My head was about to burst. The pain was bad, and the thirst was worse than when I climbed Petit Dru’s southern wall without water. Had to drink… A lot…

I rose up somehow from the bed and started towards the bathroom, it was closer than the kitchen. Moving was a hell, and not only because of the throbbing head. My entire body felt misplaced, and I had the feeling that some slings are attached to my legs and arms, pulling them and changing my movements. Oh, God. Must warn Salazzo, this grappa is really bad, he shouldn’t stock it anymore. Never had a hangover before, this was the first time I ever got drunk. But it couldn’t be that bad, or nobody would ever get drunk for a second time…

I pulled myself inside the bathroom and lunged for the tap. Opened it and started sucking the water directly from it. How good the cold water felt!…

I don’t know how much time I spent drinking, but finally the throbbing subsided a bit and my head felt clearer. Drinking alcohol was a really, really, really bad mistake. Better jump from the roof than try that, I thought. What a lesson. I didn’t want to even think how I look now… Still, I lifted my head and looked in the mirror.

A girl looked at me from it. A real beauty. Her face reminded me of something…

Two big jumps, and I was back in the room, at the table. There should have been activated carbon pills in the drawer. Opened it, took the box out – empty! Shit! That grappa is laced with something really bad. Now, what? Drink more water?… And, by the way, what the girl in the mirror reminded me? That sexdoll? Where it was?… It wasn’t on the bed… nor in its box… nor under the table…

Oh…!

I felt blushing when I remembered what I had done before going to sleep. Good that nobody had seen it, or I would die from embarrassment.

I tried to pull the sexdoll off me. Strange – touching my head and face felt like there was nothing over them. Same about my shoulders – it felt like I was touching my own bare skin. And I couldn’t find by touch the cut along the back, despite probing the place again and again… Finally, I went back to the bathroom and looked at my back in the mirror.

There was no cut. Only a smooth, soft, perfect skin.

I felt panic slowly raising. Clenched my teeth and tried to fight it. The panic is the worst enemy in the mountain. You give in to it, and the next moment you are falling in the abyss. Calm down. Don’t move, calm down. Don’t move, calm down. Calm down. Whatever it is, it can wait. First calm down…

Okay. Let’s start somewhere… What else did I do that evening, after putting that sexdoll on? There was some remote, not my TV’s…

I went back to the room. There it was, on the table. Looking very much like a Euro-standard universal remote… After a second of thinking, I waved it towards the screen. The screen lit, and lines started appearing on it:

RhineGoldAussehensAnderung GmbH

TG M2F Bodysuit

… What?! That is not a sexdoll, but… bodysuit? Like, a second skin or something?

Welcome to our newest product!

With our RGAA series, you are able to change your appearance towards anything you desire. The different model numbers have different basic appearances. For a package that would allow a model to emulate the appearance and the function of another model, please visit our online shop.

So, that is why I was able to see, despite being inside the sexdoll, that is, the bodysuit… Whatever, how to get it off me? Is there a Contents?

There was. Under the section “Usage” I saw a chapter titled “Putting it on an off”. Go there…

Press simultaneously the buttons “Action” and “Arrow Down”. As with putting it on, the bodysuit will need 8 hours to reverse the adaptation of your body towards it. During that time, it will ease you into sleep. For a package that shortens this time to 1 minute and does not require sleeping, please visit our online shop.

Eight hours?! Shit…

Suddenly I fell the call of the nature. Or rather its scream. All the water I had drank insisted on coming out, right now. Probably joined by the grappa.

I stood before the toilet bowl, but my fingers only found down there… well, something that belonged on a girl. I sighed, sat down on the bowl and prayed to all gods and devils that this GmbH have thought about such needs. Or else, eight hours of stewing in your own juice…

They had. It probably even looked as natural as this entire appearance, judging by the sound the stream made.

