A Starr is Born Pt 1
Reworked by Wendy C from
a story written by Mistress X.

I have to apologize up front about not being the actual author of this story. I just wish I had been. After reading this story on the Fiction Mania website and waiting a reasonable amount of time for it to reappear on this site, (since a lot TG stories from BCTS appear on other sites too) I finally decided that this story was just too good not to be shared here.

The only reason I’ve even added my name beside the actual author’s name, is because I had to spend so much time editing and correcting the spelling and grammar in the original posting to make the story easier for others to read.

I’ve also had to break the story up into several smaller parts too, because the original story is over 60,000 words long, which with its disjointed grammar and spelling, might have turned some readers off part way through reading it.

Hopefully I haven’t breached too many BCTS rules, or any copy write laws, since the original story didn’t have any copy write disclaimers in it. Besides, I’m not getting a single cent or even a brass razoo for any of this.

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Chapter One

I took one last look at my gear as James Phoenix's music played. Geez how the hell was I ever gonna get off of the mid-card matched against curtain jerking jobbers like James Phoenix? Sure, I'd be going over, (slang - winning the bout) but also against the least popular guy in the locker room, it wouldn't give me much of a push (slang - promotion).

My flame pattern boots were laced, my orange wrist tape was snug, my orange and black ankle length singlet wasn't riding up too much, everything looked alright and then my own intro music erupted. I kissed my left index finger and put it to my lucky star tattoo on my right shoulder, "I've got to have words with the booker about this," I grumbled aloud and stormed through the curtain leading to the ring.

I emerged into the spotlight amid camera flashes. Good crowd tonight I thought. Not the biggest arena I'd ever performed in, but it was full to the rafters, 15-16,000 screaming dorks here to get my picture and buy my t-shirts, not bad.

Still, if I could get to the upper card, better yet get a major title, I could charge a lot more for those shirts and autographs. I threw my arms up with the cockiest smirk I could manage. I was a heel (slang - “bad” guy) after all, and as the bad guy it was my job to be hated. I headed down the ramp with a fuck-off strut, running my hands through my red-brown hair, even going so far as to twirl my moustache and goatee.

"And his opponent," echoed the ring announcer over the loudspeaker, "from San Diego, California weighing in at 224 pounds, CASEY BLAZE!" I could feel the jeers and boos echoing in my boots, and my evil smirk turned real. It was so easy to get cheap easy heat from the crowd, who always booed the bad guy.

I rolled up onto the ring apron and under the ropes, jumped up, and hopped onto the second turnbuckle. Then peering into the crowd and throwing them intentional dirty looks and giving them rude gestures, I listened in delight as the next wave of boos washed over me.

We centred in the ring, where Karl, the referee, stood between us. "You know the routine" Karl said as he ran through the motions for the benefits of the audience at home, which heard everything through his partly hidden microphone strapped to his body under his white shirt, as well as wearing a black bow tie and long black trousers, the accepted referee’s clothing for wrestling.

I ignored him and gave James a taunting, dismissive look. It wasn't so fake either. He was an ugly little lightweight. James had a shaved head, pasty, bumpy features, a couple of bad tattoos on his back and ankle. He wore blue and green trunks with stylized Japanese writing on them that he probably didn't even understand, plain black boots and wore black colored wrist tape.

He fancied himself as a bit of a high-flier, (slang - quick and very acrobatic moving, while performing flashy wrestling moves on opponents) but was barely proficient on the mat, having botched as many dives as he'd pulled off. I never understood how he even got this job. He’d been a little skinny chicken thing up until just recently, where he'd quickly and suddenly put a little muscle onto that skinny frame.

Must be juicing it (slang - using steroids) for sure, I thought. Still he’d never be able to obtain the mass, tone, and definition I’d achieved using only just some heavy iron, protein and a good dose of determination. "Go to your corners and wait for the bell" Karl said to both of us.

I strode back to my corner and leaned into the turnbuckles easily. I wasn't as really relaxed as I put on for the rubes (slang – fans unaware of a situation) in the crowd. Give me a good worker like Kurt Robins, or Jackson Castle, and the show went as smooth as melted butter. But working with uncoordinated spot-monkey’s like James was a nightmare.

The bell rang and we charged at each other, where at center ring we put each other in the collar and elbow tie-up. We stood with our arms tangled and I dipped my head down so the audience couldn't see my face. "Alright James," I said. "I'm gonna give you the side headlock and you counter with a back body drop and follow up with an elbow drop."

