“I know what you’re thinking of doing!” She hissed the words into Sean’s ear. “I just want you to know that every single one of us backs you. Just make sure you hit the right target!” Sean broke their embrace and looked into Anne’s eyes, searching for something, some sense of the other woman that would tell her how to respond. In the end, there was only one thing she could say.

Dinner the night before had been a happy and raucous occasion, but now Simon was more than just a little nervous. For him, this was the big day, the day that would decide how the rest of his life would proceed and indeed who he would be. Would the company accept him as a candidate or would they reject him and leave him to his own devices? Vasily’s arm around him was a steadying influence as they walked through the door into the lobby of the Care Givers facility in Orlando.

“Hi Anne!” Sean called out to the woman behind the desk. She looked up and instantly recognized who was greeting her, projecting herself out of her seat and hugging the tall auburn haired woman before gathering her diminutive blonde companion into their embrace.

“Well if it isn’t my favorite gunslinger! How are you and Charlie getting along? Having fun on your little vacation?” She disengaged from the hug and held them both at arms length. A little frown crossed her face as she examined them. Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “Still not dealing too well, huh? You and me are gonna have a little talk in a while, but first introduce me to your companions.”

“Anne, let me introduce you to Simon and Vasily. I’m sure you’ve seen the paperwork for Simon already and I think it might be best to just get things underway as quickly as possible.” Anne shook Vasily’s hand, then shook Simon’s hand but did not let go.

“Vasily, we’ll be back in a few hours. Simon here has some testing to do and you can’t be on hand for it, so you lot go enjoy yourselves until 5 o’clock or so, ok?” With that she led Simon off to a door and handed him over to begin his testing. Simon glanced back and caught Vasily’s eye as the door closed behind him, his face torn between anticipation and fear.

The foursome spent the day at Busch Gardens, enjoying the rides and other attractions. They had all gotten magnificently stoned beforehand, but that didn’t stop Lief from getting violently motion sick on the third ride, so Sean and Vasily spent the rest of the day on one ride or another while Charlie and Lief sampled the other attractions, including the beer(once their stomachs had settled down).

Sean and Vasily disappeared into well-hidden smoker’s areas more than once and generally came out giggling madly before heading off to the next adventure. It was the best distraction they could dream up for Vasily and mostly, it worked. That wasn’t to say that he didn’t spend the entire day thinking of Simon and what was going on with him, but it did help to dull the anxiety that was gnawing at his gut.

At one point, while they were smoking yet another joint, Vasily got very serious and turned to Sean with concern. “Sean, what if they don’t accept her? I have no problem with her as she is or if she becomes a whole woman or if she does it the other way, I just love her and want her to be happy. I’m just worried sick over the whole thing. I mean, if they don’t accept her, it’ll break her heart. How do I deal with that?” He looked to be on the verge of tears.

Sean gathered him into a hug and patted his back as she thought. “Vasily, you are a wonderful man and Simon is lucky to have you. You just go on loving her the way you do and it’ll be ok. I know you’re worried but you have to be her rock right now. She needs you and I know you need her.” She pushed him back and held him at arms length, looking into his eyes. “She’s a very strong candidate, much more so than I was. I can’t see them not taking her. So relax and have fun today so you can be happy for her tonight, huh?” She relit the joint and inhaled deeply before passing it to him.

He took a hit, considering her words. “Yeah, ok. I’ll try.” A few moments later they were on the bumpercars with Charlie and Leif, who looked like he’d had to wedge himself into the vehicle. A few minutes of gleefully ramming each other seemed to improve Vasily’s mood considerably. The remainder of the day was spent in enthusiastic and noisy enjoyment of the rides.

They arrived back at CGI just a bit after 5 o’clock to find that Simon wasn’t quite ready. Sean went off into a corner to talk with Anne while the other three spent some time communing with the couches. Anne got Sean into a private area and instantly dropped all pretense of being joyful or even happy.

“I know what you’re thinking of doing!” She hissed the words into Sean’s ear. “I just want you to know that every single one of us backs you. Just make sure you hit the right target!” Sean broke their embrace and looked into Anne’s eyes, searching for something, some sense of the other woman that would tell her how to respond. In the end, there was only one thing she could say.

“I will. I don’t know who it is yet, but when I do, they will no longer draw breath. I swear this on my life. Those bastards killed Yotori-sama, that’s true, but they killed an entire family of five in the bargain. Mama Yotori was taking them to get their daughter’s cleft palate fixed. I would not take vengeance solely on her behalf, but the death of that family pushes it over the edge.” She looked into the other woman’s eyes. “Anne, I can’t tell you what I’m going to do or when I’ll do it, but you will have to accept that Yotori-sama will be avenged. I know the company has fixers and I want you to get word to the director to call them off. I’ll take care of this by myself. This is my mission for now, and I want to do this by myself! Do you understand? This my kill!”

