My powers continue to grow.

Whistles are disturbing.

Will we ever learn Fargo's gender?

Chapter 8

Meanwhile, I was beginning to chafe at the limitations of my change. I wanted real, feminine, nicely-sized breasts. I also wanted do something about my voice and Adam's apple. On the other hand, I was really scared of trying to manage as much power as I had before. I had an idea of just how lucky I had been. I also remembered it had really taken about four days for me to really feel recovered.

I had not completely given up using power, I was just being very much more careful with it. I only used it now to see into the bodies of the other members when they had problems. And I only used one or two other members to provide my power. I felt very comfortable doing that and my instinctive shielding was easily capable of covering those small expenditures.

The result was I was safe, but I was also feeling held back. I was beginning to feel a need to stretch my wings. I just wanted to make sure I did it in a safer manner than I had before.

I went to Robbie and Carrie and we met to discuss the coven, our concerns, and my current urges and desires. They assured me that the coven, as a whole, a unanimous whole, was very happy to have me as a member and that several felt that I legitimatized the entire coven because I brought a dimension of power they'd never seen before. Personally, they both felt that I was a woman, inside at least, that my powers justified my presence, and that I was a sister and that there was no discussion required.

As they listened to my urges and desires, they only smiled and nodded. They had known for a while I needed to express my forbidden femininity more openly. They also were not surprised that I was ready to start exploring my new found powers a bit more. And they were happy I wanted to do it carefully. We discussed various combinations of members and geometries of how we should link in order to provide the power. We decided that we should keep the desired effect small again (after all, it was just hair and skin, last time... the problem was the quantity of it! My entire body!) and decided to try to straighten and whiten my teeth and make my jaw line just a bit milder and less prominent. I know that sounds like a lot, but it was not a wholesale rebuild but rather just minor bending of lines here and there.

That pretty much covered all the topics for that strategy meeting and we planned a full coven meeting in 2 weeks. As we left, some guys started whistling. Both of them knew of my discomfort with men and simultaneously nudged me in the ribs. I reminded them that my measurements were basically flat-fat-fat and that they were insane and that, of course, the whistles were for Carrie, who was young, beautiful, and buxom. Robbie stroked my cheek as Carrie played with my shoulder-length silky hair. They leaned around me and winked at each other.

Robbie said, “You have skin to die for since you killed off your body hair.” Carrie responded with, “And your hair has gotten so long and pretty! Besides, people are always calling you ma'am and miss at work.”

That finally kicked me from sputtering to speech. “Wait a darned blarging minute here! Nice skin and long hair do NOT make me whistling material! Besides, why would anyone whistle at dog food like me when you and Carrie are around? I am so not believing this and you two are having WAY too much fun with this and it is all at my expense!”

They simply smirked and we hugged and split up until we saw each other again.

Chapter 9

The spousal unit was acting weird. She was being nice! I was really... umm... darn it, I can admit it! I was scared! Something was not right about all this. She had supper waiting on me for the third night in a row. She hadn't raised her voice to me in two days. She'd even baked my favorite brownies. She was definitely after something!

She called me into the living room and patted my side of the reclining console loveseat. “Sit down, darling. I have something to ask you.” AH HA! The other shoe is about to drop! As I sat down and adjusted the recliner, she acted almost... timid. That was not unusual for her because of her self-esteem issues. However, usually, before she attacked me, verbally or otherwise, she was very aggressive and assertive. I was at a loss to figure out what she was after. “I know I have been hard on you about how you look. And I still don't like it. You look like a damn woman. You should be a man. But, to be honest, you look great. How are you loosing all that weight? Why does your skin look so perfect? I thought you were wearing makeup at first, but you look like that right out of the shower! I look at you and I feel so ugly!”

I dialed the rental place for a jack to lift my jaw off the floor. She was jealous of me to the point she was willing to put up with me to get what I had. I thought about this for a moment and then looked her in the eye and told her, “I'm not sure I can make it work for you. And, to be honest, you have been really hard to live with lately. If I am going to be persuaded to help you, you are going to have to figure out how to dump the judgmental attitude and accept me as how and who I am. If you can't do that, then you need to tell me now so we can work through this a different way.”

