Edited by Trismegistus Shandy and Hikaro
Grab your headphones and jam out to another great collection of tunes that are guaranteed to thrill you, chill you, and probably decide whether you'll be wearing skirts or blue jeans tomorrow when you go to work.
When Aunt Sue died, her husband had been dead for several years, and she didn't have any children. So my dad, her brother, inherited all her stuff. It wasn't a lot; she'd lived in an apartment, and after Uncle George died she'd already started getting rid of some stuff. But there was enough that we'd have to spend several weeks going through things in the weeks between her funeral and when I went back to school.
I'd just turned sixteen a couple of months earlier, and had my driver's license, but was a long way from being able to afford a car, even a cheap used one. So while I was sad that my coolest aunt was gone, I was still ecstatic when Dad told me I could have Aunt Sue's old Chevy. It was nearer thirty years old than twenty, old enough to be exempt from the emissions test laws, and I didn't waste any time checking it out.
It was also old enough to have a tape deck in it instead of a CD player. I barely remembered when we had a CD/tape deck when I was a little kid; I knew what tapes looked like, but hadn't seen any since that CD/tape deck broke and Mom and Dad threw out all their old tapes. My friend Jed told me that his uncle drove an old car with a tape deck, and had an adapter so he could connect his MP3 player to it; I figured I'd go buy one of those.
But while I was cleaning out the back floorboard, I found a treasure: a box of cassette tapes. A lot of them were published albums, none newer than fifteen years old, but there were a couple of dozen hand-labeled in Aunt Sue's handwriting. None of them were names of bands or albums I'd heard of.
"Oh, yeah," Dad said when I told him about my find at supper that night. "Sue used to make these mixtapes when we were teenagers, and kept doing one every year or two for a long time. They were really eclectic, you'd never know what you'd hear next when you were riding around with her."
When I got in the car for the first time after that discovery, getting ready to go over to Jed's house and hang out, I picked up one of Aunt Sue's mixtapes at random, and glanced at the label before I slid it into the cassette slot:
Weird, I thought. Aunt Sue wasn't a stereotypically feminine woman, but you'd never call her a tomboy. I wondered when she'd made that tape, when she and Dad were teens or just a few years ago, and what was on it... I was about to find out.
* * *
By MA Thermidor
By Bobbie/Roberta J. Cabot
Twins
By Zapper
Free
By Trismegistus Shandy
Haste Makes Waist
By Hikaro
Becoming Adila
By Zapper
Margarine Day
By Lyodor Tolstoyevski
Boat Dog
By Trismegistus Shandy
Experiment GC2407
By Person42
The Thief
By Zapper
There was one thing he wanted more than anything else, the same wish everyone wanted. A chance to fix things. Every night as he lay in his cold bed he wished for it until one night it was granted.
* * *
“Wake up honey; it’s your first day of big girl school.” Those words greeted her as she awoke from the warm embrace of the thick duvet. That was her mother’s voice meaning the wish must have come true.
“Big girl school?” She threw away the duvet as she got up and looked around at her surroundings. Pink bedsheets, white walls and a hardwood floor; this was not the room she should have just woken up in.
“Cruz!” she called out with fury. Her shout was answered by the appearance of a floating figure with skin of gold basking in a blue aura.
“Good mor…ning…” Cruz looked down at the young girl who had called him. “This is unexpected.” Anyone who saw Cruz would know instantly he was no ordinary person. Golden skin and the ability to float gave that away, but what his appearance didn’t give away was his ability to manipulate time. Specifically, he could send a person’s soul back along their own timeline with a one way ticket to the past.
“Cruz, why am I a girl?” Cruz could feel a terrible killing intent surrounding the young girl as she glared at him. At twelve years old she was on the edge of puberty. With curly dark hair and hazel eyes she certainly resembled the man she had not long ago been.
