With his flowing black locks, hazel eyes, delicate features and smooth, limber body, Robard was by far the prettiest dancing boy in the kingdom. Because of Robard's looks, members of the opposite sex had begun to approach him while he was still very young, and he'd always had an easy time with the girls. (Watching his body move, one of them had suggested he could earn a fortune in golden coins as a dancer; Robard had tried it, and made a success in the markets that dotted the town.)

Tonight Robard had been performing for a merchant's widow and a few of her most intimate female acquaintances -- his soft, slender form swaying languidly, hair shrouding his face, the black knot of a thong making a triangle at his thighs. And for a moment, as he caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror, he couldn't tell if it was a boy or girl whose reflection danced there.

Then the queen's guards had come for him. Tall, stern-faced, raven-haired women in gleaming black leather. They bore an edict from the queen which commanded them to seize one Robard the dancing boy and to bring him, bound, before the queen. To his questions, they gave no answer, but simply manacled his hands and placed an iron collar about his neck before leading him silently away into the night.

Robard had heard sinister tales whispered of the queen. People spoke uneasily of victims taken, bound as he had been, into the dungeons of the castle -- never to be seen again; of decadent revels, unspeakable perversions and bizarre rituals; of the tortures she visited on her enemies, of the opulent rewards for her friends. The whole kingdom lived in fear of her, and knew themselves to be utterly subject to her whim. But they also knew that it was by the power of her magic alone that the armies of the kingdoms surrounding them had always been broken and held at bay.

Robard's heart hammered in his chest, his mouth gone dry, as he was marched through the gates of the palace and into its deepest recesses. His guards led him to a room that held nothing but several ornately-carved cabinets. They fastened his manacles to ring in the ceiling and compelled to stand on tip-toe, arms stretched high above him. Robard wondered if he was about to be tortured or simply killed, and he prayed for deliverance to every god and goddess in the heavens.

He waited, and years seemed to pass. Just when Robard was certain he would either swoon or die from the suspense, a male slave and a female slave entered the room bearing a steaming bowl of water and a razor. Robard grew weak in anticipation of the tortures to come. He was no hero.

But instead of torturing him, the two slaves merely lathered his body and shaved him everywhere, even his scrotum (except for a small black muff around his organ) -- until he was as smooth and hairless as a woman. Robard trembled with every stroke of the razor's keen edge over his all too sensitive skin -- and his feeling of helplessness increased with every denuded inch of flesh.

When the pair began to work scented oils into his body, softening and perfuming his skin, the dancing boy thought he understood what was expected of him and began to relax. The town's rich older women often liked him to oil his body as a fillip to their amorous escapades. But none had ever required a shaven body before. Still, Robard reflected, he should have no more difficulty satisfying the Queen than he had with any other woman.

Docile, Robard submitted to having his hair curled and fluffed, until it spilled down his shoulder in waves (a lavender orchid braided into it). Then the queen's guards returned, unfastened the manacles, and bound him with a golden chord. When they removed his gag, Robard knew better than to speak. That would come when he was spoken to -- by the queen herself.

Robard had been escorted through another series of corridors before he was tied to a winged post outside the queen's private chambers. He was pondering what favors a queen might grant if he were to particularly please her, when a cool, languid voice broke through his musings. The words carried such casual presumption of authority, he knew at once it must be the queen's voice. And he knew that everything people had whispered about her was true. For in just a few words, the queen decreed a fate so frightening and perverse, that Robard grew faint with fear. He realized that he had never understood real perversity, until now.

"He's pretty enough to be a girl. I heard rumors of a dancing boy who was such and proved the truth for myself by slipping into a tavern incognito. I have always wanted a lover who was a boy turned into a girl. When I saw him, I knew at once he was the perfect subject. He is more girl than boy at heart, as it is."

The dancing boy looked around desperately, trying to conceive a stratagem whereby he might preserve his manhood, some plea or argument by which he might sway his ruler's mind. Then his eye caught his image reflected in a mirror on the opposite side of the hall: the long feminine hair that spilled around his shoulders, the frightened doe-like eyes, the smooth, hairless sweep of the skin from the torso to long, tapering legs, the arch of chest and tilt of pelvis that gave his hips a deep, feminine swell.

Robard expereinced a strange sensation and looked down. To his embarrassment, he saw incontrovertible physical proof that he had become aroused by his own delectable femininity.

At that moment, Robard's manhood began melting away before his horrified eyes. The dancing boy's organ and the sacks below were shrinking, seeming to pull themselves into his pubis. It was so quick he could hardly feel it -- there was only the sensation of his organs somehow flowing. Then the place where his thighs met was suddenly a smooth vee, and the skin between his legs began to dimple in, even as it divided into lips. There was the sensation of a cavity growing inside him.

Simultaneously, a heaviness began to swell in Robard's chest, as his breasts suddenly began to round, the nipples becoming conical -- swelling and ripening, even as his male organs dwindled. Soon two full, firm shapes -- skin and tips so pink and soft, their pathetic vulnerability made him want to cry -- blocked out sight of what took place below his waist.

"I will treat her gently," the queen's laughter was predatory, but not without tenderness, "and gently initiate her into the arts of love. The poor thing will be so bewildered at first, it will be like awakening a trembling bride. Later I may allow her satisfy her curiosity about the male sex. Yes, there are several members of the court she might enjoy."

Suddenly Robard was no longer frightened of becoming a woman.

Copyright © 2000 Jean Marie Stine. All rights reserved.