I watched as her eyes got large. She knew I was feeling very confident and was happier with myself than I had been in my life. She also knew I'd just served her notice that if she was going to be a problem I'd divorce her. I'd figured out that she'd probably never leave me unless I pushed her out, regardless of how far I went in my femininity unless I went completely female. In fact, I was not sure she'd leave even then if I lived “incomplete” long enough and didn't publicize when I did finish the change. She asked, “What if I let you wear makeup and bras and stuff?” As if that was her choice! Actually, when I thought about it, I had kind of ceded that decision to her. Now, though, she'd given up a great deal of power.

“I tell you what,” I answered her, “I'm going to wear what I want when I want for the next week, or maybe even the next month. If you are supportive and loving, I will do what I can to help you heal your skin as much as I have healed mine. Can you live with that?”

She swallowed and thought about it. I had never looked my age. And now, I looked like I was in my early 20s again. I still saw a lot of masculinity in my body and facial features, which meant, to me anyway, that I was still ugly, but not the fatally fugly I had been when everyone could see I was a male unless I was completely made up and dressed up. And, except for a few wisps of pubic hair, I had no beard, mustache or body hair over my entire body. My skin was perfection in motion and I had even visualized myself as blemish free so I no longer had my network of scars that I'd grown over the somewhat bumpy course of my life. She knew I felt much better and was much more energetic and that I'd lost a lot of weight. She was not looking forward to aging anymore than she had and was already suffering arthritis and other age related breakdowns. And, I'd not given up on her. I had still supported her and taken the best care of her I could. I guess I'm hard to hate. For other people, anyway. I'd certainly done a good enough job of hating myself for years.

“I... yes, I can live with that. You can really help me? I'm so tired of hurting and being fat! I'm so tired of watching the wrinkles add up on my face and my skin get old and saggy. It never happened to you even before whatever you did, and now, you look young enough to be Don's older sister. Will I still hurt when you get done?”

I smiled. “If I can do anything to help your pain, I will, and no, I don't think you will hurt when I get done. I think you will feel a lot better. It won't be instant, I have to warn you.”

She nodded and I got up. “Where are you going?” There was alarm in her eyes.

“I need some new undies and some makeup and some earrings and other jewelry. The clothes I won't change all at once. I'll just add to what I have and slowly those a bit at a time. I don't want to break us buying a new wardrobe.”

She looked up at me with a slightly relieved look and nodded. “Can I go?”

I thought for a minute and said, “Sure.” I lead her out to the cars and unlocked hers, because it was larger and more of a cruiser than my compact import. As she got in, I unlocked mine and rooted through my ashtray and got out my favorite dangle earrings and started putting them on. I got into her car and she had a shocked look.

“How long have you had pierced ears?!” She was completely astounded.

“Umm, almost a year. It wasn't too hard to hide with my long hair.” I started driving but I didn't want to shop here in this little bedroom community. I wanted to drive on into the city so I could shop near where I worked and have a lot more choice. We drove for over half an hour and arrived at one of my favorite malls. My favorite Leggs/Hanes/Bali/Playtex outlet store was here. We went in and she watched with an ashen face as I bought several bras and some nice panties. I got permission from the salesgirl to keep on my favorite and paid for my purchases. We went down the corridor to Claire's and I bought some various pieces.

Now that I was feeling a bit less “wrong” we went back out to the car and drove to the floosy shopping area that was supposed to look like a vintage European style market area. A trip into Lane Bryant for some slacks, jeans, and a couple of nice tops and I was feeling dressed for the occasion. A trip to my favorite nail techs saw me through a manicure and pedicure topped off with my favorite warm red sparkly polish. Finally, we headed over to a lady's house for whom I had done some on-the-side computer consulting. I knew she sold Mary Kay and made sure to get all the basics.

I drove home having spent way too much money, but I did feel so much better. I guess “retail therapy” was all it was cracked up to be! I knew that I'd be having a conversation with my boss tomorrow. I wasn't giving this up and with the transsexual new hire now on staff, I new I had some ammunition for my argument that I'd been harassed and subjected to discrimination. I had nothing against her. She wasn't even working there when I'd go through all that the first time. In fact, I admired her for working early to get her life straightened out in some fashion before she made the same mistakes I did.