Anne just looked at her, stunned by the ferocity of the other woman’s words. She was at a loss for any kind of response. She was unnerved by the sheer fury in the other woman’s face. “Look, I don’t know exactly what to say to that. I’d try telling you to back away and give it a little time, but I know enough of your history to know that advice would be counterproductive. The only thing I can really say right now is please give it just a little time, time for Simon to adjust and be the woman she should have been from the start. I doubt we’ll know who did this for a while yet.”

Sean surprised her by drawing her into an intense embrace.

“Um, can you please put me down? I can’t breathe!” As if to prove her point, the shorter woman took a deep gasping breath as her face was removed from the cleavage of the taller auburn haired woman. Her reprieve didn’t last long.

This time, it was a more energetic version of suffocation as the taller woman hugged her tightly again and bounced up and down in excitement. “You mean Simon’s been approved! Oh, I just couldn’t ask for better news right now! Um,” her expression suddenly sobered as she held the other woman at arm’s length and looked down into her face. “Will you let me tell Vasily so he can tell her instead of hearing it from some tech?”

“Well, I’m afraid it’s a little late for that, we began the protocols almost 2 hours ago.” She took advantage of the moments respite from bruising hugs to finish delivering her news. “We felt that since she had been waiting so long, the usual week waiting period wasn’t justified, and besides, she has a boyfriend to lose her brand new virginity to before he leaves on his next cruise. Given the circumstances, we thought going ahead with the treatment was more than justified and she almost begged us for it anyway.”

She looked up again at the woman who held her by both her forearms. “Could you please let me go? You’re starting to bruise my arms.”

The taller woman blushed and relaxed her grip, letting her arms fall to her sides. “So it’ll be about 24 hours before Vasily gets to see her, right? Oh, jeeze,” Her brow furrowed in thought. “Um, will they be able to, you know, screw?”

“Yeah, they should have no problem that way. You will remember from your own transformation though, that she will not have developed breasts or much in the way of curves yet, right?”

“I‘m pretty sure neither of them will care. Vasily has loved her in her current body, I can’t see that changing in her new one. Hell, he loves her enough to accept that he will share her with other men as a caregiver, I can’t imagine that something that insignificant would make the slightest bit of difference between them.” A sudden thought caused her brows to furrow and she regarded Anne with a quizzical expression. “She never would tell me what her name was going to be. Can you tell me?”

“I wish I could,” she returned the serious regard “but she asked us not to. It’s to be a surprise for Vasily. Don’t worry, you’ll learn it when he does and I guarantee you will need a box or two of tissues just for the two of them. It is incredibly romantic and sweet and just about as loving as it is possible to get.” She straightened her outfit with a determined yank. “Besides, I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to, cause I don’t bloody know!”

_____________________________________________________________________

When she gave Vasily the news, he took it in typical stoic Russian fashion, with lots of vodka. Not surprisingly, he complained when he was presented with Trout Caviar a bit later in the evening, but when told what true Beluga would cost, he simmered down and enjoyed what he was given.

By the time early evening rolled around, he was quite happily drunk and beaming at his hosts. “Do you not realize what this means!” He was practically shouting and dancing around the pool. “It means my love will finally be happy! It means” at this point he suddenly realized what he was about to say and the redness of his face pretty much told the story. He forged ahead anyway, knowing whose company he shared. “It means she can make love to me without her thinking she is some kind of freak. I never thought such a thing, and I swore to her I would love her no matter what her body looked like, but she was raised in one of your crazy American religions. She felt guilt every time we made love, because she did not think she was a true woman. It is not something I understand. I have never known anyone who is more of a woman than her. I do know enough to be glad there is a way for her to get out from under that guilt. I don’t even mind that I have to share her with other men, I am just glad to see her happy! You uncivilized khuligans can feed me fake caviar all you want if this is what I get in return!”

His statement was greeted with a lifting of glasses all around as the evening proceeded into another round of serious drinking and smoking. It was much later that evening as they snuggled together on a settee that Sean turned her face to Charlie and asked “Do you think we did the right thing?”

“Well,” Charlie replied “I guess that depends on what you think the right thing is.” Her pretty face was confused with trying to create worry lines where there were none. “I think we didn’t do very much at all. They both made their choices, a lot like we did. If you want to know if I think they’ll be happy, I’d have to say yes. They seem to love each other very much.”

Charlie turned her thoughts to other things as Sean snuggled more tightly into her embrace and drifted off to sleep, her soft snoring causing a slight tickling sensation in Charlie’s breast.