I moaned, squirmed, and groaned on the bed as a stranger’s hands roamed my slick, naked skin with soft sensual touches that made me melt. This felt sooo good, it was just what I needed. “Oh... yes!! That’s the spot, right there! Give it to me harder!”

Deft, hands briefly halted their progress and a moment later a thumb pressed my sensitive spot, firmly kneading it and making me moan once again as I arched my back in response to that brief explosion of sensation. A sense of relief and relaxation flooded through my body now that the deed was done, and I collapsed back onto the bed, totally spent.

“Geez, Sis, do you have to make everything sound obscenely sexual?” Jessica teased from the massage bed beside mine, where she was getting worked over as well.

My face immediately turned a brilliant shade of Crystal Red TM as I blushed. “Hey! I... well, that strained muscle was really bothering me, and Ginger has magic hands,” I weakly protested before going quiet again to enjoy my massage.

It was early afternoon on New Year’s Eve and, at Mom and Pandora’s insistence, Jessica and I were enjoying some quality sister time together at the spa that Rose’s cousin, Lisa, and some friends of hers had opened for Paranormals in West Edmonton Mall. The two of us and Melody had gotten all the women who worked at Mom and Pandora’s club, Pandora’s Box, vouchers for spa days for Christmas, and they had enjoyed it so much that Mom and her partner/fiancée had insisted that the two of us get pampered a bit as well.

Jess seemed eager enough, but neither of us had ever done anything like it before due to there being no such places in Vancouver for obvious Paranormals like her, and me being a dude back then. I wasn’t going to protest too much since Mom and Pandora were footing the bill and taking my daughter, Selina, shopping while we relaxed and enjoyed ourselves. They had offered Melody and Selina the same deal, but my half-Demon girlfriend wasn’t really interested, and my new daughter was still too skittish around strangers for the intimacy of a massage.

I had originally been against the idea too, but I ended up giving in for three very good reasons. The first reason was that I had a slight mishap in my morning dancing lessons with the Dicken sisters. I had strained a muscle in my back while practicing pole dancing and, while I had been able to cast a healing spell on it during my Divine magic practice with Mom afterward, it was still feeling a little stiff and achy. Mom and Pandora had suggested that the massage might help get rid of that lingering kink in my back.

Reason number two was that my sister and I would be starting school soon. Between that, homework, possibly working at the club when we turned eighteen, finding time for our respective girlfriends, and me having a daughter to raise now, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to spend much time with Jess. We’d always been so close, even before I Manifested, swapped genders, and became a Nymph, and I didn’t want to lose that closeness between us.

As for the third reason, well, let’s just chalk that down to my Nymph vanity. Mom and Pandora knew just what to say to get me to fold as they went on and on about how beautiful they felt after their own trip to the spa. As much as I knew that this vanity and obsession with looking my best could be used to manipulate me, it was still so hard to resist, and I couldn’t help my Nymph compulsions any more than Mom could.

So, now here I was, enjoying a relaxing massage and after that, we would be getting facials, manicures, and pedicures. I had to admit that the massage was very relaxing, and Ginger, my masseuse was turning me to putty in her hands. The intimate contact with the pretty Undine was making me horny though and, while that is hardly an unusual state for me to be in, when combined with relaxation like I was feeling from the massage I was just sort of simmering and too chill to do anything about my currently growing urges. Mom was right, this would be good practice for controlling myself before school started in a few days.

On the plus side, I was now relaxed enough that I barely even noticed the uncomfortable cramps that had been bothering me since I woke up. Maybe it was something I ate? I didn’t think that I had eaten anything different than usual, and I hadn’t had anything with red meat for breakfast today. Brock and Cindy were great cooks too, so they would never let any of us eat anything that wasn’t cooked to perfection while they were cooking our meals. I tried to put the thought out of my mind and just enjoy the massage.

