best this way, having the appearance of masculinity without the vulnerability to women or the urgent need for them.

---

The Manumission Game

Part 2 of 6

by Trismegistus Shandy

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Five days later, Ftero and Tyngsen returned to Gurefkam’s office at sunset. Tyngsen had not left Ftero’s house since his previous visit to Gurefkam’s office, and he had not seen much of his uncle, except when he rose early enough to eat breakfast with him, or was up after midnight to see him come home and stagger to his bed. Ftero was still at war with Sgadrim’s lieutenants, who were still at war with each other; he had carved off several blocks at the edge of Sgadrim’s former territory and was pretty confident he would be able to hold on to them. He told Tyngsen a little about the progress of the war when they ate breakfast together, but he rarely took his other meals at home these days.

Gurefkam let them in and led them downstairs into a windowless cellar, its ceiling shrouded with the smoke from dozens of tallow candles.

“You haven’t eaten or drunk anything in the last six hours, have you?” Gurefkam asked.

“No,” Tyngsen said.

“If you need to use the toilet, do it now.”

Tyngsen didn’t need to.

“Undress and step into that circle there. Ftero, you may sit in the chair yonder, or in the waiting room upstairs. Be quiet, in any case.”

Gurefkam reviewed with Tyngsen the part of the spell he would need to recite, which he had given him to study in the interim. Once satisfied that Tyngsen had memorized it thoroughly, he undressed and stepped into another circle a short distance from the other, where a small cauldron sat on a smoldering brazier. He began speaking the spell while putting pinches, drops and whole handfuls of various substances from jars, vials and baskets into the cauldron. Tyngsen listened carefully for his cues, and chimed in at the appropriate points with his parts of the spell. He didn’t feel anything obviously magical going on.

A long time passed — there was no clock in the room, and Tyngsen measured the time by the increasing aches in his feet and legs and back. Gurefkam had warned him not to sit down during the spell, or step out of the circle, though he could move around within it or change his stance as necessary to minimize his discomfort. The nudity didn’t bother him; he’d been exposed to the eyes of strangers and enemies so many times, and suffered far worse humiliations nearly as often, that being exposed to two men he trusted was nothing.

Finally, just after he spoke his last spell-part, he closed his eyes as Gurefkam had warned him to do. There was a flash of light that penetrated his closed eyelids so that little sparks danced before his eyes for some time after he opened them. When his eyes finally adjusted to the dim light, he looked down at himself and saw a flat, hairy chest, a slightly less hairy belly below, and a penis and testicles dangling between suddenly hairy legs. He hadn’t felt anything except the flash of light. He touched his chest and felt the soft, hairless breasts, touched between his legs and felt the numb scar tissue around his nether lips. To the eye, his fingers were grasping his non-existent penis.

He looked up at Gurefkam and glanced aside at Ftero, who was looking at him in astonishment. Gurefkam poured water over the coals in the brazier, then stepped out of his circle and said, “It is done. You can rest now.”

“It looks perfect!” Ftero said enthusiastically, and Tyngsen added,

“Yes, thank you ever so much. And thank you, Uncle, for paying for this.”

“I would have done even more for my only nephew, if I could have. If there were a unicorn left alive I’d hunt it down and tear its horn off with my bare hands. And — your voice is deeper, too, isn’t it?”

Tyngsen’s own voice hadn’t sounded any different to him, but he trusted his uncle’s perceptions.

“Here,” Gurefkam said, turning on the light switch, “take a look at yourself.” He picked up a hand-mirror from a table in the corner, and held it up to Tyngsen’s face.

Tyngsen saw a square jaw and faint stubble covering his lower cheeks and chin. He touched his face and felt skin as smooth as before.

“Get dressed,” Gurefkam said, “and I’ll show you how the spell works with a camera.” Tyngsen put his clothes on, and noticed that his pants appeared to bulge slightly at the crotch. After snuffing the candles, Gurefkam picked up a Tachyeidolon from the table, and took a snapshot of Tyngsen’s head and shoulders. Moments later Tyngsen and Ftero watched as the photo developed before their eyes, showing Tyngsen’s new masculine face.

“It’s looks good,” Ftero said.

“It’s perfect,” Tyngsen said. “Thank you again.”

“I’ll have the other half of the money to you by noon today,” Ftero added.

Gurefkam nodded. “It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Boss Ftero, as always. Good day.”

It was just past dawn when they went out the front door. Ftero drove Tyngsen home, and took a brief nap before going out again. Tyngsen slept much of the day, then spent some time looking at himself in the full-length mirror in the bathroom before he descended and asked Ftero’s cook for something to eat. This would do, he thought. He was secretly glad that Gurefkam hadn’t been able to restore him. In his years in Madam Esgara’s house he’d seen too many men who thought themselves tough and smart make fools of themselves over women and boys. He wasn’t sure if he would have become like that if he’d gotten his male parts back, but he suspected it was likely. It was probably best this way, having the appearance of masculinity without the vulnerability to women or the urgent need for them.