The relief helped a lot to suppress the panic. It looked worth checking if there is a faster way to take off the suit. It continued to slightly change my movements, but not by much, and I was already getting used to it.

The face that was looking at me from the mirror was very much female, and really beautiful. Thick brown hair with copper glints, falling down to just below my armpits. Small mouth with full rosy lips, the dream of every red-blooded man. And big, vivid green eyes. I had seen so beautiful a face very rarely, and never in the real life. There was something both cute and angelic about it. It was hard to believe that it can be both so beautiful and at the same time realistic.

The figure below that face was similarly perfect. Logically I knew that it must have my shoulders, too wide for a girl, but they somehow appeared narrow enough to make the impression of fit instead of masculine. And under these shoulders were the most beautiful breasts I had ever seen, even on the Net – perfectly formed and perky. Couldn’t turn my eyes away from them for some time.

I tried to make some faces. The face in the mirror moved completely naturally, reflecting the slightest change of my own. It looked so cute that I couldn’t help but smiled – and it beamed so warmly that my heart was about to melt. God, I would give anything to have such a girlfriend. Just to be around her… instead of her being around me. Alas, I couldn’t imagine something less likely.

My male confidence however was taking a hit. After a second of thinking, I decided to pretend being cynical. Looked straight into the eyes in the mirror and said:

“Girlie, I’d love to—”

That came out in a sweet and clear soprano, perfectly fitting the face in the mirror!

Next moment, I was in the kitchen, pulling a knife out of a drawer. I had to take this thing off me, now! After a second of thought, I grabbed a breast and tried to cut it with the knife. The blade however just slid on it, as if I was trying its blunt edge. Moreover, I sensed on my chest something like the blunt edge of a knife sliding on it. Trying to stick the knife in it also yielded no result, despite that I persisted until the knife broke. All I felt was a slight poking at my chest, like with a blunt pencil.

Calm down. Don’t act, calm down…

I returned in the room and sat down before the screen. Whatever this bodysuit does, it doesn’t kill me. Let’s read at least the common section of its manual, it might give some hints on finding a faster way to take it off.

The manual turned out to be huge. Reading the introduction and browsing through some of the other parts took nearly two hours. However, I learned a lot about it.

The bodysuit was made from trillions of nanoelements, many kinds of, each kind doing different things. They could be programmed to assemble to make more complex things, giving the bodysuit nearly unlimited abilities. The number of elements was intended to last over 100 years of normal usage, and if too many were lost due to extreme wear, they could be replenished by just buying more from the company.

The manual said that it is next to impossible to pierce or cut the bodysuit: even an industrial chainsaw would just slide over it, and it would stop anything sharp pushed in even by a tank. Indenting or flexing it in a way untypical for the human body was equally hard: an elephant could step on it without squashing the wearer, and the three strongest men in existence together couldn’t twist its arm far enough to break that of the wearer. A point-blank shot from a big-caliber rifle would likely cause to the wearer no more than a bruise, and any mark on the suit would disappear in a fraction of a second. It was unaffected by and impenetrable for all kinds of corrosive liquids. Protected against electricity – even a lightning bolt would just go over its surface. For several seconds could protect the wearer even against the flame of an oxy-acetylene torch, or the cold of liquid air… The skin of Superman.

Well, of Supergirl.

There were “packages” – options that could be bought from the company online shop. Pay for it, and the suit downloads and activates it. I browsed the shop – the sex-related packages only were almost two thousands, and there were many other types. The prices however were steep. The cheapest package I found allowed changing the color of the eyes – 15,000 Euro. The package for taking the suit on and off in a minute costed 60,000 Euro. There was a package that could increase the strength threefold, “with sufficient energy reserve” whatever that meant – 150,000 Euro. The same was the cost for a package that allowed lasting without access to air for days. Again, the same cost for another one allowing lasting without access to food and water for months…