Once we were done with our massages, and feeling almost as relaxed as I would be in a nice field of snow, we had a facial, and then Jess and I talked about whatever came to mind while we got our manicures and pedicures. Mostly it was stuff that was safe to talk about around strangers, like us both being nervous about starting at our new school on Tuesday. We only had three more days after today before we would be at a new school, particularly for Paranormals.

“Don’t worry so much, you’ll both make friends in no time,” Lisa offered as she worked on my sister’s fingernails. “I mean, my cousin seems to like you both and you’ll all be starting together so, it’s not like you’ll be the only new students. It’s a good school too, all of my friends and I went there when we were your age, and the shapeshifting teacher should be able to help Jessica and Rose get over the problem they’re having with their ears and stuff.”

Wendy, an Ice Mage who was currently painting my nails a nice glittery ice blue, quickly agreed. “Yeah, I learned a lot about Ice magic and being a paranormal there. I tell you; it was a big surprise when I used my magic for the first time. My parents are both normies and we were all scared of what was happening until the PDA found out about me and offered to send me to St. Michelle’s. I had so much to learn about magic and Paranormals. I can’t believe I’m working on a Snow Nymph right now; this is sooo cool!”

Wendy seemed like the happy-go-lucky and excitable sort of girl, and she had called dibs on me as soon as she found out from Lisa that I shared her elemental alignment. As for Lisa, my sister had met Rose’s cousin when she and Rose were on their date on Boxing Day. While I appreciated the encouragement that they were both trying to give us, I was far more concerned about the things that I had to keep hidden than meeting new people or how good the teachers were.

I’m a Muse, just like my mother, and that was a secret that I could not risk anyone finding out about. I was already going to get enough attention as a Nymph, if people somehow figured out that I was a Muse as well I would never get any peace and it would put everyone that I cared about in danger. Then there was the fact that I was hosting a symbiotic Fire Elemental in my body and still had no clue how Melody, Carmen, and I were going to explain our matching ‘tattoos’.

With that in mind, I was starting to get paranoid as the first day at our new school crept ever closer. I was constantly worried that I might accidentally use Divine magic or do something else to expose myself. I don’t mind physical exposure since, as a Nymph, I have no sense of modesty and clothes make me uncomfortable and anxious anyway, but the mere thought of exposing my biggest secrets was starting to give me nightmares.

It wasn’t like we weren’t doing anything to prepare though. Over the past four days, Aunt Merry and Annika had intensified the hand-to-hand combat lessons for Jessica and Melody, and while I was still doing my morning dance lessons with the Dicken sisters, followed by hour-and-a-half-long lessons on Divine magic from my mother, the break for lunch after those lessons was just that, only a break. As soon as lunch was over, Annika and Aunt Merry had my sister and Melody sparring to put their lessons into practice and Mom was doing something similar with my magic lessons and having me work on my control, finesse, visualizing, and casting spell after spell to make sure I wasn’t going to have any more slipups.

We all knew that when school started on Tuesday, we would only have time for lessons and practice together on the weekends, so our teachers were pushing us hard. The three of us were so tired by the time the club opened each day that we just spent most of the evenings chilling with the other ‘kids’ who lived above the club. I had to make a concentrated effort just to make sure I spent some time doing mother-daughter type things with Selina each night, though Aislinn doing the same with Sorcha helped me to remind myself to make time for my new daughter.

Melody and I were both so tired by the end of each day that we barely had the energy for a few rounds of sex to keep me from being a complete lust zombie the next day. Being insanely horny and too tired to do anything about it really sucks. We managed to take the edge off my constantly building desire, but I still needed to use my handheld showerhead each morning as well, so I wasn’t too horny to focus properly on my lessons.

All that hard work seemed to be paying off since I was getting much better at ‘being the Light’ and controlling my Divine magic. I could draw on my power or stop myself from doing it unconsciously fairly reliably, and my results when using that half of my magic were becoming more consistent and meeting my mother’s high expectations. I think that all the hard work that Melody, Jessica, and I had been putting in was part of the reason for this trip to the spa as well, Mom and Pandora were worried that we were going to burn out.

