Morning seemed so far away, and I wasn’t sure what it would hold. Okay, I knew, but how would we all deal with Marc and Kari not being there for two years? I just couldn’t seem to make heads or tails of it.

As I continued looking out at the night, I whispered to my best friend, Kari, "Just remember that Rose loves you." Then I started to cry again.

Virtually Feminine - Part 8 - Forced out


Andy's meeting with Julie takes an unexpected direction.

“Odd, though. You don’t look like you have a transformation spell on you. Or any kind of spell, really. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a transformation, but I think I’d recognize it. Must be some kind I’m not familiar with.”

It only started with me sitting waiting, all ready to go out and Fay looking great as she fastened her ear rings on. An idle comment can have major consequences. I only said 'your dress looks great, those underskirts that make the skirt fill out are back in fashion, they always looked good in those old films.'
Fay smiled at me, 'yes it's new, I bought it last week, glad you like it.'
And then the comment that changed everything 'what does it feel like to wear? I mean the skirt is so full and the underskirts must feel different against your legs.'

“No, but then he’s an artist, and they’re all a little strange. His work is beautiful, but I don’t understand how he designs it.”

The old man left, and Freeman stood, walking up to his friend. “Is that really necessary?” he asked.

“Fred, you know Willem won’t give up that information easily. You told me once that one of the first uses for nanites was to stop shock in an injured person. Anything we do to get information will have to be extreme. You know this.”

“Yes, I do, but it seems that we are stooping to his level.”

“Do you want me to stop,” Paul asked.

Fredrik looked at him for a long time as he considered. Finally, he shook his head in the negative. He didn’t like it in the least, but It had to be done.

The moonlight from the window was falling directly on the gateway in the mural. But he couldn’t see the road and horse and buggy and the distant hills. Instead, he saw — a chair. A high-backed wooden chair, with red velvet cushions on the back and seat and arms, and to the left of that, part of what looked like a sofa or armchair.

He was reluctant to take the power of the government into his own hands, as he wanted to distance himself from his brother. He tried to say no, but the people wouldn’t hear of it. He was their choice, and that was that. Eventually, he accepted the position. For a time. He told the people that there must be a set term. The government made that term be a millennium, followed by a possible second term, but that was the limit allowed. No way was someone going to be president for over ten thousand years!

Fredrik Wallace became the first president of the new Earth Republic. He was Willem’s brother, but they looked nothing alike. Their father had divorced and remarried in the time between their births. Also, while Willem’s mother had appeared generally Scandanavian, Fredrik’s had been African. Thus, the people did not consider the brothers to be any bit the same.

Fredrik wanted there to be even more of a separation, so before he took office, he had his name changed. He kept his first name, but his last name came to signify the people of the new republic. Freeman.

Keira De Leitz, a Witcher of the Kestrel School woke to the screams of a damsel in distress.

Willem Wallace sat, looking over his domain. Not that he could see much, but he ‘owned’ the earth. When he came to power, or rather arranged his own rise to power, he wasn’t sure where he wanted his base of operations to be. London, Paris, Jakarta… He didn’t know. He wanted it to be perfect. He wanted the people to be compliant; willing to be led by someone with his special qualifications. To that end, he had a palace built in Death Valley of southern California, in the United States. He had considered the Sahara Desert, but he didn’t want his domain to be full of sand. Granted, he could program some nanites to make people willing slaves who continually cleaned his palace. By the time he was done, they would love being his personal slaves, but there would still be the sand. Going outside would continually be dirty with sand everywhere.

A few weeks later, John and I met again where I first told him that I loved him. We were not sure what to do now. Do we give in, risking an eventual long term being miserable, or do we remain as we were, risking life and limb?

I know what I wanted to do, and I’m sure John did as well. The bond was getting deeper and deeper. So much so, that I sometimes thought I could feel his emotions when we were in our own rooms.

I was having a hard time sleeping too. He had told me of the same problems. It was such that when I fell asleep, I was jerked back awake almost immediately. I was now getting very little sleep at all, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to keep going like this. I don’t know how, but I knew if we had sex, I would no longer have this problem.

I told John of it, and waited. I had no idea what he would do, but I didn’t expect his response. He leaned over and kissed me.

---

I know the nanites beheading their host is strange, but then again, my muse appears to have an much odder imagination than I have.

Hilarity ensues when a smart aleck on the run finds himself hiding behind a petticoat and a feather duster in order to elude the gangster who wants him dead. (Or maybe just wants him, period!) A fun and lighthearted comedy of errors filled with elaborate deceptions, mistaken identities, and a guy stuffing his boobs into a French maid's costume! What's not to like?

The Option
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

I did not recognise the name when I was told of my visitor. Although it had been a few years I recognized her as one the victims of the Pickton Prowler, a mass rapist who I had been instrumental in catching. After an exchange of greetings I sat to hear what she had to say.