I broke the hold and side-stepped, then wrapped my left arm around the side of his head, holding it down near my waist. James put his right arm around my waist and pulled, but he couldn't actually lift me, stalling the whole match as he struggled. I sighed and rolled my eyes, then subtly leaped backward and landed on my back, making it look as best I could like he'd thrown me. He remained on his feet and dropped right back down for the elbow drop, which he was supposed to land with the flat of his arm across the thick part of my chest, but instead he landed with the point of his elbow uncomfortably close to my collar bone.

"Gah," I groaned and thought you little bastard. Then I noticed he was climbing the nearest turnbuckle. We hadn't discussed this at all! He got up there, turned his back to me, and did a moon assault back-flip, landing right across my chest. "What the hell are you doing James" I whispered as sternly as I could? Of course I already knew………the damned spot-monkey.

I rolled to my knees, and grabbed him, putting him in a front chancery face lock. There he was, bent over in front of me, with his head in my armpit, so I grabbed him by the trunks and suplexed him over my shoulder, slamming him (probably too hard) onto his back. I rolled away from him so as to get up and see what move to try next. As he staggered back to his feet I quickly bounced myself off the ring ropes and clotheslined him across the chest, knocking him legitimately back to the canvas. He jumped right back up, ran behind me and bouncing off the ropes came back at me, before launching himself through the air for a cross body block, which I being much bigger than him, caught in mid-air.

"James, you've got to give me a heads up on these things dammit." I quietly berated him. "I'm gonna give you a body slam now, then a pin, which you’ll kick out of and then we'll go into the chin-lock."

I threw my feet out behind me and fell onto the mat, looking like I’d squashed James under my weight and was laying on him. Karl slid down quickly next to us, and brought his hand down onto the canvas counting loudly “One”, where James popped his shoulder up.

"Really……at ONE James” I thought angrily! So I rolled him onto his chest and sat myself on his back, and clasped my hands under his chin, pulling him backward. "Okay," I whispered. "I'm gonna give you the one-two, flying fore arm and the cross-face."

"I want to get my moves in" he protested through his teeth. "I’ve only got in the one high-spot so far”.

"Let's just do this!" I insisted.

Making almost no show of it at all, James slid out in front of me, and put his boot on the bottom rope. "Rope-break!" cried Karl, and he came up behind me pretending to break up the hold. "1... 2... 3..." he began to count as I refused to break the hold. According to the canon rules of the match, (“kayfabe” as it's called) I had to a count of 5 to break the hold.

But I was a heel, a bad-guy, so holding a submission past the break is a cheap source of heat with the crowd. Besides, I liked sticking it to this little squirt. I waited until I heard the "f" on the five before I let him go.

I then picked him up, grabbed him by the wrist and shoulder and propelled him across the ring. That’s called an “Irish-Whip” and it's one of the fundamental moves everybody learns. I turned, stepped back and the two of us bounced off of opposite ropes, and hurtled towards each other, I leaped into the air and touched my forearm deceptively lightly to his head.

James fell back and I crawled over him, flipping him onto his chest, I trapped his left hand between my knees and put the back of my hand under his nose, hooking it with my other hand around the back of his head, pulling his head up and backwards.

Then I felt something weird. His hand was grabbing the inside of my knee.

He wasn't doing “that,” was he?

He then pulled my legs in and turned in place, rolling over and through the hold. My green eyes turned red. That insufferable little bastard, the unmitigated gall of this 50-1 loser! This canvas eating jobber had the gall to slip MY finishing move!

That was supposed to be the go home spot (slang - for the end of the bout/match). Now the biggest loser in the locker room, had no-sold it (slang - for showing how fake a wrestling hold may be) and turned it around, thus irrevocably weakening my best move! I was steaming, I needed to catch my breath or I was gonna kill the little shit.

I rolled under the ropes and onto the floor, and stepped away from the ring as Karl began his 10-count for the ring-out. I wiped the sweat from off of my forehead and stewed for a moment, when I heard a mild pop (slang - noise/reaction) from the audience.

I turned to see what they were reacting to when and spied James, crouched and unsteadily standing on the top rope right above me. Then when he saw me lock eyes with his and he jumped. He was doing a high cross-body, a very stupid move to do without discussing it first. My job during this move would be to catch him, and break his fall, while going to the floor and looking like he had flattened me. Instead, I stepped aside and let him drop to the floor!