Other than our intensive training, most of our time wasn’t spent doing anything too spectacular, just resting for the next day and trying to spend some one-on-one time with my girlfriend, my sister, and my daughter when I could. Selina seemed to be getting more comfortable with the rest of our big, strange family since the Christmas festivities, though sometimes she would still freeze up or have something trigger whatever trauma that her normie family had instilled in the poor girl. I was still trying to be the best Mom I could to her by making time to do the simple things like braiding her hair, tucking her into bed, or being there for her when she had nightmares and came to my room in the middle of the night, but being a mother isn’t easy.

As for Cinder, my symbiotic Salamander seemed to be awake and alert more over the past few days, but she was still technically an infant, and I didn’t think that she or her siblings would be capable of any meaningful two-way communication until after they could stoke a proper flame and materialize outside of our bodies. That was likely a few weeks off still, but we were all trying to talk to them when we could and start instilling some ground rules for them. I wasn’t the only one worrying about somehow accidentally revealing the true nature of our ‘tattoos’ when we started school.

I had to admit that I was feeling very relaxed, and especially pretty, as we thanked Lisa, Wendy, Ginger, and the others who had pampered us before leaving the spa. Melody had been waiting for the two of us in the waiting room, ready to do her job as our bodyguard, so after our thankyous and farewells, we headed straight for the main food court. Mom, Pandora, and Selina would hopefully be awaiting us there, with Aunt Merry and Annika watching over them.

They were indeed there, laden with many bags and enjoying a snack of cinnamon buns while they waited for us. “Whoa, you were all busy,” Jessica said with a grin as we approached, “did you spend all of those gift cards from your birthday and Christmas, Selina?”

My Astrae daughter quickly shook her head. She was still worried about accidentally addressing me, Jess, or my mother in a way that would give us away to the normies, so she hadn’t spoken much before we separated. Aunt Merry had been teaching her more about using selective truths over the past week, but it seemed like she didn’t think she was ready yet.

Instead, my mother answered in her place. “As if we’d let her,” she said with a grin that matched my sister’s. “She can use those when she’s here with Carmen or you girls; today was all about Pan and me spoiling her a bit.”

I wasn’t going to complain about that since I figured it was her right as a grandmother and Selina needed a bit of spoiling after the life she’d led until we met. I merely gave Mom and Pandora a grateful look as Jessica snatched up the last cinnamon bun, leaving Melody and me to fend for ourselves if we wanted a snack before heading home. I looked longingly toward the Dairy Queen and asked, “Do I have time for ice cream before we leave?”

Pandora looked thoughtfully at her watch before nodding and saying, “Yes. We’ll have to leave in fifteen minutes or so if we want to make it home before the club is due to open though.”

I was about to dash over there to get my prize when Melody chuckled and took me by the shoulders. “You sit, Babe, I’ll go get your ice cream. You want the usual, right?”

“You know me so well,” I said before giving her a very enthusiastic thank you kiss that resulted in a dopey grin on her face and me being hornier than I was before and without that feeling of relaxation to counter it. Then my girlfriend was off, and I watched her sexy ass wiggle all the way over to the Dairy Queen. I was thinking some very lusty thoughts as she returned less than five minutes later with a strawberry-dipped cone for her and a chocolate extreme blizzard for me.

I wasted no time digging into my treat as we all talked about our respective afternoons, shopping or at the spa. The sweet, chocolatey, frozen goodness was the perfect treat and satisfied my desire to be around the Ice element nicely. It was almost as good as sex, but unfortunately still came a close second. I moaned in pleasure around my spoonful of bliss prompting my sister to roll her eyes at me, Mom and Pandora to laugh, and Melody’s eyes to dart toward me as she licked at her own frozen treat.

