The scent of old jasmine clung to the air. Once, it had been the signature perfume of the Old Willow Tea House—a place of calm reverence and whispered poetry. Now, the only whispers were of decay.
Cael had lived in its shadow since birth, heir to a forgotten legacy and squandered dignity. Born to merchants, orphaned young, he inherited the crumbling building and none of the grace that once filled its chambers. Instead, he filled them with wine, wasted coin, and women whose names he never remembered.
That night, the lanterns were low and flickering, and the floor still sticky from spilled plum wine. He didn't care. He'd stumbled home with Mira on his arm, a working girl from the Red Lantern Hall, all curves and quiet disdain. She hadn't even asked his name. Just took his coin and kissed him like it was duty.
They collapsed onto a dusty mat in the inner room, the one where his grandfather had once hosted philosophers. Now, it reeked of wine and sweat. Mira's robe slipped as she knelt over him, hair brushing his chest, eyes half-lidded but sharp.
"You don't look like you can finish what you started," she murmured.
Cael smirked drunkenly, gripping her hips, pulling her onto him.
It was then—the first thrust, a strange jolt not just of sensation but of soul. The world turned white-hot. A voice, distant and inside him, whispered like silk on skin:
[Rebirth Detected: Initiating Ecstasy System…]
He gasped.
Not from pleasure.
From pain.
From awakening.
Something uncoiled within him. Not just awareness—but memory. A thousand stolen kisses. The scent of a woman's skin beneath moonlight. Softness he'd once worshipped, not possessed. A life—not of this man Cael—but hers.
Her.
I was a woman.
Mira's body rocked above him, moving with practiced rhythm. But the hands beneath her were no longer drunken and aimless. They were still—then trembling—then reverent.
Cael could feel her.
Not just skin. Every inch. Every contraction. Every flutter deep inside. The warmth. The tension. The sharp sweetness at the edge of control.
His breath hitched.
Her hips rolled. His mind split.
So this is what it's like… from the outside.
But I remember the inside.
Gods.
It was too much.
Cael arched beneath her, a moan caught in his throat. Mira groaned softly, unaware of his internal storm.
His hands mapped her body like a lover rediscovering language. The curve of her spine. The dimples above her hips. The warmth of her thighs around him—alive, responding, herself.
He remembered being touched like this. And now… touching.
He wasn't drunk anymore.
She was reborn.
Her breath caught.
Not Mira's—hers.
The woman inside the man. The soul newly awakened, still stitching memory to muscle.
The moment Mira moved above her—no, him—it was like stepping into a dream already half-lived. Familiar, but flipped. She had known the curve of thighs from within; the flutter of tension as fingers trailed along ribs; the rhythmic ache that grew like a tide rising in the womb. But now—now every sensation came from the outside in.
Heat gripped him, centered low in his stomach and surging outward in waves. Mira's body, flush against his, felt like poetry—every undulation a stanza, every gasp a verse.
And yet, what struck her wasn't just the intensity. It was the difference.
As a woman, climax had been a swell—a deep blooming, full of ache and stretch and surrender.
Now it was a storm barreling toward a cliff.
Each time Mira moved, her slickness enveloped him like a velvet trap. His—her—hips responded with instinct neither had rehearsed. Mira's body was soft thunder, her breasts swaying, her mouth parting with sighs that once would have been hers.
And there was confusion—sharp and electric. Each time Mira ground against him, he remembered what that had felt like from the inside.
She knew that tremble.
She knew that desperate search for friction, the secret push of hips that begged without words.
And now she gave it.
Her hands gripped Mira's waist not with hunger, but with awe.
It wasn't just sex—it was alchemy.
Their bodies fit like puzzle pieces carved by different gods. She could feel the echo of herself in Mira's need: the tilt of her pelvis, the breath caught just before pleasure, the brief flutter of eyes when control began to slip.
It was… sacred.
Shame and ecstasy danced together as Mira began to truly lose herself. Her moans weren't practiced now. They broke from her throat like prayers torn from an unwilling mouth.
And then—
A shift.
His—her—vision blurred. The pressure, the heat, the pulse became unbearable.
She came.
But not as she remembered.
It was a flood. Violent. Unstoppable. It tore through him, her, like a dam bursting into firelight. Muscles tightened. Back arched. The sound from his lips was somewhere between a growl and a sob. And beneath it all was herself—the woman she used to be—sobbing in disbelief.
She had never felt like this before.
She had never given like this before.
It was overwhelming.
It was too much.
It was perfect.
And then, silence.