There was a mirror in Raven's room. It was full length, like every other mirror in every other bedroom in the house, and she hated it. She'd rush by it during the days, throw a sheet over it when she got tired of seeing herself out of the corner of her eye.
Sometimes, she'd get out of bed and go over to it to look at herself. One ripple of blue and she would be herself, the self underneath the rest, the thing underneath that no one but Charles should ever see. She'd stand there and she'd look until she couldn't stand to look anymore. Then she'd ripple pink again, and take off her nightclothes, and look even harder: for any sign she'd gotten something wrong; for any sign there was anything about her that didn't look like a normal, human girl.
Sometimes, she'd try on other faces, other skins, instead. Sometimes it was someone she'd seen in a newspaper, or in a magazine; other times, it was a stranger she'd passed in the street, or a vague acquaintance--one of her classmates, or a teacher, maybe. Still other times, she'd be Sharon for a minute or two, practice for the next time Charles needed a parent when there would be too many people around for him for him to fool them all by himself.
And sometimes, instead of any of that, or after it, Raven would be Charles. Not the way she'd been Charles when there were still kids, showing off to his exclamations of delight, never wondering what it meant that it was okay for her to be him, but not for her to be blue. No, this was something different; this was her wondering what it would be like to have more than this. The first few times, it was just her, running her fingers over Charles' lips, thinking about what it would be like if he ever kissed her...and ignoring the tight feeling below her waist, something like the feeling she'd get between her own real legs, but really different, too.
Usually, whenever Raven was being other people, she kept her clothes on, whether she was actually wearing anything or not. But the fifth or sixth time she was Charles in front of the mirror, Charles was out of the house, on a date. He'd be back early--he was always back early; for a guy who could read minds, he was really bad at not pissing his dates off--but he'd still be gone for long enough for Raven to do what she'd been thinking about doing, without having to worry that he'd accidentally read her mind at the worst possible time.
She had long enough, and so once Charles had been gone for about fifteen minutes, Raven went over to the mirror, naked, and rippled into Charles, just as naked. She looked at him for a long, long time, taking in everything that was usually hidden away--and especially that part of him she thought about the most, when she was in bed touching herself on other nights he was out of the house.
While she looked, the tight feeling started again; that part of him started to grow, standing up stiffly where before it had been hanging down.
Raven didn't touch it, not at first. Instead, she ran her fingers over Charles' lips, just like she always had before; and she kissed Charles' palm and wrist with Charles' mouth, dry kisses first and then wet ones. She ran Charles' warm, dry hands over Charles' bare chest, rubbed Charles' nipples with Charles' fingers, and every kiss and every touch made the tightness below grow even more, until she was aching and thought she might die if she didn't...
She ran Charles' hand down Charles' chest and stomach, and further down, until she was touching that stiff, red part of him. At the first brush of her fingers, a noise came out, from deep in her throat--a groan, a deep male one, a Charles-groan.
She hadn't really been sure, before, what to do when she got this far--what she could do with that part of Charles' body. Now, she wrapped her hand around it, and that was good. Then she moved her hand, and that was better. Soon, she was tugging on it, up and down, and feeling something rise inside her, so much like the thing that rose inside her when she touched herself under the covers, but different enough that she didn't realize she was on the edge until that part of Charles started jerking in her hand, leaving white stripes of something on the mirror.
She stood there for a few more minutes, just looking--this time, at that part of Charles as it slowly grew soft again, and at Charles' red flushed face and almost as flushed chest, and wild hair she didn't remember mussing but must have. She'd never seen him like that before. It was a way she'd never see him, because he would never look at her the way she looked at him in the mirror. He would never let her touch him with her hands the way she'd just touched him with his own; and he would never touch her the way she always dreamed of him touching her.
He would never touch her, but that didn't stop her from rippling back to her own pink form, climbing into bed, and sliding her hand between her own legs. She stroked the nub there and pretended it was his thumb instead of hers; she thrust two fingers inside and pretended it was that part of him. It was better this time than it had been any of the times before; she knew what he looked liked now, and so it was easier to imagine how they'd fit together, if her legs were around him and he were on top of her, or beneath her, or...
The muscles inside clenched around her fingers each time she went over. She'd have kept going until nothing was happening, but right after the third or fourth time, she heard the front door slam a few stories down. A couple years ago, this would have been followed by Charles' voice inside her head, asking if she were still up; tonight, she had the time to put her clothes back on, and wash her hands, and wipe away the mess on the mirror before a shadow showed up under the door, blocking the light from the hallway.
There came a light rap on the door. "Raven? Are you still up?"
For one crazy second, Raven thought about saying she was; thought about telling him she'd had a bad dream, so that he'd come and lay in bed with her, the way they had when they were kids. She thought about snuggling up to all the parts of him she'd just seen; she thought about kissing him, like it was an accident, or something that had just happened. She thought about running her hands under his clothes, getting him to help take hers off, wrapping her legs around him, and begging him to do what she'd been wanting him to do for all these months now.
But the thing was, Charles never would. He'd probably say they shouldn't, that they might get caught; but what he'd mean would be that he didn't want her the same way he wanted all those other girls. He didn't want her, he would never want her, and she knew why without having to hear him stumble over the same old excuses.
So she didn't say anything. Instead, she waited for the shadow under the door to pass by.
A few minutes after it had gone, she got up and went back over to the mirror, and looked at what it had to show her for a long, long time.