James went crashing into the barely padded stadium floor. I heard a loud snap and a scream and there he was, writhing on the ground, cradling a crooked forearm. I looked up into the ring at Karl and saw panic in his eyes. He quickly slid out of the ring and whispered in the ear of the ring announcer who was sitting by the commentators, as EMTs hustled down the entrance ramp.

"Ladies and Gentlemen" the announcer declared over the speakers. "This match has ended in a no-contest." An audible groan could be heard from the marks (slang - audible stirrers and fans) in the crowd. I just shook my head and walked around the medics crowding around James and headed back up the ramp, positively fuming!

Barging through the curtain, I trudged the hallways crowded with stage hands and other wrestlers, still steamed at what had just gone down in the ring. I decided to take a walk before heading back to the locker room …… and I knew just which route to take. After a roundabout walk through the cinder block hallways I came to the locker room, just not the men's locker room.

I could already hear showers running and high pitched voices chatting as I walked past along the opposite wall until I reached a place where I could see in through a crack in the door. It wasn’t such an unpleasant sight either.

There, totally oblivious to me was Violet, a girl from Utah with a cowgirl gimmick and she was wearing her trademark boots and denim cut offs, and nothing else. "Man, I'll have to take a swing at her sometime." I thought.

Then from out of the change room door appeared Angel Madison, queen-bee of the women's division. She was a heel like me, but she didn't have to put so much effort into acting the part of a bitch. "And what are YOU doing on this side of the arena?" she demanded staring me down with her baby-blues.

I'd seen plenty of girls in my time that had fuck me eyes, but Angel was the only one I'd ever seen with fuck YOU eyes. Still, they were set in a pretty face. It had gotten her pretty far in life so far, just not as far as “that” body. She was dressed for a match, her pink thigh-high wrestling boots, too short pink skirt and mid-riff bearing top. It fit her super-model curves so well, especially the top, since Angel was the reigning captain of the company’s “silicone squad”.

It was one of my favorite NDW company policies. They paid for a limited set of elective surgeries for the girls, with implants being pretty high up on the list, though they'd only spring for the old-school implants, and not the new zeeg tissue building bio-mods.

"Walking off a shitty performance," I answered. "What's it to you anyway? Are you looking for a good one Babe" I asked her half hoping.

"Pfft Pig," she spat.

"Ms. Madison, you're wanted in makeup" said a stage hand popping around the corner.

"Right" Angel called in response, before spitefully looking back at me. "Why don't you just fuck off pig?" she suggested before heading off towards makeup.

"Probably should" I thought. If I hung around here too long my tights might get a little painful. I decided that as soon as I got back to the locker room, I'd look through my phone to see what hook-ups I had in Cincinnati.

I made my way to the men's locker room where several of the other guys were changing for or after a match, or simply hanging around. Some of them were cool while some of them were total arseholes. The one I hated the most was Luke Power, who was the current NDW Heavyweight Champion.

Why was he champion I angrily thought? Personally I didn't think he was that good of a worker in the ring, or that good a talker on the mic. No, they made him the champ because of “the look”.

I had a fantastic bod too, but Luke’s made him look like he was a god damned super-hero, he even dressed like one. He was a 6'6", 300+ pound super-heavyweight without an ounce of fat on him. Decked out in his blue trunks and knee pads with red and white trim, black boots, red wrist tape, he looked like some genetic experiment from a patriotic super-soldier project.

He had body mass I'd never be capable of. That may sound like jealousy, but “the look” was only a small part of why I hated him so much. What really irked me was he was so god damned, legitimately, no kidding, no bullshit acting NICE. He was the quintessential baby face, good-guy. And it was no act. He was the chummiest SOB you'd ever meet and he was always the first one to volunteer for the charity appearances and USO shows. He made me sick to my stomach!

I took my bag out of my locker and pulled out a towel and my phone. I was scrolling through my contacts when another stage hand poked his head inside the doorway. "There you are," he said. "Casey, Mike wants to talk to you."

"I'm gonna hit the shower," I replied.

"I wouldn't make him wait," the guy responded more as a friendly warning of possible trouble brewing than as threat to me personally. So I just nodded an irritated acknowledgement.

Since Mike was the one who signed the checks, I could hardly say no. So I pulled the straps down on my singlet and wiped myself down with the towel, then threw on a t-shirt from out of my bag before heading out of the locker rooms.

