The Villainess Turns the Tables Ch. 01

Greetings, and welcome to a very niche story. I wanted to run this one alongside my other creation, Reversal, because sometimes I'm in the mood to just write smut, and sometimes I'm in the mood for some plot with my porn.

This story is a love letter to a fairly particular genre. If you clicked on that title, chances are you're familiar with it. It will be tropey, it will be referential, it will be satirical at times. For the most part, though, it's a typical 'oh-gosh-I-died-and-was-reincarnated-into-my-favourite-novel' story, but with the addition of futanari, because I am nothing if not predictable. Sexual content will mostly revolve around Futa/F and Futa/Futa pairings; male characters will barely feature in such scenes.

I hope you enjoy.

***

Chapter 01

I was thirty-two years old when I died.

I'd like to say it was dramatic, or heroic, but that would be all sorts of false. I'd been crossing the street, staring at my phone, fully engrossed in a rather poorly translated web novel. The marks of the original Korean were all over it - characters seemed to enjoy saying 'Keuk!' a lot - and the characters' names changed randomly between chapters. Juan became John, became Shaun, became Jones, became... Jone?

In spite of the shoddy quality, the story itself had captured my attention. Though The Rose Grown in a Garden of Shadow was a little formulaic, it played with the appropriate tropes with just enough originality to keep my interest - and that of the thousands of others who waited eagerly on the translation of each new chapter. The pure-hearted lead, Elowyn, was on the verge of conquering her long-time rival, the evil Duchess Sophia, who had harnessed the power of a devil to take over the kingdom. I'd noticed a new update as I was leaving work, and against my better judgement, had opened it immediately and let myself get sucked into it, walking home on autopilot.

Yeah... you can figure how that worked out for me, right?

I'd like to say that I at least turned to dramatically throw my hands up at the last second as a speeding truck bowled me off my feet or something, but in all honesty I didn't even see what killed me. One moment I was walking and reading, the next I was dead.

Splat.

Unexpectedly, I've had plenty of time to reflect on my mistake. Normally I'd at least expect death to be the end, but they say every mistake is an opportunity for a new beginning.

I guess the universe takes that literally.

***

I hadn't expected to open my eyes. Not after that accident, that blinding, all-encompassing flash of pain. Maybe, at best, I would swim back into consciousness in a hospital bed, days or weeks later, every muscle and organ crying out in agony.

And yet...nothing. My eyes snapped open with remarkable alacrity, a cold sweat breaking out across my brow as I flailed my way upright, gasping in panicked confusion. Long, slender legs kicked at soft, luxurious bedlinens (which, some detached corner of my brain registered, I'd certainly never been able to afford before). Above me was not a ceiling, but the ostentatiously-appointed canopy of a four-poster bed, draped in velvet curtains that were currently tied back at the corners, allowing the gentle, warm glow of morning to filter through from a distant window.

My heart still racing just as fast as my mind, I struggled to extricate myself from the many layers of sheets and blankets, barely noticing the trim of gold brocade and the incredible fluffiness of the mattress. My bare feet hit the burgundy carpet and almost sank into it, toes wiggling in astonishment at the luxurious feeling. This was certainly not a hospital ward. As my eyes adjusted to the bright morning light and my breathing calmed a little, a faint shiver still rattling down my spine with every deep inhalation, I glanced around the room.

It was... ostentatious. That was the only word that seemed appropriate. Everything was gilded, bejeweled, embroidered, or lavishly wood-panelled. The bed on which I sat occupied a central position, perfectly placed to receive morning sunlight from the floor-to-ceiling windows that filled an entire wall. The other three walls of the large room each featured a large, ornate door, with the largest straight opposite the window. Shelves lined the wall either side of that door, apparently a showcase for a collection of trinkets I couldn't quite make out through my bleary eyes. A dressing table the size of a small kitchen occupied one corner of the room, a shimmering mirror flanked by multiple shelves groaning with little glass vials, bundles of herbs, soaps and cosmetics.

All in all, it seemed to have come straight out of a period drama. The thought put me in mind of something; casting around, I looked for my cell phone, which had been with me when I-

Wait. Did I actually die?