The entire time, the spousal unit had not only been quiet and unprovocative, she'd actually helped! I'd even bought her a few things as we'd gone along. We put away the new things and then went to the living room to sit and sip some iced herbal tea. As we sat down, I took her hand in mine, my red nails flashing in the light. I leaned across and kissed her cheek. She looked at me.

“You don't hate me?”

I called the rental place for that jaw lift again. “Why would I hate you? What makes you think that I do?”

She looked down. “I've been horrible. And you want to be a woman. I just worry that it's my fault. I worry that I wasn't good enough or woman enough or something. I worry that you don't love me and you don't need me.”

I sighed. “Listen, I am a woman. I just have a male body. I can't help either one.” Well, maybe I could help the body part... but I did not want to take it too quickly. “I love you and I don't hate you.” I stood up and took her hand. She slowly stood, looking into my eyes. I led her into her bedroom.

We had not had relations in some time, even before my body mods. I slowly sat down on the bed with her and leaned over and kissed her softly. I let my kisses travel to her neck and she responded by letting her head slowly fall back and I found all the sensitive spots. I put my arms around her pulled her shoulders up gently, using my forearms to lift her breasts and begin to kiss her cleavage. She moaned softly and begin running her fingers through my long hair, occasionally bumping my earrings. I helped her lay back, lifting her shirt over her head as I did. Her large, round breasts nestled in her bra and her nipples were erect behind it.

She pulled my baby tee off of me and dropped it on the floor beside the bed. Her hands explored my smooth body for the first time. She hesitated the first few times as her hands passed back and forth over my bra, but she became more confident and soon even unhooked it and begin to fondle my breasts as I did the same for her.

My lips and tongue soon had her very excited and she begin pawing at my jeans. I opened the waistband and zipper of both our jeans and she pushed hers down quickly, leaving on her granny panties. I slipped mine down, exposing my lacy thong. She rolled on top of me and pushed the thong to one side with one hand and she stripped herself with the other.

Chapter 10

Not everyone was having things as easy as me.

The DHS agent in charge of finding and securing the source of the power was frustrated beyond words. Because of my careful self-monitoring of the power I used, plus my innate talent at shielding my activities, there was nothing to track. He had resources spread nation-wide and had nothing to show for it. His current tactic was to blame the original sensitives that had claimed to know of this power and that it was strong enough to be a threat to the nation. He was spending close to half his time trying to convince his superiors that it was either a mistake or a natural, one-time phenomenon. The fact that nothing had happened in weeks was starting to swing majority opinion in his favor. Poor him.

The Guardian Shamans were close enough and sensitive enough that they sometimes felt tiny blips coming from me, but still had no idea where I was. They were still not sure they were any closer to me by being in Oklahoma than when they were in South Dakota. They were not worried, though. They were reasonably confident I would be lured back into trying to manage the group power again and were just as confident they could get at least a direction for me this time. Until then, they kept fishing.

The husband and wife team were in Boston doing research. They were as blind to me, for all intents and purposes. They had a clue for a spell that could possibly track me, assuming I failed to shield to the point they could detect me again. But, it looked like they would have to travel to Romania to find it. They were beginning to think it was not worth the time and expense.

The Russian psychics were in California this month, lecturing and putting on small demonstrations. The only had 10 more cities in their tour and their travel permits pretty much ruled out exceeding their tour plans. They were becoming demoralized.

The Chinese mystic man was actually happier at the Shaolin enclave than at home. He was almost being worshipped for his “wisdom and experience. He was quite sure he would stay in American whether he found the power source or not.

Fargo's fine little group was in Florida. They had crossed the West on various trains, hobo style. They somehow always seemed to be one step ahead of security. They had also become adept at stealing garbage trucks, despite Fargo's fear of the driving skills of the group at large. In this way, they had crossed the country at quite a decent rate of speed. Fargo wanted to see Key West. How could you have a Key West when Florida was about as far East as you could be and still be in the US?

Chapter 11

STAY TUNED!