It took me maybe five minutes to find the administrative section in this backward arse about arena before I finally came across a door with the temporary name-tag on it. "Mike Chaninzki - General Manager," Mike wasn't the on air manager. That was done by an actor, an over the hill former wrestler named Killer Kowalski who’d been the best heel in the business, years ago.

Mike was the business man of the operation and he “was” the real deal. He was also the guy I had wanted to talk to about matching me with Phoenix anyway, but I knew if he was calling “me” in, he must have been plenty pissed about how the match ended up.

"Sit down," was all he said after I knocked on the door and was told to enter. I took a seat in an aluminum folding chair in front of what looked like an old army surplus steel desk the arena had provided. Mike was a sort of portly middle-aged guy, balding, but didn't seem in any way soft.

When I describe him as a business man, he seems sometimes like the kind of guy who gets called that as a euphemism. He even had the big gold pinkie ring and everything else as well. He rested his chin on his thumb, curled his finger over his lip, and stared at me for what seemed like an hour.

"You’ve shitted the bed this time Casey," he finally said. "What the hell was that out there?"

"He didn't give me the heads up on the move Mike," I answered. "Everybody in the locker room has told you about that guy. He just had to try and get his spots in. He's a diva", I told him in a half explanation and half defence of my own actions which had resulted in his injury.

"You're all fucking divas," Mike retorted. "And I'm sure that's all it was out there tonight, right? It wouldn’t have been because you got pissed off that he made you look bad, would it? Well you damn sure all look good now, huh? he said angrily. You had a win lined up and you turned it into a damn draw, Jimmy's in the hospital, you're both down a heat and that costs me money. Everybody wins heh?”

“And it was all because you both had to do things your own way”, he added. Do you even realise I’ve only just finished talking on the phone with Jimmy's lawyer, pointing out the part of his contract what says he can't sue!"

"Look Mike, I" I began.

"Don't you dare Look Mike me," he interrupted. "I'm moving you down the card next week and I'm docking your take from the next pay-per-view and I’m not going to hear another word about it. I'd suspend you, but I’ve already had to put Jimmy on the shelf because he broke his damned arm. Now get the hell out of here. And if I was you buddy boy, I'd go and hide in your tour bus so that you don’t run into ME for a while! Now get the hell out of my office you dumb sum bitch"

I went out into the hall and kicked over the first equipment crate I saw. "Son of a bitch" I spat and almost flung whatever was in my hand against the wall, before realizing it was my phone. My contacts were still open. "Fuck it," I said aloud and looked down at it. "Let's see who's in town who thinks she's my girlfriend."

Chapter Two

It was early the following week and the tour buses had taken us to Cleveland. We were at a bigger arena here, which meant a bigger gate, which meant a bigger pay check, even if I was lower on the card, so my mood was up.

I was in the gym working out on the free weights, pumping my guns, doing bicep curls and shoulder presses, when one of the booker's assistants came in and read off the card and the clanking of iron went quiet. The big money drawers, namely the upper card guys who were title holders, all had on-going feuds and angles they were involved in, so they were at the pitch meetings, where a lot of thought went into their matches and just how everything would go and when they'd be on. Everybody else just got a match order and a winner announced in the gym or the locker room. Damn I hated being on that sheet.

"Alright, listen up" he called out and holding up an actual print out of fax paper in his hand like it was the damn stone-age. "Pulling the curtain tomorrow night its Franky Stone going over Greg Gara. Second match is the Cole Brothers going over the 9 to 5ers. Third match is Casey Blaze going over Dead Ed, fourth is Cassidy going over Miami Dawn, fifth is Ryan Rogers going over Vortex. That's it for the dark show. On air it's......"

I stopped listening. Mike had moved me down the card alright. In fact he’d taken me off the air completely and put me on the damned untelevised dark show. At least Mike didn't have the gall to make me do the job and lose. So it was Dead Ed I was working with eh? Ed Elliot. Not a super-star by any means, no charisma whatsoever. But at least he was a professional in the ring and knew what he was doing, unlike bloody James Phoenix. God, I wished I knew whose nephew James was to get this job.

".......and that's it for the mid-card. That's all she wrote folks" and the assistant turned to leave. "Oh wait," he paused and turned around. "Casey, somebody told me Mike wants to see you."