"Gah! Fuck!" I cried out as my head was pierced with a splitting, lancing pain. My hands flew to my temples as I hunched on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees and gritting my teeth. Seeming to flood through a gap opened by the pain, images shuttled through my head like a broken film projector - not all of them familiar. I saw myself as if from a bird's eyes, meandering through my boring daily life as if nothing mattered. Working. Sleeping. Eating. Scrolling mindlessly through my phone. But then I saw a little blonde girl, one who looked nothing like my dull, brunette self. She smiled and laughed, as children do, her hair in lush ringlets.

I watched myself sitting my high school exams, wincing internally at the ridiculous 'scene' haircut I'd insisted on wearing. I didn't have time to dwell on it, though, because I saw the blonde again, a few years older now.

Her smile had faded. Like the twins in The Shining, she stared straight through me in a way that made me shudder. Maybe ten years old, her eyes were dull and apathetic. She stood in a room full of adults that I couldn't see, her back straight.

My first date. Her first day of school. A random Tuesday in March. I clawed at my head, groaning in pain as darkness clouded my vision. In shattered fragments, I watched the girl grow up, becoming tall and beautiful even as her eyes grew cold. My own memories whirled through the scenes, melding and twisting until I couldn't tell who was who anymore.

Compelled by some force I didn't understand, I stumbled to my feet, almost tripping half a dozen times as I lurched across the room, collapsing against the boudoir-style dressing table, my hands scrabbling at the wood, knocking bottles over in my trembling haste to keep myself upright. The scenes in my mind continued to whirl: a dance; another examination, but for the blonde girl this time; a kiss under a starry sky; a fight with two other girls; a man shouting, roaring his displeasure; a swirl of what could only be magic, wreathing the sky in fire. There weren't two girls in the memories any more, just one. She just had two different faces, two different hearts, two different names...

"Sophia!" I croaked, and the pain fled. Eyes watering, stinging faintly as the piercing agony in my head faded, I slowly raised my head. Blinking away the tears, I stared at myself in the mirror.

One final image, long forgotten, swam to the forefront of my mind, almost superimposing itself upon reality. An illustration, an amateurly-scanned insert page viewed on a shoddy phone screen - the colour panel accompanying Volume 3 of Garden of Shadow, one of a handful of illustrations commissioned by the author to celebrate the story's serialisation... I had seen it a thousand times, and now it stared back at me in the mirror.

Fair skin with fine, almost crystalline features. A narrow, elegant jawline. A tumbling cascade of voluminous, ringleted golden hair, with a few loose strands falling haphazardly in front of clear, sharp blue eyes. Thin, pale lips, lacking definition but capable of twisting into what the author's narration had dubbed 'the cruelest of self-serving sneers.' Dressed in a frilly, pink nightdress, a slender body with gentle, appealing curves, so unlike my own... my other body?

"What the fuck...?" I whispered, sweeping silky blonde curls out of my face to get a better look. Sure enough, the girl in the mirror - Sophia - mimicked my movements, those cold blue eyes locked on to my own.

I was... somehow, against all odds and all logic, I'd become Sophia. I'd died, apparently, and that was enough of a mindfuck to begin with, but even more astonishingly, I appeared to have been reincarnated in the unmistakeable form of a character from my favourite story, Garden of Shadow.

And not just any character, either. The villainous Duchess, Sophia of Eastwood. Every second I stared at myself confirmed it further. Not only the commemorative illustration, but every written description matched. The tiny mole under my ear, the faintest of scars on my cheek, easily hidden beneath makeup.

There was just one difference. In the chapter I'd been reading on my ill-fated walk home, Sophia was already a woman past thirty, striking and powerful. The Sophia looking back at me now - while possessed of the same beauty - could not possibly have been older than twenty. She - I? - still had a little of the softness of youth around her face.

I was still unable to look away from my eerily beautiful, youthful, totally unfamiliar face in the mirror. Exhaling deeply, I flopped down on the comfortable, expensive-looking chair in front of the vanity.

That was when I noticed something else was amiss.

Below the diaphanous fabric of my nightdress, I had almost sat on... something. Springing to my feet again, I glared at the chair.

The chair, to its everlasting credit, did not return my gaze. Moreover, there was nothing on it but a soft, even cushion. Certainly nothing that would nudge between my legs like that. In fact, I could have sworn I still felt it now.