“I was sorry to hear about your conviction”, she said. “There are many of us who truly appreciate what you did for us. We want to help. In particular Annie Haldane and the Mitchell Sisters want to help.”

“You don’t have to do this, John. I’ll take my chances,” I gently told him.

He shook his head.

Could I do this, not having any idea of the risks for either Randy or John? What if there was some change we hadn’t seen yet? God only knew what Caesar had arranged. I gave voice to these fears, and it didn’t change Randy’s resolve at all.

“I’m aware of the risks,” he said, "but we have to know what will happen now.”

John nodded as well. I knew there was no way I was going to dissuade him. I had seen this determination too much over the years but what if he changed too? I took a deep breath and touched Randy’s hand.

I watched, fascinated as Randy seemed to melt and reform. I knew it must have been similar with me, all those months ago. When it was done, I looked at John. I had been so interested in what was happening with Randy, that I hadn’t even glanced at this man for whom I was obviously developing feelings.

A Change In Lifestyle – Final Chapter 14

By Julie D Cole

Patrick apologised that he was the substitute but promised Tracey would be back soon to give her approval and make any final recommendations since it was her salon now. She had taken out a loan and with some private financial support from a friend she had bought out the owner. Jobs were secure because the salon had a good reputation and he was now the senior stylist.

Chapter Six - The Sharing

Mila and Peter have been married into the church of the Sons of Jehovah and now they must 'Share'. Both are apprehensive, but Mila is more so, being transgender will any man really want to lie with her and is that a good thing or a bad thing? Final chapter for now.

This is another real oldie from circa 2010/2011

It was a normal Saturday and I was doing my weekly grocery shopping on virtual autopilot. You know what I mean. You buy the same items from the same shelves at the supermarket every week unless they had moved everything just for the sake of moving it and to annoy their customers.

I’d gotten everything on my mental list and was now at the checkout waiting to be served. I refused to use those automated or self-service checkout unless there was really no other option.

“Good Morning Ms Samuels. How are you today?”

When last we saw our protagonist:

I was heading home a short time after Marc left to work on the exterior bay door motors. I was contemplating our situation. It was frightening, the terror I felt when face to face with a woman. Just the thought of one scared me. I hadn’t met up with any other genders yet, so I didn’t know how much they would bother me. The thought of caused fear in an inverse funnel between me and a woman. A bisexual man bothered me a little bit. Then a gay man, followed by a genetically male gender fluid, to intersex, with all the layers in between. The pattern reversed through the genetically female genders as the funnel got wider and wider, until it reached a completely heterosexual female

When I reached the ‘u’ shaped corridor running between levels, I turned to go to my apartment. Now that we knew what was going on, I was a little more at ease. I came face to face with fright again, however as I turned left into the corridor. I was standing almost nose to nose with two women. All three of us screamed and the women spun on their heels and started running downhill to the upper level.

I stared at my hand, unbelieving. When they turned, one of the women’s hands brushed mine. A moment later, my vision began to blur and it felt as if my body was being taken apart and put back together.

Anomaly – A Star Trek Story
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

“I am fully aware of the Prime Directive, Spock.” Captain James T Kirk found himself again annoyed by his friend’s reference to the fundamental rules applying.

After a long debate within herself, Momma E has something to say to her son.

When last we saw our protagonist:

A screen came alive and we saw a man. A human, but not someone we knew.”

“Hello, people of N21,” he said.” I am President Freeman of Earth. I know when you were sent away, Willem Wallace, or ‘Caesar’ as you referred to him, was the ‘Chancellor’.

“Approximately three hundred years after you left, Wallace had shown enough of his character to make those of us still on Earth recognize what you had long ago seen. There was an uprising, and we were able to remove him from power. He was in prison until we received a signal from you.

“Every computer around the world came on at the same time, and showed Wallace seated at his desk. He told us that we were all going to join him in a celebration of your exile. We saw what your camera’s recorded, Wallace telling you he wanted to ‘play’; the death of your maintenance worker. Then we saw a bay of the station open, and the people dying on the floor.”

For a moment, Freeman stopped. He looked somber, then rubbed his face with his hands.

“Wallace was questioned at length. That was an experience I never want to have again. He was, quite simply, insane. He wanted to toy with you as a cat toys with it’s prey. Revelling in your suffering was what he wanted most of all.

“He tried to bargain with us with his knowledge. He wanted freedom, but we refused. It took several months to obtain what we wanted. He spent that entire time in and out of consciousness. It wasn’t pretty. What we got from him, we want to pass on to you.

“There are several… surprises, in the computers of the station. They have been left there. There seems to be no way to remove them from the memory. Even a complete shutdown will reload the same information when you start them again.

“Much of what is programmed will be worse that what has already happened. Some not as bad. We will append a file to this message that will tell you what we have found. I hope you can find something on board that we didn’t think of here.”