Surely, there were better uses for that tongue. Ice cream is the perfect treat, but the way she was licking that cone made me wish that she was licking something else at the moment. My face felt flushed and only seemed to get hotter, despite my wonderfully frozen snack, as I absently shoveled ice cream into my mouth and watched Melody’s tongue go to town on that cone.

The heat coming from my cheeks was nothing compared to the fire that was being ignited between my legs though. I was so freaking wet down there that it felt like I soaked through another panty liner. Maybe once we were home, we could both enjoy an entirely different tasty treat.

Just great, now I wanted to get Melody into bed as soon as possible. I finished my ice cream as quickly as I could and was still thinking of all the things I wanted her to do to me when another vicious cramp felt like it was twisting my insides. I hadn’t felt this much pain since I Manifested, and my body was being rearranged. Wincing and gritting my teeth, I was determined not to let some stupid tummy ache bother me. I had been through far worse things after all.

Okay, that one was pretty bad, far worse than the ones I could mostly try to ignore earlier in the day. I didn’t even notice that I had let out a groan, or that the expression on my face had garnered the attention of the others at the table until Mom’s voice inquired quietly, “Crystal, are you okay?” As the discomfort subsided, I glanced up from the empty ice cream cup that was now crumpled in my hand to my mother’s face, which bore a very concerned expression.

“I’ll be fine,” I attempted to reassure her with a smile. “It’s just a stupid cramp, I’ve been getting them all morn… nnggg.” I groaned and clutched my abdomen and another of the vicious cramps tore through me.

Mom looked to Jess, who quickly nodded before snatching up both of our purses and saying, “We’ll be back in a few. Come on, Sis, we’re going to the ladies’ room. Mel, you’re with us.”

My sister half-dragged me to the closest ladies’ room, with my girlfriend following close behind. I didn’t really have to go, but I figured it might be a good idea to change my panty liner and find out what had Jessica in such a hurry. Okay, I’m, like, tungsten dense about some things, and in hindsight, this should have been really obvious. Unfortunately, this was one of those times where not growing up a girl, and having to worry about things like this, came back to bite me in the ass, and not in the fun and playful way either.

The restroom seemed to be empty when we entered and my sister led me straight to the last stall, one of the larger ones that was meant for disabled people. She practically shoved me inside before joining me in the stall and locking the door, while Melody waited outside to stand guard. Then, in her most no-nonsense tone, Jess asked, “Do you have tampons in your purse like I told you, or just panty liners?”

“Wait, what are you talking about, Jess? What do some stupid, annoying cramps have to do with… oh.” That was when the lightbulb moment occurred, and I suddenly felt like a complete and utter idiot. “Damn, maybe I really am a bimbo.”

My sister practically crushed me in a hug, which was nice… until Crampzilla 2, the sequel, hit. Then Jessica was holding me up as much as she was hugging me. “You’re not a bimbo, you’re one of the smartest people I know, Sis. You just didn’t have to consider this before you Manifested and telling you about things like this doesn’t really set in until you actually experience it for yourself.”

Once the cramp from hell faded, Jess had me flip up my skirt, drop my panties, and take my seat on the throne. My panty liner was almost soaked completely through and, while a lot of that was likely from me being so turned on earlier, there was quite a bit of blood too. “Ewww,” I protested, wrinkling my nose at the sight of it. This was a part of being a girl that I could have gone without.

“That’s a lot. Did you notice any earlier? When did you last put in a fresh panty liner?” my sister asked as I hesitantly reached in to remove the soiled one. This was sooo gross!

I tried to think calmly and shook my head as I replied, “I think I would have noticed it… and probably freaked out when I last changed liners. I put a new one in just after the massage when we put our panties back on and got into those nice fuzzy robes for our facials.”

“Okay, so maybe about an hour and a half ago,” Jess said pensively. “You’ve been having these cramps all day?”

“Yeah, they weren’t this bad though, and, then I was too relaxed and distracted by the massage to let them bother me.”