Blinking, I glanced downwards at my (Sophia's? Every time I tried to conceptualise the difference, my head throbbed) body once again. The shift I was wearing was fairly shapeless, but I could tell that a slender, feminine form lay below, the picture of noble beauty. The author had always taken great pains to describe how gorgeous the wicked Duchess Sophia was, and it seemed she had always been that way. But there had been no mention of anything below the belt - as expected of an all-ages web novel, I supposed.

Slowly, hesitantly, I waggled my hips left and right.

Something moved.

"What the fuck..." I breathed, for the second time in as many minutes.

A passage from the novel floated into my head unbidden: Despite her great beauty and wealth, the Duchess was rumoured to have never so much as taken a lover until she summoned the devil Carnach to wed her in the dark, evil pact that lent her its magic.

I shuddered. I didn't much fancy doing that. But for the moment at least, I had a terrifying feeling that I was about to discover why the lady had stayed single.

Apologising silently to Sophia - or should that be to myself, now - I reached between my legs. Yeah. That was definitely a penis. For some reason, I wasn't all that surprised. Everything I was discovering, it was like I already knew. Still, this was a big one.

I glanced around guiltily, as if worried someone would spot me and scream, "Pervert!" But no, it seemed that Sophia's bedchamber would not be disturbed unless she asked for it. Steeling my nerve, I stood tall - or as tall as I could - before the mirror and gripped the hem of my nightdress. Before I could change my mind, I jerked it upwards.

What I saw just about caused me to pass out. That was a dick. I'd seen one or two in my thirty-two and a half years of life - I hadn't always identified as so exclusively lesbian - but nothing could have prepared me for this. My first thought was that, paradoxically, it looked far more feminine than any other I'd seen.

Anchored firmly in the spot just in front of where my lady bits would sit - where they still sat, as it turned out - hung a sweet four-ish inches of soft, flaccid cock. Entirely hairless, pink and wrapped in tender skin, its tip poked shyly out of an uncircumcised foreskin. Hesitantly, I reached down and touched it, biting my lip at the strange, ticklish feeling as my gentle fingers brushed it, then grasped and lifted it, the Sophia in the mirror showing me that she had two lovely, smooth balls hanging behind. The whole ensemble was just like Sophia as a whole: slender, soft, potentially dangerous but oddly beautiful.

Stunned, I let the fabric of my shift drop once again, hiding the exotic appendage once more. I sat a little more carefully this time, adjusting my posture for the little package between my thighs. "How fucking weird..." I murmured quietly, still aghast. Or maybe I should say... "How very peculiar. An exceedingly unbecoming development." The words came naturally, as if drilled into my head. Memories clouded as my brow furrowed, trying to remember the details. High school English exams blurred with pompously-dressed elocution tutors.

I no longer felt entirely like myself. Or rather, it wasn't clear who 'myself' actually was any more. Who was the woman who'd died in a different world? What did she look like? I'd grown up... here, right?

"Lara," I whispered, grasping at the name like a lifeline to the drowning. "Lara Elise Vinkmann. Thirty-two." I blinked slowly. "Sophia Angelise Eastwood. Thir... well." My voice petered out as I realised I still had no real idea how old I was right now. Sophia's memories were in my head, it seemed - or rather, I'd crash-landed in her head where all those memories already were - but they weren't coming naturally when I called.

Oh God, what happens in the novel? The thought struck me like a lightning bolt. If I'd really wound up some decade or more before the bulk of the story took place, did that mean I had knowledge of the future? Was I even actually in the novel, or was this all some sort of strange dream or coincidence? And why, oh why, did I have a penis?

Right then, with the worst possible timing, a soft tapping on the door - the big one opposite the window - interrupted the confused whirl of my thoughts.

Cursing internally, I stood, casting around the room. My instinct was to flee, to hide before someone found me somewhere I shouldn't be. But then... this was my room, wasn't it?

"Enter," I called, surprising myself with how clear and clipped my voice was. Without even trying to, I sounded exactly as I had always imagined Sophia would.

The door swung open without a sound, other than the faint brushing of wood over carpet, and three women entered, dressed in black and white maid uniforms, the kind with long skirts and conservative necklines. A tall brunette led the small group, a woman with just the barest hint of age about her; perhaps forty or so, she had a blank, neutral demeanour as she ushered the other two in behind her and closed the door.

