"Are you going to strip now, or will you hop in with those leather pants on?" Eurydike teased. Pulled out of his thoughts, Siegfried made a show of confidently taking off the rest of his clothes. Shyness was never a trait of his character, and he could play that game as well. He stepped into the bathtub and stifled a moan as his muscles slowly relaxed a fraction in the warm water.

"Mhm, your lower parts seem to be just as healthy as the rest of your body," the provoking blonde stated with amusement while walking behind the tub. Sieg just wanted to reply that she could join him when he felt a set of delicate fingers sprawl around his shoulders and start to massage them. This time he couldn't suppress a slight moan as he closed his eyes. His muscles were tense like iron from the past day, and the woman clearly knew what she was doing.

A sudden flashback forced itself into his mind. Memories of unbearable pain as his body hung suspended from two meathooks. The face of a young woman with fiery red hair across from him. And the low, scratchy voice of the hooded figure next to her.

How long will you be able to bear it before your spirit breaks?

Sieg tensed up further, cursing his subconsciousness. The memory only flashed by for a moment but why did he have to think of that in such a moment?

"Hey, relax a bit, young man. Put your worries to rest for a moment."

"I know, I'm okay, Eurydike."

"No, you are not, Siegfried. After everything that happened in the past days and the resulting uncertainty of the future, you cannot be okay. Even if your body is already recovering, you haven't let your mind loosen up at all," the perceptive shapeshifter declared.

And she was right. The stress must have conjoured up that flashback. Accepting that insight, he gradually let himself go and directed his full attention to her tender ministrations. He closed his eyes and revelled in the feeling of weightlessness in the water and the relief of his muscles whenever Eurydike found a knot and loosened it. When she moved to his pectoral muscles, the tightness in his chest slowly lessened under her magic hands.

"You are a woman of many talents, it seems," he praised her skill.

"Oh, you haven't seen anything yet," she replied mysteriously while moving down further, "did you know that massaging the stomach can relieve stress?" She leaned even farther over him from behind the bathtub, and Siegfried felt ten soft, electrifying lines stream down his abdomen where her fingernails touched his skin.

Calmness gave way to arousal at the sudden change of treatment, and he opened his eyes again. He was greeted with the sight of her low-cut shirt and a pair of perfectly shaped breasts, nearly spilling out of it. Looking further to the curls of blonde hair hanging down from her head, he found a coy smile directed at him and beautiful, intelligent eyes sparkling with mischief.

She had this planned all along. But who was he to deny the beautiful shapeshifter her fun?

††† Siegfried †††

After a few minutes of recovering their breath, Eurydike gave him a last kiss and trailed down the outline of his chin with a delicate finger. "Ah, that was more than I had anticipated," She purred in her fruity tone, "you really did manage to take my mind to the heavens."

Siegfried laughed in exhaustion. "I'm honoured by your questionable compliment," he took another deep breath to calm down, "but I honestly must know, what by the goddess was that intense feeling at the end?"

"That, my dear, was the skill of a vastly experienced shapeshifter," she answered with a wink.

Sieg let out a satisfied chuckle, thinking of how he graduated from 'boy' to 'my dear'.

Not long after he had changed into a fresh brown tunic, he could hear the Front door creak.