This like many of my stories came to me in a dream, and then was written in a single sitting. I was thinking about the dongle in the story as I need one myself to get my second monitor working, I have one already but a second would be handy.

Some liberties have been taken both with the actual adaptor and with the IT department and it’s network. Mainly as they mean the story works.

Spells ‘r’ Us: The Adaptor

by JC

Alex Marshal was not a pleasant man to work with, amongst his annoying habits were nose picking, burping loudly and telling lewd jokes. But what Polly really hated was the fact that he was a chauvinist of the highest order, not only did he think that a woman was good for nothing but house work and sex. But he was happy to tell everyone this, even clients. Most, luckily, ignored the man’s most annoying habits but some appeared to agreed with him.

Both Alex and Polly worked for the same company, and while Alex had been with Mason’s for nearly twenty years Polly was a relative newcomer, having only been there for five. Mason’s was a well known and successful furniture seller, stores in nineteen northern cities including Polly’s home town, which is where she had arrived from although she now worked in the head office.

Polly was the only woman in the small IT department, her colleague Timothy Summers was a good friend and tried to help her when ever he could but being gay he was little better than a woman in Alex’s eyes. Alex was the manager of one of the smaller stores, and unlikely to rise further in the company due to his less than modern views on women and minorities. Nor could the company sack him with impunity married as he was to the daughter of the absentee owner. Most in the company hoped that one day he would put his foot in his mouth in front of the wrong client and be forced out, so far though he had led a charmed life.

And the reason that Polly and he saw each other more than most was that while Timothy was based in the head office his remit was IT maintenance, and spent his time going from store to store fixing ailing EPOS machines and sorting out hardware failures. Polly however looked after the software end of things, both programming and support. This kept her in the office most of the day, the problem arising when as on most days Alex would ring from his small showroom, only fifteen hundred square feet, and demand that IT send someone down to fix another issue with one of his machines.

These callouts followed a pattern and generally happened late in the day when Alex would need a laugh at someone’s expense; Polly was an easy target, being as she was a woman and a geek. Several times in the past having taken one too many barbed comments Polly had complained to her line manager who while not quite as bad as Alex thought that she should be able to rise above the childish jokes of Alex, besides who was he to tell the owner to sack his son in law.

It was a Friday morning, the fifth of August, when our story really starts. The summer so far had been rather nice, better than most English summers, and August was so far no different, Polly was having a good month so far, no major difficulties had kept her co-worker away for once and so he had had the pleasure of dealing with Alex.

When she answered the phone and took a brief message to relay to Tim she knew in her heart of hearts that next week would be harder to bear. When Tim returned to the office from his cigarette break ten minutes later Polly relayed the message. “Tim I just had Maria Jenkins from the Tadcaster shop on the line, seems their entire POS system has died, she needs you up there soonest.”

“Damn, she say anything else?”

“Yeah, fire alarm went off, she’s not sure but she thinks their air conditioning system in the server room packed up and the whole lot melted. They had to evacuate the store, they have the all clear now but nothing is working.” With that Tim’s phone rang again this time Tim answerd.

“Hello.”

…

“Yes Tim speaking.”

…

“Yes I just got the message from Maria.”

…

“Well of course mister Harris, I’ll head up there in ten minutes, just load up the car and away I’ll go.”

…

“I’m sure Polly can handle anything down here for now, I’ll look at what needs doing and see if I can jury rig something.”

…

“Well if what Maria told Polly is correct, it’ll be more than that, couple of weeks probably.”

…

“Yes sir I know about the sale coming up, I’ll do what I can but a whole server room is not something I can just install in ten minutes.”

…

“Of course sir, I’ll keep you informed.” Putting the phone down her turned back to Polly, “Well you heard, I told the old fool only last week that if we centralised everything here… but you know Bob Harris,” and with remarkable skill he mimicked the IT director’s voice. “That’s a security risk we can’t take young Timothy, we’ll do it the old way or not at all.”

Polly laughed, “Tim you’d better get going, Maria will need you on site not here, I can hold the fort for a while, just remember I’m on holiday from next Thursday and this time I can’t put it off, not for you or Bob Harris.”

“Roger that Polly.”

~@~

Until three thirty the day went smoothly, Polly answered several questions from members of staff around the company, as various effects of the server death in Tadcaster trickled through the company, another problem however reared it’s ugly head however.

“IT department, Polly speaking.”

“Polly? Where is Timmy, on a fag break?” Alex sniggered into the phone.

“He’s gone over to Tadcaster to sort out the mess up there. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Possibly, your queer friend left me in a pickle last night promising to get back to me with a new dongle, for my projector, only he never appeared. I have an important client waiting, to see the plans of his new office, I need that part right now.”

“Did Tim say what it was you needed Alex?”

“No he didn’t but I can tell you. It’s a D-Sub female to D-Sub female. I have the old one here it fell to pieces whilst I was setting the projector up, just like all females it can’t do its job properly.”

“I’m not sure we have one of those in the stores Alex, we don’t normally support hardware belonging to the staff.”