"Now what" I said, to myself more than anyone. I put the weights back on the rack and toweled off before pulling my tank top back on, taking a swig from my water bottle, and heading for the office.

I knocked on Mike's door and peeked in. "What do you want?" he asked grimly when he looked up and saw me. Luke Power was sitting in his civvies in front of him and they were obviously in a meeting.

"I was told you wanted to see me," I returned.

"I don't know why the hell I would," he said. "Somebody's fucking around. I didn't send for you. Get out of here, go coordinate with Dead Ed and try to give the match a finish this time. Anyway, Luke..." he continued on ignoring me as if I wasn’t there.

I walked out gritting my teeth. Not only had I not wanted to see Mike right now, but now my workout groove had been busted. I had all day to work out spots with Ed, mostly consisting of me putting him in the cross-face and him tapping, so there wasn't that big of a hurry, I just wanted to get back in the gym and pump away some of my rage.

Turning a corner I bumped literally shoulder to slung shoulder with none other than a plaster cast wearing James Phoenix. It looked like he was coming out of the gym. "Whoa," I said. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be on leave." He just shot a look of daggers at me with his eyes, stink eye like I'd never seen before and marched wordlessly off down the corridor.

"What's James doing here?" I asked when I came back into the gym.

"Beats me" answered a tag-teamer named Rhett Cole. "He just poked around. Jack Castle had to chase him away from his bag. It looked like he was looking for something."

"It's not like he forgot something," I said, and took another hit from my water bottle. "We haven't been to Cleveland since last winter," I took the weights back off the rack and commenced doing a few more steady curls.

It was the following night and I was geared up for the show. I was standing behind the curtain when Ed approached me in his own ring gear, scraggly long black hair, messy eye-liner, a sleeveless black t-shirt tucked into his black tights, the total grunge look. "Hey man" he said, "we haven't talked about the spots."

"Yeah, yeah," I said, wiping some water out of my eye. "I've been feeling a little low on energy today. Not really enthused I guess. Anyway, I'll open with a lariat, the go home spot will be the cross-face, we'll improvise in between, alright with you?"

"Whatever man" he said. "Just pretend to show some enthusiasm out there at least."

"About what" I asked. "We're both heels man. They don't even care about logic in the dark matches (non-televised bouts). Why would I want your blood anyway? I think my character would be as disinterested as I am."

I could see he was about to tell me off by his dirty look, but before he could answer, his music hit. He just shook his head at me and went through the curtain. I just wiped my eyes again and waited for my cue. I'd felt lousy all day, not sick really, just unmotivated. And I had the weirdest persistent tingling in my stomach.

The loudspeaker rumbled the music through the place and I could hear the muffled sound of Ed's introduction announcement. "Introducing first, fighting out of the Bronx, New York weighing in at 213 pounds... DEAD ED!"

There was only a mild pop (slang - vocal reaction) from the crowd, given how few real Dead Ed fans there were. Yet it was funny to hear a heel get a pop. He was one of those guys who could never turn against the marks in the audience and make them hate him.

The music died down, and I could see the lights change to a more orange color under the curtain, then my music hit. I kissed my forefingers and placed them to my star tattoo and psyched myself. Then I burst through the curtain.

"And his opponent, from San Diego, California, weighing in at 224 pounds... CASEY BLAZE!" and the crowd gave a much louder boo than the pop they had given Ed. That was a proper reaction for a good heel doing his job right. I did my signature strut down to the ring, then up on the turnbuckle, acted for the rubes, perfect in doing my usual ring entry routine.

When we centerd the ring, Karl was again the ref and he did his whole spiel. We went to our corners, and then the bell rang. I ran out, meeting Ed close to his own corner and wrapped my arm around his neck at a run. I did it lightly mind you, but he threw himself back first onto the mat and grasped at his neck for effect. I bent over and slapped him lightly across the head before I pulled him to his feet. "Suplex, and then mounted punches," he whispered and I agreed. Them I twisted my arm around the back of his neck, grabbed his tights, and lifted... and completely failed to lift him more than an inch off of his feet into the air.

It didn't feel like Ed was at his billed weight just about then. But I tried again and with a little more effort, this time I got him up lifted vertically over my shoulder, and then I fell backward with him to the canvas. I rolled through with the momentum of the maneuver and ended up sitting on Ed's chest. Then I began to punch him in the head. It was one of the oldest tricks in the book. The punches weren't faked per se, they looked like they hit him, but they were just really soft and my hand was held in a way that looked like a closed fist from a distance, but was really half open.