---

After a day’s rest to recover from the spell, Tyngsen told his uncle that he was ready to go to work, and Ftero assigned him to follow Tesro on his daily rounds, and help him out with various tasks. He worked various small jobs in different parts of Ftero’s organization over the next couple of years, and took Symsar’s potion once a month, and worked out — Ftero had a weight machine in his basement, which he was usually too busy to use nowadays. Gradually he built up muscle and became nearly as strong as the illusion would lead people to think. His uncle, who had been placing spies in Sgadrim’s organization, had them search all of Sgadrim’s bordellos for Kisri; they learned that she had been in Madam Kurenga’s bordello, but had died of the pox a few months before.

Tyngsen learned the business quickly, and acquired the respect of Ftero’s people. By the time he was nineteen, Ftero put him in charge of protection for one of the bordellos in his territory. A few years later, he was in charge of all of them — not the management of the prostitutes themselves, but of the enforcers who ensured that the customers didn’t make trouble, and made the houses too hard a nut for the police to crack. He got on well with the girls and boys and madams; from his years in Madam Esgara’s house he knew how to treat them and how not, and they liked him because he was friendly without being pushy, and never asked them for sexual favors like his predecessors.

But eventually, that forbearance led to some talk, which gradually got back to him; he realized that his celibacy was undermining his men’s respect for him. He knew what he needed to do about that; it could, he thought, combine neatly with a plan he had been maturing ever since his escape. He’d been saving money ever since he started working for his uncle, and now he hired Kuspar, a freelancer who wasn’t too closely associated with Ftero’s organization and thus wouldn’t be viewed with suspicion by Madam Esgara’s successor.

He gave Kuspar his instructions; the man asked a few questions, then nodded and departed. That evening he met Tyngsen at a restaurant his uncle owned, and told him what he’d learned.

“She’s still alive, still there. Madam Skyngsa says she’s pretty popular with the customers and she wouldn’t think of selling her for less than fifteen thousand marks.”

Tyngsen nodded, relieved to hear that his friend still lived. “Good. Try to talk her down some, but if I have to pay that much, I can.”

“If you’re not in a hurry, and you don’t think anyone else is likely to come along and outbid you, I’d suggest that I wait a couple of days before I go back. If Madam Skyngsa thinks you don’t care that much about the girl, she’ll more likely be willing to take our lower offer.”

Tyngsen chewed his lip and thought. “No... I don’t know why anyone else would be trying to buy her just now, if she’s stayed there all this time. I don’t like her staying there longer than necessary... but she’s been there so many years a couple of days longer won’t hurt. Use your judgment.”

Kuspar nodded. “I think I can talk her down to twelve thousand easy, maybe ten thousand.”

Three days later, Tyngsen sat on the edge of the seat of an easy chair in the furnished apartment he had just rented, anxiously waiting for Kuspar to show up, or to call him. What if something had gone wrong? What if somebody else had taken an interest in her at the worst possible time, and outbid him? Or if she’d fallen victim to a drunken customer just now, when she was days or hours away from being free...?

There was a knock at the door. Tyngsen jumped up and ran to open it.

There was Kuspar, and standing a little behind him and to his left, a slender pretty girl a couple of inches shorter than Tyngsen. She looked apprehensive, and her first sight of him didn’t seem to relieve her apprehensions. Of course, she wouldn’t recognize him at first glance.

“Come in,” Tyngsen said. Kuspar entered, and the girl followed, looking around curiously.

“I got her for eleven thousand,” Kuspar said with satisfaction.

“Good,” Tyngsen said. “Then your commission is...” He did the math in his head. “Eleven hundred. And I gave you 16,500, and you gave Madam Skyngsa eleven thousand, so I should get forty-four hundred back.”

“I’ve got it right here,” Kuspar said, lifting his valise onto the table. The girl looked on with vague curiosity at these proceedings.

“Wait,” Tyngsen said. “I know I can trust you to say nothing about this. But I have nothing to be ashamed of, and not much to hide. You can keep another thousand of the remainder if you’ll tell people what I want them to know, not as though you brokered the deal yourself, but as though you heard about it from a friend... does that work?”

“That works,” Kuspar said. “What do you want known and what hidden?”

“Listen and learn,” Tyngsen said, and then, turning to the girl: “You did me a good turn once, and I’m returning the favor now. I’ve bought you from Madam Skyngsa, and I’m going to manumit you within the next couple of days, as soon as we can get an appointment with a magistrate. And this apartment is yours; I’ll pay for it until you are in a position to pay for it yourself, or move into other lodgings you like better.”