“What?”

“The projector is yours if you want to use it on company premises you know we don’t support it. If you want to use one go through the channels and get one from stores, that comes with all the right bits to plug into your company laptop.”

“Listen Young Lady I have an important client waiting with me right now.”

“I’m sorry Alex we don’t keep that part in stock, I can’t get you one.”

“Right…” said Alex slamming the phone down.

“IT department, Polly speaking how may I help?”

“Polly I just had Alex Marshall on the phone, why can’t you sort out that part he wants?”

“Tim is out dealing with the hardware side of the problem in Tadcaster and I’m manning the phones here to keep the staff going when their own point of sale systems give them errors connected to Tadcaster, you know stock issues and such. I can’t easily just spend an hour rummaging around in the store room looking for a part, which I might add if Alex had followed the regulations he wouldn’t need.”

“Look I’ll get the switch board to transfer any calls to IT through to me, there’s a shop down the road that sells bits for computers I’m sure they’ll have the part, run down there and get this sorted.”

“Yes sir.”

“Then get this stupid feud with Alex sorted out before you start losing us money.”

“Yes sir.”

“Good girl.”

~@~

The shop down the road that Polly had passed on her way to work every day for the last three and a half years appeared to have changed hands, instead of the rather smart front and interesting display of PC parts in the window, all she could see through the cobwebs and dirt were some faded hardwood display stands and various miscellaneous pieces of junk that might have seen better days sometime before the reign of queen Elizabeth, the first. Stepping back into the road Polly looked both ways a long the road and couldn’t see another shop, let alone the one she assumed she’d missed. Oh well she though and stepped through the door.

“Good afternoon Polly can I help you?”

“Yes I’m looking for a… hang on did you call me Polly?”

“Yes Polly I did, and it just so happens I have exactly what you need right here.” He turned to some shelves behind the counter, Polly’s eyes followed his movements taking in the shabby robe he was wearing and the sign above his head.

“That explains it then.” She said with a laugh pointing at the sign.

“Yes it does, rather well we think. Now here is what you need, comes with a thirty day guarantee.”

“Damn I left my purse in the office, look do you take switch?”

“I’m afraid we don’t but I’m sure if you look in the pocket on your left thigh you will find some money.”

Polly did and was surprised to find a well washed five pound note, “How did you… oh yeah because you’re a wizard. Will that be enough?”

“More than enough, would you like it wrapping?”

“No thanks, look I might come by later you might be able to help a friend of mine.”

“You might but I doubt it.”

“Oh, okay, uh bye…” Polly hurried off to placate Alex who surely by now would have died of a stress induced heart attack.

No such luck, if anything Alex was in a worse mood than before, not only had he been given a talking too, in front of a client by the IT director, but the client had since left. “Where the hell have you been?”

“I told you we don’t stock them I had…”

“Well? You brought one?”

“Yes,” Polly said slitting the packet open with her thumbnail, the small part fell out into her hand what almost felt like a static shock jumping from it into her flesh. “I’ll even fit it for you and make sure it works.”

Polly didn’t like Alex but she knew that the company would sooner part company with her than this idiot. At least if she looked willing she might leave with dignity. She fiddled around behind Alex’s desk knowing full well that rather than do something constructive Alex was giving her bottom a good look. Thanking her lucky stars she had long since learnt not to wear a skirt to work and alternately cursing the degenerate man that made it impossible to.

“There, that should do it. Want to try?”

“Not if you were the last woman on earth.”

“Alex try the projector so I can get out of your way.” Polly tried to keep the anger from her voice. Alex moved behind his desk and pressed some buttons, while the projector did indeed come on, the image was out of focus and upside down.

“Typical.” He muttered before unplugging the dongle from the back of his laptop, he looked at it for a moment then plugged it back in. This time the projector once again failed to come on, Polly was beginning to feel that the fault might be with it rather than the cables.

“There are some instructions for use here Alex, do you…”

“You might need them but I’m sure I don’t, look you failed to set the dip switch properly. This’ll do it.”

Then Polly watched as the fat middle age man in front of her appeared to turn to jelly, it was his face she noticed first, it appeared to go slightly pale then shrivel up, by the time she realised what was happening however the rest of Alex’s body had also begun to change. And before Polly could do more than rise to her feet from her perch on the edge of the other chair Alex was no more.

“There you see Polly; you just need to set that dip switch, now it works.” Before Polly’s eyes Alex had changed, from a fat middle aged man into a pretty young woman.

“Alex?”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

“But what happened…”

“What do you mean? Today or just now?”

“Just now.”

“Well I noticed that the dongle has a tiny dip switch on the side, and I know its weird because what other input would a female d-sub jack have but when I set it to male input it works, look.” She pointed at the screen behind Polly that now had a rather hunky young man apparently trying to do something to another young man on a beach. The image was moreover the right way up, and complete in all its graphic detail.

“Polly?” The head of the IT director appeared round the door.

“Oh here you are, hi Alex, look I know that… WHAT ON EARTH IS THAT?” he caught sight of the gay porn displayed on the wall.