Ed was a brawler, so his options were limited, but he began to return the same gimmick punches to my midsection which I took as a sign to make an opening. I played it up and acted stunned, stopped dead in the middle of a swing, and so he reached forward, took my ankle, and rolled me over into a heel hold. Simple grapples like this could be felt through and didn't have to be discussed verbally.

Of course Ed didn't put any actual pressure on it but I played it up anyway, throwing a fit like it was the most painful hold in the world.
Eventually I stretched out, and put my hand on the ropes, and it was my turn to sit and wait while the ref counted to 5. When Ed did finally let go I rolled out of the ring, classic cowardly heel tactic, but when I hit the floor I went to a knee inadvertently. I was feeling strangely woozy.

Ed slid out after me and as soon as I got to my feet he had me in a side headlock. "Are you okay man?" he whispered.

"I'm fine," I answered. "Just go to the ring post. I put my hand on his back and pushed forward out of the headlock, and he ran straight into the ring post, head butting the back of his hand as if to imply he’d struck his head on the metal post. I rolled him back onto the ring apron and gave him a deceptively soft elbow pat, and then rolled in beside him. I knelt there, trying to catch my breath. Something was definitely wrong with me.

"Hey, man, you're messed up," Ed whispered. "Let's wrap this up and get you backstage. Give me the Irish whip, the one-two, and go home."

So Ed picked me up and walked me through a wrist lock that gave me apparent control, and I gave him a light push that sent him running. He bounced off the ropes and came back. I hit him with a "flying" forearm that didn't even leave the ground and then I dropped on top of him and put him in the most half-assed cross-face of my career. He instantly started tapping the mat, but before Karl could even call the match, everything began to go white and I saw the canvas come up to meet me.

Chapter Three

I woke up I don’t know how much later in a hospital bed. I wasn't hooked up to anything, which was a good sign, but I was wearing a backless hospital gown and I still felt like six pounds of dirt in a three pound bag. I fumbled around until I found the little switch with a call button on it and pressed it. More than five minutes later no nurse had come, but instead in walked an older fellow wearing a full on doctor's coat. "Mr. Blake?" he said.

"Call me Casey," I responded. "What happened?"

"I'm Doctor Hansen. Well, ahem," he took a seat in a chair beside the bed. "We ran some tests and it appears you over exerted yourself during a hormonal imbalance. It caused you to faint. That in itself is not so serious." He looked uneasy, which put me on edge.

"THAT'S not so serious?" I probed.

"In the short term, we're going to put you on some anti-depressants. Have you eaten anything unusual lately? Come into contact with anything strange?" he deflected.

"I can't help but feel like we're dancing around here doc," I said plainly.

"It’s important that we cover this issue Mr. Blake, because our tests have suggested that you were drugged and it would help us to find out how" said Dr. Hansen.

"Drugged" I exclaimed. "Drugged with what?"

"Are you familiar with Zeeg bio-mods?" he asked.

"Yeah" I answered, "kind of”. “I heard they have some sort of steroids in them that don't shrink your nuts."

"That's not what you were given," he responded flatly.

The Zeeg were these sort of aliens that had popped up some years earlier, not like from another planet, but from some other dimension. From what I knew they were amiable enough for the most part and they were supposed to be really closely related to us humans, like frogs and toads. You'd see them around once in a while. They also had some really advanced technology.

Mostly it was a lot of high-end consumer things, but they had a real special edge in the medical areas. They supposedly had a cure for almost everything, and all kinds of drugs and chemicals that could do all sorts of things, because they had figured out how to manipulate DNA and cell structure. Bio-mods were a sort of high-end chemical plastic surgery.

They'd give you some sort of soup and it would make your own bodily processes make the changes for you. They could make you look younger, give a girl a bigger set of tits, change your hair or eye color, even change your race. The things that did the big changes though weren't usually freely available to the public, and you had to get your head shrunk first if you wanted to get anything drastic done.

They didn't like sending too much over to our side of the curtain. Things like hair color weren't as tightly watched, but it was an expensive alternative to a dye job.

"So what's up?" I again said directly. "I'm not about to croak am I?"

"No," he answered. "Nothing life threatening, uhm, before we go further....." He then got up and walked right outside and left me alone, still with no real answers. But he said I wasn't dying and that was a big plus in the win column as far as I was concerned.