The second woman was younger, about my own apparent age. A pale, freckled redhead, her relative lack of height only exacerbated the curves of her body - curves that her uniform was woefully insufficient to hide, straining at her bosom as it did. When my eyes met hers for a second, she fidgeted and glanced down at the floor, bowing her head.

The third, another younger woman, was a beauty of a different kind. Olive-skinned, with straight black hair and an angular, pleasing face, she was slender and petite, wearing her uniform with grace and elegance.

All three dropped into a curtsy, waiting with knees bent until I said, "Stand." Again, the right words came to me as if I'd said them a thousand times before. "Celine. What plans have I for the day?"

The oldest of the three women spoke as they rose, not quite meeting my eyes. "My Lady, the Duke awaits you for breakfast. It is not our wish to disturb your rest, but he insisted we wake and dress you."

Interesting. I frowned. I remembered little about Sophia's youth from Garden of Shadow, only that her father - the previous Duke Eastwood - had been an incredibly influential noble before dying... in battle, I seemed to recall. Still, the mention of him filled me with a strange sense of unease, my hackles raising as I addressed the maids. "If that is what my father wishes, who am I to disobey? Please." Without another word, I turned and strode across to the door on the left wall, entering what soon proved to be an equally luxurious boudoir.

I scanned the room as the maids hurried to catch up with me, taking in the open walk-in wardrobe full to bursting with finery, the second dressing table which dwarfed the one in my bedroom, and the array of stools, lounge chairs and colourful rugs which might have made for a perfect spot for intimate entertaining, if not for the clothes, underwear, shoes and stockings strewn everywhere as if a bomb had gone off. Sophia, it seemed, was not particularly tidy.

I felt Celine stiffen slightly as she entered the door at my shoulder, but she did not comment. Perhaps this was usual behaviour. Instead, she forged ahead, directing the other two with gestures. "As His Grace has called you for a breakfast engagement, I expect you would like one of the lighter dresses." At my nod, she sent the dark-haired girl scurrying into the wardrobe while she busied herself collecting a few of the haphazardly strewn pieces of clothing.

For my part, I had the feeling that Sophia Eastwood would not apologise, or hurry to pick up her things, or remain standing while her maids worked. My best bet was to sit and be waited on, so I took a seat in front of the mirror, watching them rush back and forth.

Actually, only two of them did. When I glanced to my left, I found the plump, shy-looking redhead kneeling at my side, fidgeting with her hands in her lap. When she saw me looking, she yelped and bowed her head once again. "M-my lady!" she stammered. "Should I...?"

"Should you what?" I prompted, hoping to cover my lack of understanding with the appearance of patience.

Instead, the girl jumped as if she'd been slapped. "N-never mind. I am sorry, my lady."

I was about to say that it was no problem, that I would hear her out, but something stopped me.

Sophia Eastwood was not a kind or understanding woman. Later in life, she was infamous for having servants killed if they offended her. I had the inexorable feeling that I could arouse suspicion if I showed too much leeway here. So instead of comforting the poor girl as I wanted, I simply did as Sophia Eastwood would do, and stuck my nose up at her. "Hmph."

We were at least spared further awkwardness by the return of Celine and Meredith, the former bearing perfume bottles and the latter a carefully arranged bundle of clothing, laid over her arm. "If you would stand, my lady," Celine prompted. Her voice was level, professional, but there was a hesitancy to it as well.

Again I stood, marveling somewhat at how lightly and effortlessly Sophia's body moved. It was not as if I had been fat before, but I had certainly always tended towards the...nuggety. This elegant, aristocratic form was as foreign to me as the glittering blue gemstones set into the gold frame of the mirror.

As the redhead stood to remove my nightdress, I remembered too late that I had a penis.

As the garment was politely whisked over my head, I wanted to scream, to cover myself, to ball myself up in a corner and hide. Under normal circumstances being undressed by strangers would be distressing enough, but this strange part of my anatomy would surely only make it worse.

Thankfully, even if Lara's nerve crumbled, Sophia's held - and I was now both, apparently. Even though every inch of my body screamed, I stood with my chin held high and shoulders back, the picture of aristocratic poise.