“Ah, well, I can see why you’d assume this is my fault but let me assure you it wasn’t.” A few minutes ago, well a few minutes ago from his perspective, this young girl had been a fully grown man with a wish; a wish to go back in time and fix everything that had gone wrong. It was a wish Cruz had the power to grant. Cruz took pity on him and granted his wish, sending his soul back through time to the first day of junior high school. That day was today, but things weren’t as either of them had been expecting.
“Clara are you getting up?” The door of the bedroom swung open as her mother poked her head through to ensure her daughter was awake. Her mother didn’t react to the floating golden man, for she was incapable of perceiving him.
“Just checking.” She closed the door again.
“It’s weird seeing her with ten years taken off her face…” Clara whispered. It was the mother she remembered, the mother who was kind and protective but would grow increasingly cold towards her layabout son. That was one of the many things Clara was determined to fix.
“This time around I’m going to work hard to keep her happy,” she declared with resolve. “Once you turn me back to normal!” She hadn’t forgotten the predicament she was in.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Cruz explained again. “I have the power to send a soul back along its own timeline to a point in its past. Effectively I’m allowing you to reload from a really old save. I don’t have the power to alter that save in any way. The reason you are a girl is simply because ten years ago on this very day you were a girl.”
“I’d remember that!” Clara had no memory of ever being a girl. She was born a boy and had lived the life of boy. That was what her memories told her.
“You sure?” Cruz was looking around her girlish room. It was definitely the bedroom of a twelve year old girl which was unsurprising as right now Clara was a twelve year old girl. Clara had moved to the window and thrown open the curtains to a familiar sight.
“This is definitely my street; I remember this view although it’s a little different.” Even in a suburban area like this the landscape gradually changed with time. Some trees grew taller, others were cut down and likewise new buildings appeared and old ones disappeared.
“I don’t get it, this my house, my room, my mother but this is not my body. Cruz, is it possible you sent me down an alternate timeline?”
“Impossible. I know the limitations of my own powers. The only explanation for what has happened is that ten years ago you were a girl. That’s it. There are no other possibilities. That is the cold hard truth of the matter.” Cruz knew he wasn’t the only supernatural being in existence. “I can only speculate, but I’m guessing that sometime in the next ten years the world was altered to turn you from a girl to a boy.”
“But that’s…” It wasn’t impossible. Cruz’s existence had changed the meaning of that word. He was a god capable of messing with time, so the existence of another god that could alter memories wasn’t out of the question.
“So then… I’m stuck like this?”
“Until the day you meet the being that altered your existence, yes. Remember my original warning though; your actions will alter the flow of events dramatically. The fact you are probably going to be late for your first day of school will have a big effect on your timeline.” Clara glanced at the clock on her desk. Cruz was right; she had to hurry or she would be late.
“I think the fact I’m a girl will alter my timeline considerably,” she said, grabbing her clean uniform from the coat hanger.
“It won’t because on this day ten years ago you were also a girl. Your memories may have been changed, but this is still your past.” Clara had finished changing. Now she stood in front of a full body mirror looking at her reflection.
“I… this feels familiar. Like my mind doesn’t remember, but my heart does.” The emotions she had felt ten years ago when looking at herself in the mirror of her first day of school replayed in her heart. Could Cruz’s words be true? Was this really who she was?
“Even if you erase a man’s memory of having ever ridden a bicycle, the body will still remember how to do it,” Cruz explained.
“Clara, breakfast is ready, hurry up or you’ll be late!” her mother yelled.
“I’m coming,” she yelled back on impulse. “So what happens now?” she asked Cruz.
“It was always a one way ticket. Someday in the future you might encounter the reason why you were transformed into a man, but until then, have fun re-living your life.” Clara reached for the bedroom door and stepped out into a familiar hallway. She may have been different from what she remembered, but everything else was as it should have been. Even if her wish had an expected twist to it, she had still gotten what she wanted, a chance to right the wrongs -- and she wasn’t going to waste it.