He came back in not two minutes later with a nurse in tow and she was carrying an IV bag of something clear. She looked alright too. She had a pixie cut and that typical nurse look of having been on shift too long and was pissed about it, but she was kind of stacked up top.

"This is something to make you feel a little better," said the doc as the nurse hooked up the IV to the stand by the bed. She leaned over and started doing that thing where they try to work up a vein by flicking you and I noticed I could see right down her smock. I of course did what I had always done in these situations and locked eyes with her cleavage.

Why was I doing this? Yeah, they were nice they were big, probably not real, but... I found myself doing what I'd never done before, applying reason to boobs. Why did I like boobs? Why do I look at them? Why did they give me the reaction they did? Finally, why was I pondering this right now for?

"OW!" I snapped out of it as I felt the needle sink into my arm, and then I rapidly calmed down as the soothing chemical goodness seeped into my system. "Oh, that's good..." My eyes half closed and I laid my head against the pillow again.

"Okay Mr. Blake," the doctor said as the nurse walked out.

"Call me Casey," I said sing song.

"I'm going to ask you a few questions," he continued. "You are a heterosexual, yes?"

"Uh-hmm."

"You didn't knowingly take anything illicit yesterday? Correct?"

"Uh-mm."

"Mr. Blake?"

"Casey."

"...are you familiar with something called gynospores?"

"Nope."

"Well, we've detected active spores in your system and they're quite volatile. That's what caused the sudden drop in testosterone levels that caused your blackout yesterday. It would help us greatly if you could shed some light on how you were exposed."

That got my attention, in spite of my apparent loopy brain and good vibes. Whatever I’d been given had left me actually pretty lucid on a logical level. "Say what now? That's what I was drugged with?"

"Yes Mr. Blake."

"And they make my testosterone levels drop?" I asked.

"Considerably," he answered.

"Am I gonna have to take supplements or something?"

"I'm afraid it's not that simple" he spoke with a very dour, almost threatening tone.

Now I was worried. A rather tight, painful lump formed in my throat. "We've been dancing around this for a while now doc. So let's get down to brass tacks here. What's the diagnosis?"

"Gynospores are a rather potent and permanent bio-mod Mr. Blake," he said still grim and still with the tone of a man who hated doing what he was doing. "Their effects are irreversible. And their effects are ongoing. It will be another two weeks or so until their total physical effects are complete, unless v-ray treatment is sought to speed it along. But given the strain in question there's nothing we can do to stop it or frankly, even slow it down. The counter mod simply doesn't exist."

"The effects on me" I asked nervously?

"They are," he hesitated. "They are a very thorough male to female sex change mod, and they WILL run their course."

Suddenly I saw spots again, the ceiling started spinning above me and everything went white.

When I woke up again I was given the whole history and rundown. Apparently gynospores come from a genetically engineered plant from the Zeeg side and they are grown in labs run entirely by women, since the spores don't do anything to women, but are extremely dangerous to men.

As they explained it, the spores produce artificial Zeeg DNA segments specific to the fourth chromatid on the second X chromosome, the one guys don't have. It takes a guy's DNA and alters it from the ground up to change his Y chromosome into a second X, and then it goes about altering his cell structure, then the physical structure from there.

They couldn't make a counter-mod because, they said, it was easy for the spore to target a single Y chromosome. But when there were two X’s, it was too hard to get the thing to affect just one. So in about two weeks I'd have the whole package, tits, pussy, even womb and ovaries, monthly visitor and all. It would be the whole package, delivered to the wrong address.

What's more it was meant for Zeeg and Zeeg aren't quite the same as humans, so there were more side effects. Zeeg guys, funny alien heads not-withstanding, are more like human guys than Zeeg chicks are like human women. From the neck down, they were pretty much the same, but the girls have all kinds of differences. For one thing, they were naturally hairless, and I don't just mean bald like all Zeeg are. From the eyebrows down they didn't have a hair on them, except for pubes, I could attest to that from some curious internet browsing I had done. Their skin was also softer and healed more perfectly than any human's. They didn't get scars or tan lines, not for long anyway, it would all even out, and cuts healed up a lot faster.