“I... don’t remember helping you, sir, but I thank you with every string of my heart!”

“I’ll remind you about it later, after Kuspar leaves. Just a moment more, please.” Turning back to Kuspar, he said: “You can mention my name, but not hers. The fact that I’m manumitting her, and putting her up in an apartment, but not where the apartment is.”

“Got it,” Kuspar said, and repeated back his instructions. Then he counted out 3,400 marks from the valise, and handed them over.

“It’s a pleasure doing business with you,” he said.

“Likewise,” Tyngsen said, and saw him out. When the door was closed, he said to the girl, “Relax, make yourself at home. Can I make you some coffee or tea?”

“Tea would be nice,” she said cautiously, apparently unable to believe her good fortune — suspicious, perhaps, that the offer to manumit her was a trick. She sat down on the sofa, but didn’t lean back and relax.

Tyngsen went to the kitchen and started brewing a pot of tea, then returned and sat in the easy chair — near her, but not crowding her.

“You don’t recognize me, Suryndra,” he said; “I look a lot different from when you saw me last. My name is Tyngsen, but you knew me as Pindra.”

“Pindra!” she said, eyes wide, and gaped at him for a few moments. “What happened? Some people said you’d escaped, and some that you’d been killed trying to escape, but I figured if that was true they’ve have shown us your body as a warning...”

“I escaped,” he confirmed. “I would have gotten you and some of the others out as well, if I could, but I couldn’t figure out how... I went to my uncle, Boss Ftero. He was Boss Sgadrim’s rival — you remember —”

“I remember, you told me how you and your sister were taken because your father and uncle pissed Sgadrim off.”

“Well, my uncle paid a sorcerer to do this,” gesturing at his face and body, “— I’ll explain about that soon, it’s not quite what it looks like. And I’ve been working for him, and saving money, and making inquiries about what it would cost to get you out of there. And now you’re free to do as you like, and you’ll be legally free in a day or two.”

Tears were starting up in her eyes. “Thank you, Pindra!” She rose, approached him, and embraced him before he could react. He tensed for a moment, then relaxed and hugged her back.

“You feel softer than you look,” she said, confused.

“I’ll explain about that,” he said, and told her about the impossibility of restoring his manhood by sorcery, and Gurefkam’s illusion spell, and Symsar’s potion.

“So I’ve still got small breasts, under this illusion,” he said. “You’re the first person in the last eight years to get close enough to me to feel them.”

“And...?” She glanced at his crotch, and he nodded.

“I still have to sit down to pee. My subordinates think I’ve got a chronic case of the runs. Everyone knows I disappeared, was kidnapped by one of Uncle Ftero’s enemies when I was a child, and escaped several years later. And there are rumors that they did... bad stuff to me. But Gurefkam and Symsar fixed me up — everyone thinks. Only now...” He explained about the rumors that were circulating to explain his being celibate in spite of being surrounded by prostitutes who, if not directly under his orders, were encouraged by their madams to keep the security staff happy.

“You can do whatever you want,” he said again. “I really want to stress that. If you don’t want to help me, I can find someone else. But I thought I’d ask you first, since you already know my secret, and I wouldn’t have to trust a stranger with it.”

“Help you how?” she asked.

“Pretend to be my mistress,” he explained. “I’ll pay for your apartment and your groceries and so forth, and nice clothes, and come visit a couple of times a week and we can play pangkar and talk about old times. And people will find out I’m coming to see you and paying for your apartment, and assume we’re having sex, and they won’t gossip about me being queer or impotent anymore. For you, well, you get all the benefits of being a powerful man’s mistress without actually having to have sex with some guy whenever he wants it. If you meet somebody and want to have an affair with him, that’s fine, just tell me about it and we’ll figure out a way to keep people from finding out. Or if you want to get married, that’s fine too; I can find another woman to help with my cover story.”

“I’ll be happy to help,” Suryndra said. “You say I’m free to do whatever, but I don’t want to go away. You were my closest friend before you escaped, and I don’t know anybody outside of Madam Skyngsa’s house except you. I’ll be happy to help you.”

“Thank you,” he said. “If you ever get tired of this arrangement and want to do something else, tell me. I’ll help you find someone to teach you whatever trade you want, I’ll buy you a ticket to anywhere you want to go. — Hmm, I think the tea should be ready by now.”

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I'll probably post part three in about a week.

A Notional Treason, a transgender fantasy of manners in the same setting as Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes and When Wasps Make Honey, is now available from Smashwords in EPUB format and from Amazon in Kindle format.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

"The Manumission Game" is inspired by (though not exactly a sequel to) an old story from the Transformation Stories Archive. I'll identify that story and its author in an afterword after part six is posted, but you're welcome to speculate about it in the comments. Probably it will be obvious to people who remember the story in question by the end of part four, if not part three.