This was a spamfic, really, in 2003 when I wrote it, just something I had to get out of my system. Now, though... Have you read your EULA lately?

I came to in a sparsely furnished bedroom. I glanced around; the place looked big and bland, more bland than any motel I'd ever seen.

"Damn, this looks like Sim City."

It didn't surprise me to hear my own voice pitched in soprano; one whole side of the room was a mirror, and the diffuse bedroom lighting was bright enough for me to see the profile of breasts on what had to be my naked reflection. I sat up and immediately felt them as they swayed, lunging forward like they were with me rather than a part of me. What the hell? Already I could tell that being female would take some getting used to.

What had I been doing? Oh, yeah... I was waiting for a client to get back to me on a site design, and while I waited I booted the secondary machine into Windows to do some gaming. Oh, man... I never knew playing "Tomb Raider" could be so life-altering. The funny thing was, though, I didn't look a thing like Lara Croft.

I crept up close to the mirror and looked myself over. I had long straight black hair, practically to my waist. I was undeniably cute, with big C-sized breasts, pert and firm, as some extensive grasping and groping proved, and a figure to match the upholstery, and a sweet little pan-Asian face. I didn't want to guess at my height; I knew I wasn't a six-foot beanpole anymore, but then again, I wasn't a guy anymore either.

I finished inspecting the new me and turned to survey my new surroundings, and immediately knew that me and boobs were going to be a real problem. I mean, already this jiggling was driving me nuts, more than I otherwise had at the moment. I walked around, checking out the place, and every time I moved they did their best to be distracting. I'd move one way, and they'd take their time deciding to come along, then they'd make up for it by going farther than I'd intended. With all that swaying and jiggling, I'd lose track of what I meant to be doing.

Damn, now my ass was doing it too: not much, just a little quiver, but, sensitized as I was now to the sensation, I could tell that there was a little bit of fat padding there too, enough so that I jiggled coming and going.

I gave up on peeking into all the corners and turned to the dresser. At this point, I figured that anything I could wear had to help damp out the jiggles. I was hoping that, whoever had put me in this shape in this place, they had included a decent range of clothes for this shape. Maybe there'd be some tight jeans; that'd take care of the ass movements. As for up top, a sports bra would help; hell, even an Ace bandage would help.

I was about to pull open the top drawer when...

"I see you're trying to hide your boobs. Would you like some help?"

I turned incredulously to the thing floating in the mirror. It was a talking paper clip, about half as tall as me, and now it ducked and bobbed in some semblance of a bow. I curled my lip. "Such as?"

"Well, you're going to try to hide your boobs, right?"

"Not exactly, but... Go on."

"Well, then, you need something to cover them with."

"So far you get an O for Obvious. Go on."

"Pull out that drawer you've got your hands on."

"I was about to."

I pulled open the drawer. There was only one article of clothing inside, some kind of hard satin leotard thing with stocking legs and a puff of cotton. I reached in and picked the thing up with a thumb and forefinger, then held it up and stared at it.

"This is supposed to hide my boobs?"

"It'll help." Somehow that pseudo-face managed to add to its perpetual leer.

"I... see."

I dropped the thing on the top of the dresser and pushed the drawer closed with my hip. Even that felt weird, the way that my waist tucked in like that, so that the drawer was actually pushed only by the top of my pelvis. I turned back to the paperclip. "What is this place, anyway?"

"I can't tell you."

"Can't or won't?"

"Well... If I won't, it's because I'm not allowed, so it's can't."

"Oh. Okay, then, what am I doing here?"

"Standing. And jiggling, too--quite nicely, I might add."

Again, the leer; that paperclip was really getting off on this, I could tell.

"Thanks; that's very helpful."

The paperclip showed a smug self-satisfied smile. "That's why I'm here."

"So... What can you tell me?"

"Well, I can tell you how to use the drawers right there, and the bathroom door, and the faucets in the--"

"I already know how to use that stuff. You gonna tell me anything useful?"

"Um... Such as?"

"Such as, how I got in here, and why I'm a girl, and how I get out of here--"

"Well, you're here because you're highly valued..."

"Highly valued for what?"

"Development! That's what he wants, developers. And, say, you're nicely developed now, don't you think?"

"Who's 'he'?"

"Bill, of course. And, speaking of Bill, you should start putting on that suit now."

I held up the wispy article of clothing, then, appalled, turned to him again. "It's a bunny-girl suit!"

"Well, yeah. You do want to show off your development, don't you?"

"Not like this, no. I'd rather be valued for my program design and clean coding, thank you very much."

"We can get to that later. Right now, you need to show off your development. It's important."

"This isn't the kind of development I want to have, much less be highly valued for!"

"Look, we've only got about five minutes. I'm telling you, you'd better climb into that bunny-girl suit."

Somehow, while we talked, I'd stepped into the suit, fishnet-stocking legs and all, and had it almost up to my waist, before I thought to force myself to stop. I glared at him. "Why? I don't want to."