Finally they emitted a sex pheromone that worked like a natural aphrodisiac for guys. They work on Zeeg guys better, but it was supposed to work on human guys too. They made a pretty penny bottling that stuff into perfume, or so the rumor went. I was happy to learn it only really worked when they were sexually aroused because as it turns out, all these traits get passed on to a guy who gets exposed to gynospores and changes. “Gynomorphs” they're called.

What I was less happy to learn was that the changes were more than physical. They changed things mentally too. They didn't erase your memory or brainwash you, I was assured. But they did make some adjustments for a better natural female brain structure and brain chemistry to be the final result. A heterosexual female brain chemistry in fact. As it turned out there were no carpet munchers among gynomorphs.

I was sitting in my hospital room staring at the wall when the door slowly opened and in poked a toe-headed face. "Hey man... um, uh, Casey" he said. I slowly turned my head and glowered at him, knowing full well my eyes had dark bags the size of pillows under them. It was Nigel Cullen, my agent, and being like me, a player of his part. He would often come off as too upbeat and chipper. He was trying to hold it back at the moment, temper it so he didn't seem thrilled, but not adding to the depression either. He was also the only guy I ever met named “Nigel” with an American accent. "So um, I've actually got some good news," he said taking a seat beside the bed.

I just rotated my face around and looked back at the wall and said flatly, "of course, how could there be any other kind?"

"Well, it's....." he began before the chesty nurse came in and interrupted him. She was carrying a little paper cup and a glass of water.

"Time for your medication," she said and handed me the cup with two pills in it and the water. She stood over me and stared, making sure she saw me take them. I looked up at her disapprovingly for a moment before I downed the pills, chasing them with water, all without breaking eye contact. Then I opened my mouth and lifted my tongue contemptuously. She took the glass and left.

"Those uh.....are they happy pills?" questioned Nigel trying to break the tension.

"I don't know about that," I said. "But I haven't thrown myself out a window yet, so they're obviously doing something," I tossed the leftover paper cup in the trash can in the corner of the room.

"Look," he said. "I do have news. They turned half that arena into a damned quarantine zone looking for whatever infected you. Hazmat suits, bio-chemical doohickeys. It was like the Andromeda Strain in there for a while. They found it in your water bottle. Nothing outside, everything else was clean."

"This helps me how?" I said.

"Well they found fingerprints on the bottle, yours and someone else's," he answered. I turned an icy, impatient gaze back toward him. "They were Phoenix's, they busted him."

I shook my head and sighed, my lip curled in a moment of lucidity and understanding. "That little shit would," I said.

"Apparently he'd been gassing," Nigel explained. "He got a small dose from his steroid dealer. He's gonna go away for a long time for this, but um...... you're gonna have to testify."

I sighed again. "I don't have that much to say," I said. "I saw him in the arena that day, coming out of the gym. Probably then I guess."

"Well," he went on. "I just wanted to give you the news, I'm not here to talk about that, I'm a contract lawyer, not a criminal attorney, you're
gonna have to talk with someone else about that. We shouldn't discuss it”.

"But I ‘am’ here to talk about something else" Nigel said more excitedly.

I looked at him again, slightly puzzled.

"It's your contract with NDW," he said.

"What about it?" I asked. "What contract? I'm done, my career is over."

"Well..." he hesitated, "no it isn’t actually. You still have two years left on your contract and in light of recent events they're willing to renegotiate terms but...... Look. I've already talked with them, they're not willing to release the contract."

"What the hell are you talking about?" I demanded, my voice finally picking up, my emotions showing. "I can't wrestle. That's done man, it's DONE."

"It doesn’t have to be that way. They're willing to make a lot of concessions to you, on everything except the contract’s length. That gives them a much higher chance of winning in court Casey," Nigel retorted. "I could potentially argue that this constitutes a career ending illness but I have no confidence that they won't still find against you in breach, because..." he trailed off.

"Because what?"

"Because NDW does have a women's division and their staff has already made it clear that that it’s on the table."

"Fuck no!" I yelled. "No damned way!"

"They're making all the concessions Casey," he said. "That gives them a strong position if this ever went to trial. You can fight them in court, probably lose, lose out on a ton of money in legal fees or... you could do the two years, and get paid for it, maybe even get a pay increase!"

I brought my hand up to my chin in contemplative frustration, and realized how smooth it was now with my goatee and moustache gone and my skin was softer than it had been since I was six. "AARRGGHH" I screamed and tried to throw the bed control against the wall, but it just sprung back on its cord and clattered against the side of the bed.