Raine: The Lords of Satyr Read Online Free PDF

no such organ to be found here. I contend the phallus has displaced it.”
    “May I put a question directly to the subject?” another man called out.
    “Yes,” Jordan shouted back, before Salerno could. “But I don’t guarantee an answer.”
    “Quiet, please!” Salerno commanded moving to the forefront of the stage. “Only then will we continue.”
    When order was finally regained, the man tossed his query at her. “Do you bleed?”
    “No,” she replied with a shrug. It was an easy question.
    The questioner snapped his fingers. “That’s settles it then. There is no uterus. No womb.”
    “Whether or not a uterus exists is a matter undetermined as yet,” said Salerno. “I’m sure you realize that some women who possess female organs do not bleed, yet they are still female.”
    “Overall, do you have a sense of maleness?” another voice asked her. “Or femaleness?”
    Her eyes found Salerno’s. “Femaleness,” she said defiantly.
    “Never of maleness?” the questioner pressed.
    She hesitated. “That’s difficult to say. For instance, I enjoy needlework and female fripperies. But at the same time, I enjoy male pursuits—riding a good mount or having a stiff drink and a good laugh with friends. Of course, I don’t mean to imply I ride and do needlework literally at the same time.”
    A few uncertain snorts and giggles came and were quickly snuffed. Her interlocutors preferred to think of her as a specimen under a microscope. When she revealed humor, they were uncomfortable and never quite certain what to make of her.
    “Are you now living in society under the guise of female?” someone shouted.
    Salerno held up a hand, rebuffing the question. “The subject’s family forbids that question and all others that might lend clues as to its identity.”
    Grumbles rippled over the audience.
    “I object to the term it, which seems inappropriate and demeaning,” an Englishman wearing spectacles protested.
    “What would you have me called?” Jordan snapped.
    “An abomination!” someone shouted from the back of the theater.
    Heads swiveled backward, peering toward the far end of the center aisle. Two men had entered unnoticed at some point and now stood there.
    Jordan sat forward and shaded her eyes, trying to better see them. The one who’d spoken was rounded with too much flesh, but the other was broad shouldered, narrow hipped, and extremely tall. She felt the tall one’s eyes travel over her. Weighing her. Did he think her an abomination, too?
    She squinted, trying to make out his features, but found it impossible to decipher them clearly through the dimness. His bearing was straight, almost rigid, giving the impression he was well over six feet.
    Her cock perked to attention under his lengthy inspection and she hunched, hugging her arms around her knees to hide it.
    The tall one’s gaze darted up to lock with hers. Sparks of silver caught the candlelight. He’d seen her desire, his eyes told her, and he wanted her as well. But somehow she sensed he didn’t like it.
    “You’re a monster. A creature of the devil,” the squat man beside him stated with unshakable authority.
    The taller one remained silent, ignoring his companion. So he would not defend her. But then why should he? No one ever had. She would defend herself.
    Her eyes shifted from him to the other one. He wore the robes of a bishop. It mattered not what he thought, she told herself, but she could not let his slanderous comments pass unchallenged.
    “Why should my external genitalia define me as a monster?” she argued. “For all you know I could be a saint in my heart.”
    “Blasphemous creature!” the bishop snarled, shaking a finger at her. “It’s obvious you’re no saint.”
    At that moment, a thin, anxious man stepped up to the pair of interlopers at the back of the theater.
    Salerno moved toward the center of the stage, obscuring her view of them. Raising and lowering his arms in a flapping manner, he attempted to