Jess sighed but nodded before telling me, “Okay, you should put in a new panty liner, and a tampon as well. Actually, maybe you should go with a tampon and one of the super absorbent pads instead, I got those with your other problem down there in mind, but that seems like a lot of blood for an hour and a half or less. Better safe than sorry.”

“You mean this isn’t normal? From the way you complain about yours…” I began to counter before my sister cut me off.

“Yeah, periods suck, but usually I’m not bent over in agony and squeezing out tears from the cramps, and my flow isn’t that bad either,” Jess stated seriously. “That leaves us with two options. One, you’re a complete and total wimp, which wouldn’t be surprising given how much you whine about the tiniest bruises or scrapes…”

“Hey! I don’t whine... I mean… I don’t get upset because they hurt, it’s because they ruin my perfect complexion and make me feel ugly!” I protested.

“Right. Nymphs are narcissists,” she quickly agreed, “so that leaves option two. Number two is that there is something wrong here. I think we need to get you home to see Dr. Diaz. So, armor up, buttercup, and then hand me your keys. There is no way I’m letting you drive like that.”

I complained, a lot, but I eventually handed over my keys after I added a pad to my panties, my sister coached me on how to properly insert a tampon, and I thoroughly washed my hands. Jess and Melody tried to be reassuring as we all walked back to the pair of tables in the food court, where Mom, Pandora, Selina, Aunt Merry, and Annika were waiting for us. After a brief, hushed conversation between Mom and my sister that had me once again turning that shade of red that I call my own, we gathered our things and headed toward the mall exit that would take us to where we had parked the truck from the club and the Charger.

I was distracted by worries and the occasional agonizing cramps as we made our way to and then through the parking lot, not to mention very disappointed that my sister would be driving instead of me. We had been so busy this week that I hadn’t had the time to drive the Charger much since Lou’s uncle, Barry, had helped us on Sunday to install the mods that I had ‘inherited’ when that bitch Lita had tried to jack my car and get me sold into slavery.

We hadn’t installed everything that Lita had stashed in my trunk that day. Along with the custom roll bar that Barry had managed to get for the Charger, we had installed the NOS injection system, police scanner, and high-temperature brake pads, and tinted the windows. I didn’t really care for the underbody glow kit or the interior LED lighting kit since things like that don’t belong on a classic muscle car, so I gave them to Lou to put in his new-ish car.

Lou’s mom and Barry had teamed up to get him a 2010 Subaru Impreza WRX for Christmas. It was a little over a decade old, but it was in pretty good condition, only needing a bit of bodywork, an engine overhaul, new brake lines, and a decent paint job. Barry would be helping Lou to do all of the work in his garage, and I planned to help whenever I could manage it. Working on the Charger together had been fun and helped us to bond, so we were going to be car buddies.

Instead of getting into the shotgun position when we got to the car, I climbed in the back so I could snuggle with Melody since I wasn’t the one driving. If there was any time when girlfriend cuddles were needed, it was when I was when I was feeling like crap, bleeding from an orifice I wasn’t born with, and suffering cramps that hurt as much as when I broke my arm when I was fifteen. “Careful not to touch the NOS,” I reminded my sister as we all buckled in, and she started the engine.

I hadn’t had time to tell her and Melody how the nitrous injection system worked or any of the safety stuff that Barry had drilled into my head about it yet, so I was a bit worried. “I’m not gonna touch it,” she agreed with a grimace as she looked back at me in the rearview mirror. “I’d be too damn scared to use it.” I was satisfied with that since it wasn’t like she could touch it without deliberately lifting the cover behind the gearshift and pushing the red button that clearly wasn’t standard issue on a 1970 Dodge Charger R/T.

Soon, we were out of the parking lot and on our way home with Annika driving the truck close behind in case we ran into any trouble. Melody held me and softly stroked my hair in an attempt to comfort me, but it wasn’t really helping all that much. I could feel Cinder’s confusion and worry in the back of my mind, a reflection of my own feelings as I wondered what was wrong with me and tried not to show that I was totally freaking out.