“Oh hi sir. No idea we sorted out the projector like mister Marshall asked and that’s what was on it.” Alex volunteered.

“I’ll kill him, this is the final straw.” The IT director stormed back out the door. Oh my gosh! thought Polly. Which was about all she had time to think because now a fat middle aged man who looked suspiciously like Alex Marshall stormed through the door followed closely by the IT director.

“Look Geoff I can explain.”

“I’d like to hear you try. Polly can you disconnect the laptop and make a copy of the hard drive I want to make sure nothing on it gets mysteriously deleted.”

“Yes sir.”

“You can’t do that Geoff that laptop is my personal property, anyway those photographs are um… research for an advert I’m thinking of placing. Yes an advert, Dimitri is the one on the left he has kindly offered his services for a very reasonable fee.”

“Look Alec, while I can’t stop you looking at that…” he paused trying to keep his temper, “sort of thing, you cannot seriously believe that the marketing department would allow you to advertise with that sort of photograph?”

“But…”

“No I have been told in no uncertain terms by the company that after you last dismal assessment and repeated complaints both from staff and customers, that we will have to let you go.”

“You can’t do that, my wife…”

“Has nothing to do with it, she is the daughter of the owner not your employer, and Sir Miles is already interested in the lack of profits coming from this store. To the point of closing it and redeploying the staff, who in the main have good reports. You don’t.

“Besides I doubt your wife would be impressed to find out why you have been sacked.”

“You wouldn’t…”

“Of course not, but if you fight it, it would come out.

“Now I want you off to clear all your personal belongings from this office, except the laptop. You can collect that from reception where I will leave it to be collected once Polly has copied the hard drive. I don’t feel it nesesscary to have security to escort you off the premises. But I will if you are not gone within an hour.

“Oh… I’ll…”

“Polly take the laptop back to your office and copy the hard drive, then return the laptop to me.”

Polly and Alex sat together in the IT office, it now contained three desks, one still belonged to Tim, one belonged to Polly and the third belonged to Alex, but Polly couldn’t ask her new colleague the question she needed to ask, Alex and the rest of the staff knew nothing of the days events. Indeed it was rapidly becoming unclear in her own head what had happened.

“So you were gay?” It slipped out of her mouth before Polly could censure herself. “Sorry…” she noticed Alex’s blush. “You know what happened?”

“I… yes.”

“So who was that in your office?”

“That was the old me, sort of. Dimitri was real, so I guess he was too.”

“And the reason you didn’t say anything?”

“I couldn’t, every time I tried I just couldn’t make a sound.”

“I thought I was going mad.”

“I am. I mean I was a man until three hours ago. Now I have to sit to piss, and my boy friend will hate me.”

“Boy friend? Dimitri?”

“Yes.” Alex blushed again. “Only now I don’t see what I saw in him.”

“So you gave Tim all that grief about being gay to do what? Prove in some strange way that you weren’t? Or because you were…”

“NO… I mean… I don’t know…”

“Well I think I’m going to have to tell Tim.”

“What? You can’t…”

“Can’t? Why not? You made us both miserable, me because of all those jokes about how bad women are at everything. And Tim from all those downright rude comments you made. ‘Want a fag Tim?’ Do you have any idea how hurtful that must have been?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well I’m not, now for once you can be on the receiving end of some of them.”

~@~

Polly was for once happy, she’d just come back from a lovely holiday in Brittany with her parents, who she hadn’t seen for several years. Tim had kept her up to date with the goings on in the office while she’d been away. The new Alex, Alec, was gone for good, thrown out on his ear, the rumour was that now his wife was suing him for divorce.

The man formerly known as Alex and now Polly’s lovely assistant was settling in well, though Tim mentioned she seemed awfully jumpy. But then Polly put that down to the fact that in the end she hadn’t told Alex that she wasn’t telling Tim, after all she doubted that he’d have believed her. Besides in the short time she had known the new woman she had grown to like her.

Alex didn’t know anything about the cable adaptor she had bought, or more importantly she didn’t know it had been bought from a guy who wore a dirty dressing gown to work and had a certificate of wizardry behind his counter. In the end rather than try and take it back or pass it on to anyone it went into the canal on her way home.

After all when you buy computer parts from wizards you don’t always get exactly what you want, or do you?

---

Spells ‘r’ Us Enterprises: Gender Bender (15pin D-Sub Female to 15 pin D-Sub Female). Instructions for Use

1. To convert a male into a female make sure the dip switch is set to ‘male’ input…
2. To reverse the process install the adaptor in reverse order.
3. This adaptor will also convert a SVGA monitor cable. However in this instance the dip switch should be left in the neutral position.

SrUE takes no responsibility for any catastrophic accidents to reality. This does not affect your statutory rights.

---

The above part does exist and is used to convert a monitor cable (SVGA) from a male plug into a female, often used when attaching extension cables together.

Based on a concept by Bill Hart. No wizards were harmed in the creation of this story.

©'07 JC & Incessant-Logic - Original File