* * *
#2 – Bigger on the Inside
(or “Trapped in a Phone Booth in a Space Station”)~~
* * *
Author's Chapter Notes:
The Doctor has disappeared, but he left his newest apprentice on 21st century Earth to help the humans while he was away, Dr. Quinn Valentine.
This is the story of Quinn’s first mission as the Doctor’s pinch-hitter. And she comes with her new sonic screwdriver, her own companion (best friend Mary Elizabeth “Binky” Kristensen), and even her own TARDIS, except Quinn’s TARDIS looks like a red London Phone Booth.
(This is a follow-on story to the one from our previous Mixed Tape entitled “Through the Fire and Flames,” that came out last September. Feel free to check out “Doctor Who?” before you read this one.)
* * *
1. About Quinn and Binky
It’s been ten months now since that day, or maybe that’s not right. Maybe I should say it’s been three years and ten months… Or actually, if you’re going by the calendar, I should say three months.
Confused? Well, that’s nothing new for me.
Hi. I’m Dr. Quinn Valentine, recently appointed associate professor of astrophysics in Cambridge University’s Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, England.
And, as my best friend, doctoral candidate Mary Elizabeth Kristensen (who I call Binky just to be annoying), and I sit in this holding cell, I can’t help but reminisce on how we ended up here.
Almost four years ago (going by the elapsed time in my head), I was still a he then, and Cambridge’s newest wunderkind.
I was controversial, not for anything I had done, but simply because I was American. And in the hallowed halls of Cambridge, an American physics-slash-astronomy professorial candidate was almost unheard of. Despite my obvious brilliance (as you see, I am very humble, heehee), my application would have been passed on, if not for the man my professors called “the Doctor.”
The Doctor had apparently taken a shine to me, and, with his sponsorship, I eventually became one of the Institute’s few American professors.
From then on, this mysterious “Doctor” became a fixture in my life, and things would never be the same for me again.
2. About The Doctor
No one in the university really knew him, except that he was very important to the university higher-ups, and was allowed anything he wanted.
The Doctor was actually a “Time Lord” – an alien from Gallifrey, a planet located in the constellation Kasterborous, within a parsec or two from the center of our galaxy. Time Lords are able to travel to any place and time in the known universe through the use of amazing time machines called TARDISes (TARDIS stood for “Time and Relative Dimension In Space”).
The Doctor was a tall, thin, salt-and-pepper-haired crotchety old man that didn’t seem to do much of anything except fly around in his TARDIS, but when Binky and I found ourselves whisked along with him on some of his trips around space and time, I realized I was totally wrong.
Apparently, the Doctor was a kind of Robin Hood, or maybe a Batman or a Green Arrow, and he went around helping people in situations that needed help. Many times they were like world-shaking emergencies or disasters, and he traveled the universe helping where he could.
Apparently, humans had a special place in his heart because he seemed to have taken on the role of the Earth’s protector, helping to stave off invasions, disasters, the depredations of would-be dictators and other assorted bad guys.
We weren’t destined to be like the so-called “companions” that the Doctor has had over the centuries (and yes, I did say “centuries”) – simple bystanders along for the ride; he had a definite plan for us.
After that disastrous thing with the “monks” a couple of years ago (betcha can’t remember, right? But don’t fret - most of us had more-or-less forgotten what happened already), the Doctor had started looking for a sort of pinch-hitter to help him because he knew the Earth was going to need some help to get through some tough times in the 21st Century. And, apparently, I was to be this pinch-hitter.
And so began my apprenticeship.
3. About Quinn’s TARDIS
Binky and I got to join him in a few of his “adventures,” and were introduced to several of the baddies that Earth would again be facing– such as the Daleks, the Cybermen and the Martian Ice Warriors. But, most of all, we got a crash course in galactic history as well as comprehensive lessons in the care and feeding of the Doctor’s Type 40-TT TARDIS – apparently, I was going to get my very own TARDIS and needed to know my way around one.