"You're going to be in trouble if you don't get that suit on."

"You're talking like I'm owned by somebody."

"Well, of course you're owned. You're in here, aren't you? Bill owns everything in here. Who do you think let me in?"

"What?!"

"Check your EULA. This is Bill's territory. Anybody Bill likes can get in here and do what they want. How do you think I got in here? They retired me a few years back. I was never a part of your installation, but heeeeeere's Clippy!"

He proudly pivoted through a three-sixty, showing off his wiry frame, and, let me tell you, those eyes looked really repulsive from the rear.

"Anybody--"

"Uh-huh. You agreed to that when you installed the latest service pack. Anybody Bill wants to let in here, he can let in here, and he can install anything he likes in here. Like that brain-entrainment flasher that pulled you in, for instance."

I didn't think a paperclip was built to allow for shrugging, but he pulled it off somehow.

"You thought the computer was running a little slower, right? Strobing the desktop at a brainwave rate takes a lot of MIPS--"

"What! A simple on-off--"

"Oh, no, it's got to be sinusoidal, otherwise you would have noticed it before it was too late. And it's got to be an interference pattern from the two sides of the screen, otherwise your two eyes don't get different signals. That takes a LOT--"

"Bullshit." Now it was my turn to shrug, and be immediately distracted by my bouncing boobs. I somehow managed to remember what I was going to say when I cut him off, though. "That still doesn't sound like it takes all that much processing power. I've seen screen-savers that complex running on a Pentium 100."

"Well, that's the beauty of Visual C++! No matter what you do, it'll slow down! There are inheritances all the way from VMS in those classes! Maybe even from CP/M!"

"Maybe. Sounds like a ripoff."

"Yeah? So? You paid for it anyway, didn't you? And now Bill owns you."

"Just a minute. I paid for it, so now Bill owns me?"

"Yep. It's in the EULA. You agreed to it when you clicked through it. And, since he owns you, he wants you to look cute... So it's bunny-girl time!" He added a lecherous grin to the leer.

Now I was struggling, forcing that damn suit down as it suddenly tried to crawl up my torso to my boobs. I growled through my teeth, "I don't want to do this!"

"You've got no choice, really... You are owned."

I glanced towards the bathroom, thinking to do some stalling, maybe some exploring while I was at it... "I should shower first before I climb into this."

"Oh, I wouldn't shower just yet. Otherwise you might end up as clip-art. There are those scissors, see, and--"

"Damn, this is like that motel in Psycho!"

"Oh, now, that's awfully unsporting of you--"

"Bill Gates and Norman Bates, Sitting in a tree, K I S S I--"

"EWWWWWW--That's disgusting. Even if it is true."

"Torvalds!"

The paperclip glanced around furtively, then glared at me. "Uh... you shouldn't talk like that around here, Bill might hear--"

"Stallman!"

"Stop swearing! You'll get us both into trouble that way!"

"GPL!!"

"Stop that right now! That kind of language is not allowed anywhere in this world!"

"Jee-Pee-Ell! Jee-Pee-Ell! Jee-Pee-Ellllllll--"

The paperclip faded away as the mirror went a uniform blue. Backwards lettering started writing itself across its surface, right to left, in white stripes. The room started to dissolve in chunks just as I blacked out.

I heard familiar fan noises as I woke up in my ergonomic desk chair.

I sat there with my eyes closed, feeling and hearing all the little reality noises that tell you you're someplace sane, and just savoring it. I was back to someplace that Bill didn't own. I smiled, took a deep breath and sighed...

...and felt my boobs bounce.

I opened my eyes fast at that point. The monitor screen was still showing that life-saving BSOD. I let it be for the moment; I had other issues to attend to first, such as, finding something warmer to wear. I was feeling more than a little bit chilly wearing just a bunny-girl outfit.

That was a couple of weeks ago. That client never did get back to me, which was just as well.

I ought to have a moire brain-hemisphere-entrainment screensaver ready for release in a few more days; I'm already testing and tweaking it. By itself, it won't do more than just that, but then I'll see about driving the Gnome desktop with it. It shouldn't be that hard; it's all open-source. Besides, the guys at the local LUG fall all over themselves to help a cute geek girl like me. Getting answers to corner behavior questions the documentation doesn't touch is less of a problem now than it ever was.

With any luck, I'll have this thing ready for beta testing inside a month, and then maybe I can get to work on reverse-engineering whatever else Bill put in there that changed me once I was in there. That's the only reason I haven't wiped that partition already.

Maybe I can get my own shape back. This one's interesting, I'll say that much, but this face isn't what's on my driver's license, or my passport, for that matter... so I might go back and forth for a while. Anytime I do some virtual gendershifting, though, I'll be sure to do it in a Linux system. I know the penguin isn't anywhere near so pushy; we've talked about it already.