My version of the bodysuit had some options on by default. The pulling of the arms and legs while moving them, which I believed to be bad flexibility, turned out to be a package that makes the movements of the wearer appear feminine. More feminine than even those of most women, making most people around subconsciously unable to believe that the wearer is not female. Another package moved the voice into the female range, and made it good for singing. Yet another was modifying the body to appear more feminine – squeezed the shoulders, hands, feet and some other parts, expanded the butt, compressed the spine to make the wearer a couple of centimeters shorter. Happily, all these were reversed while taking it off. The same package also cared for the squeezed parts to be adequately supplied with blood. There was also one that made possible having sex as a woman. (I didn’t want to read the description where that vagina actually passes, and how the package adapts the feelings to make them compatible with the male body and nervous system.) The default options could be switched off only if you buy the package for them.

That version also had discount on over 300 packages. They however turned out to be all stuff for women. Emulating some mind-boggling number of kinds of lipstick – 40,000. Same with make-up – 60,000. Nail varnish – 25,000… Beyond the first dozen, I had no clue what most of the things even were.

The bodysuit maintained the body’s perfect hygiene and could be worn continuously for decades without any negative effects. It transported the sweat to its surface, cleaning it en route from any odor (“for a package that would allow your sweat to contain a fragrance of your choice, please visit our online shop”). Dissolved the beard and the body hair and used, together with the shed skin cells, it to make its hair (“for a package that will allow you to regulate that, please visit our online shop”). Automatically cured some skin conditions – boils etc (“for a package that treats almost any skin condition in existence, please visit our online shop”)…

I was already planning to sell the suit for a lot of money, when a note attracted my attention:

The bodysuit remembers its first wearer, and refuses to activate for anyone else. Thus, it protects you against theft, being useless for anyone but its owner.

I reclined on the chair, deep in thoughts.

So, that probably was not a free demo, but the actual business model of this GmbH. Giving all these suits for free, and then selling “packages” for them. And everyone would find in their catalog something they would love. I saw there an option that could protect the wearer from extreme cold and heat (75,000 Euro), and another that allowed sticking to walls, ceiling and overhanging rocks (90,000 Euro). I would love to spend a year on bread and water only to get any of those. If I didn’t have to use them in the appearance of an attractive girl, that is. Nearly everyone would give their last pennies to have some super-ability, which is technically just programming, costs to the company nothing beyond some initial investment…

This GmbH was probably going to become the next Ford or Microsoft. And the girl I met yesterday would probably in a couple of years be millionaire, just from distributing their products… Or not. She had to give the suits for free, or for a minimal payment, and the package sales went through the Net, circumventing her… Little wonder that she was used to considering herself at a disadvantage.

Okay, I learned enough. Let’s now take that thing off.

I pressed the buttons. Initially, there was no difference. Then I felt sleepiness taking over me. Okay, if I have to wait eight hours, I might get some rest meanwhile…

The rays of the evening sun were falling through the window. I tried to sit in the bed and felt the sexdoll… that is, the bodysuit around me. Threw it off myself as if it was burning.

So, that was what the girl from the sex shop meant. This thing could make a man look like a woman. From the memory of what I saw in the mirror – a completely believable one. Beautiful like an angel… And the sex shop girl had meant that with it, I could pretend to be a woman and get that job.

But what man would masquerade as a woman, even in a situation as dire as mine?

Wait. Did she meant that men simply don’t dare it? Said that they are cowards? No way. Women get the life so much easier than men, everybody knows it. Even in the mountain, when some situation arises, you save women first. Men – later, they are expendable. Not privileged, as the goth girl believed…

I walked back and forth in the room like a caged wolf. After a few hours without being able to reach a decision, I even drank the remaining few swallows of grappa, despite the fear of a hangover… Soon after that, the decision finally came.

If women managed to live as women, a man must be able to do it easily. Enough to show that goth warrior for gender equality the truth.

And the mountaineers don’t fear the challenges. They overcome them!