But, instead of going to Gallifrey to get one (something I found out even the Doctor couldn’t swing, given his reputation among the Time Lords), we ended up going to a kind of Gallifreyan boneyard of discarded Gallifreyan tech at the edge of the galaxy, which included broken-down TARDISes, TARDIS parts and other things.
TARDISes were never made - they were actually “grown” in labs on Gallifrey. But that didn’t stop anyone putting one together, provided he knew where to get parts from old TARDISes.
So, under the guidance of the Doctor, my students and I found a derelict Type 40 and scrounged up all the parts we would needed to make it functional. We then used the Doctor’s own TARDIS as our reference (apparently, you couldn’t get blueprints for TARDISes, especially for obsolete versions like the Doctor’s own Type 40). We soon had a working TARDIS (although the word “working” wasn’t completely correct).
My TARDIS was essentially lacking the stuff that gave a TARDIS character, but the Doctor said I’d eventually accumulate that over time. But the Doctor did select a “desktop theme” that he thought was nice (it was similar to the theme that his eleventh incarnation preferred).
One thing that we never did get used to was the fact that a TARDIS was bigger on the inside. On the outside, it looked like a ten-foot-tall metal cylinder, but once its chameleon circuit was engaged, it would look like some normal feature or object from its immediate surroundings. So, when the Doctor landed in 1960s London, his TARDIS took on the appearance of a British 1950s police callbox. However, apparently, its chameleon circuit was damaged so it was stuck like that ever since.
As for my TARDIS, since we were using the Doctor’s TARDIS as our pattern, we inadvertently copied its stuck chameleon circuit as well. But, at least, my TARDIS was able to update itself a little – mine now looks like one of those red telephone phone booths that you see in London. Thank goodness it didn’t look like a 1950s police box. But, like the Doctor’s, mine was stuck as well.
On the inside, though, it was as if the space inside the TARDIS was infinite. I didn’t really understand the Doctor’s sketchy explanation, but I didn’t care. All I needed to know was that there was enough closet space for all the clothes I would eventually be buying.
4. About Quinn’s Regeneration
After we got my TARDIS working, it was then that the Doctor revealed the second part of his plan.
Through some contrived pretext, he exposed me to something called The Eye of Harmony for a whole week (something you shouldn’t do), and I became a sort of human analogue of a Timelord, somewhat similar to the infamous Dr. River Song. This was essential because, in order for my TARDIS to start working, it needed to imprint on its Gallifreyan pilot, and that was to be the transformed me.
Furthermore, I discovered that I could also undergo what are called “regenerations” - you see, real Gallifreyan Time Lords could regenerate their physical selves when they found they were close to death. And, apparently, even “fake” Time Lords like me also regenerated. My first regeneration was necessary so that I would be able to survive the “brain dump” that I was going to be given, like the brain dump that Donna Noble, one of the Doctor’s old companions, experienced, but since she was just an ordinary human, she almost died because of it until the imprinted knowledge was erased.
So, the Doctor arranged for an “accident” to trigger my first transformation.
Of course, no one told me about the regeneration, the data dump, the fact that the regeneration would turn me into a physically different person, and that the change would be completely uncontrolled. Oh, well. I guess there are worse things than turning into a blonde bombshell, right? As well getting the attendant blonde bombshell attitude and personality: Binky said I’ve turned into a bimbo, but I don’t think so. She’s just jealous. (Although I do seem to have this new instinct to start wearing sexy clothes. Heehee.)
Anyway, soon after the regeneration and brain dump, the Doctor told us about this old-time cassette tape we had to pick up in LA (see my story from our third Mix Tape post - Bobbie), and as soon as we left, he disappeared to parts unknown, along with his friends Bill and Nardole. And we never saw him again.
Anyway, instead of the hoped-for plans to fix my TARDIS, it turned out the cassette was full of instructions for our first, ummm, “mission.”
The cassettes said we’re supposed to investigate this space station currently orbiting the planet, and to stop whatever nefarious plans its builders had for it. What the station was, who its builders were, and what they had planned for it, we didn’t know, except that it was going to be something “very, very bad,” as the Doctor said in the cassette.
Well.
5. About the Mysterious Space Station
Anyway, it seemed that we were all alone on this one - no Doctor to help - and Binky and I began with some reconnoitering. Not difficult if you had a TARDIS.
We went through all the Internet feeds and channels, and I found, in the secret ones run by the government, that people were already aware of the station. They were trying to find out who sent it up, but they weren’t having luck. Some were backtracking and tracing all rocket launches in the last few years. Their theory was that it was assembled from parts sent up and assembled in orbit piece by piece. But then, how come no one saw it being assembled? In fact, it was only found by accident a few months ago, courtesy of some high school kids with a homemade telescope.
The natural conclusion was that it was of alien origin.
But, looking at its picture in the TARDIS’s monitor, it was clearly of human origin. In fact, it looked like the ISS, except for a ginormous module attached to it – a big tin can-shaped thing about the length and width of a football field. It was so large it was as long and wide as the rest of the station.
There was like a kind of scaffolding that connected the flat side of the can to the ISS part, and it had four equidistant rows of ports on its curving wall.
“What are those?” Binky said, pointing at the ports. “Thrust vents or something?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. I then flipped switches in a certain sequence. The knowledge of what to do seemed automatic to me now.
Binky looked at me. “So,” she said, “the brain dump is finally working, huh?”
I shrugged. “Well, not completely. I seem to be getting bursts of stuff, but it’s all random. Anyway – look.” I pointed to the screen.
The close-up shot showed that the ports had something stuffed inside them. Binky squinted. “Those look like rocks inside the ports.”
“Yes, they are. And look at this.”
A kind of shuttle was fast approaching the space station. As we watched, it laboriously maneuvered and parked itself right above the flat side of the tin can. It then opened its bay doors and mechanical arms started transferring rocks into the tin can via a large hatch. And the shuttle’s cargo bay seemed full to the brim with rocks.
“Now why would they be collecting rocks?” Binky asked.
Putting two and two together, my blood ran cold.
“I think I know why,” I said. “Hold on!”
Almost instinctively, I reached for a lever and pulled it down. The familiar wheezing sound reverberated through the control area.
6. About Breathable Air
After a few moments, we felt the TARDIS land, and the sound slowly diminished.
Binky and I looked at each other. “You coulda’ warned me, you blasted…”
I waved her down. “No time for that.”
I started walking back into the inside of the TARDIS.
“Now, where are yeh going?” she asked exasperatedly.
“To change outfits, of course!” I exclaimed.
In a while, I came out wearing a little black dress with a short skirt, heels and smoky tights, and with my dark-blonde hair in kicky little ponytail. I thought it made me look professional, not to mention cute.
“You have your equipment with you?” Binky asked.
“Yes,” I said as I typed a long email on my phone and then pressed send. “I got my psychic paper, sonic screwdriver, makeup kit…”
She sighed in irritation. “Dammit…”
“Here,” I said, and handed something to her, mostly to shut her up.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a modified cellphone. So we can keep in touch with each other if we get separated.” I then put my Wayfarer sunglasses in my outfit’s breast pocket, my phone, my girl-wallet, a packet of tissues, my special compact makeup clutch, the psychic paper and, of course, my sonic in various other pockets.
“Why not use a purse for all your stuff?” Binky waved her own purse.
She’s right, of course. Now why didn’t I think of one? Clearly, I’m still done regenerating yet.
Before I could open the doors, Binky put a hand on my arm. “Wait! Is there air out there?”
“You’re forgetting – the TARDIS makes its own atmosphere. We’re safe to walk out.”
She shook her head. “No, I’m not forgetting. I didn’t know it in the first place. That brain dump must really be working on you now, huh?”
I shrugged.
We stepped out and started looking around. Apparently, we materialized, or “landed” as the Doctor might say, inside one of the station’s landing bays. (Mentally, I was congratulating myself for my piloting skills – I landed us in the place I was aiming for.)
That fact alone was impressive – as far as I knew, humans haven’t been able to build anything in orbit large enough to even have a landing bay. And, of course, if there’s a landing bay, then there were ships that would make use of the landing bay. Seeing the words “Bay 02” on the wall also told me there was at least one other landing bay. Wow.
Binky pointed to the sign. “English,” she said. “Definitely a human station, then.”
I didn’t bother to point out that, having come from inside the TARDIS, everything we would see would be translated to English, but since I knew that the sign was indeed in English script, I just let it go.
I took out my new sonic screwdriver and waved it around.
“Well,” I said, “the station itself is fully pressurized, including that attachment we saw. But no one’s around in this part of the station. Everyone’s on the other side.”
“You can tell all that with the sonic screwdriver?”
“Well… yes?”
“What is that attachment anyway, do you think?” Binky asked.
“Well, essentially, it’s a bomb bay. They’ve set up this station into something like an orbital bombing platform. They’ll be able to drop rocks onto the planet like bombs. And with the speed, size and mass of the rocks, they’ll have enough kinetic energy that they could be like little nuclear bombs exploding on top of cities.”
“Oh, my god!”
“Not planet-killer size rocks, though – those ports we saw are too small for those.”
“What do we do, Quinn?”
“Well, offhand, I think we have to destroy the station, or at least that bomb bay. The question is, how?”
“Yes, indeed, that is the question,” we heard a deep voice with an Italian accent emanate from the intercom speakers.
“Oh, my god,” Binky whispered, “they know we’re here!”
7. All About Captivity
We looked around in the little holding cell we were put in. Nothing except the bunks and the chairs.
Binky took a sip of her drink.
“It’s ironic,” she said. “We’re trapped in a space station, and the drink they left us with is Tang.”
We both giggled at that.
“Eat your heart out, Neil Armstrong,” I said.
We heard someone open the door of our cell.
“Good evening, ladies,” the man at our door said. It was the man from the intercom. The thick Italian accent was a giveaway. “Hope you are feeling well today.”
“We’re doing okay,” Binky said, and nonchalantly sipped her so-called orange juice.
“I’m pleased to meet you,” he said, nodding to Binky, “but I’m even more pleased to meet the famous Doctor,” he said and bowed to me, “and his magical phone booth. In my organization, you, Doctor, are quite famous. I do love the new you, though. Excellent regeneration.” He wagged his eyes suggestively. “And I have so wanted to perhaps see the inside of your TARDIS?”
“I’m sorry, but you have me mistaken for someone else.”
He laughed. “I doubt that – we find two women in my station without spacesuits, with no spaceship parked anywhere near, a strange phone booth parked in my landing bay, and one of these women carrying one of these.” He brought out my brand-new sonic screwdriver.
“You know,” he continued, “we’ve heard of what your sonic screwdriver is capable of. Still, none of my people can figure out how it works. I would ask you for a demonstration, but I don’t know if that’s safe.”
I shrugged. “How about our other stuff?”
“You mean these?” He gestured to the other guy, who brought out a Ziploc bag with all our stuff. “I’m afraid I can’t let you have them, either, my dear.”
I decided to use another tack.
“You know,” I said, “you seem to know all about me. But I’m afraid I don’t know anything about you. I think that’s a little unfair.”
The man laughed. “Of course, you’re right. Let me introduce myself, then. I am Tomas Stelisto, from the beautiful and historic city of Milan, and formerly of the United States Space Program. I’m fairly sure you don’t know me, but I’m sure you know my employers – the Slitheen Family of Raxacoricofallapatorius? Goodness – that is indeed a mouthful.”
“The Slitheen? No wonder. I take it this station is theirs?”
“Ah, no. It’s mine. I built it, under contract to the Slitheen.”
“So, you built a space-based meteor-bombing platform for the Slitheen. Did they tell you why they wanted one?”
“Well, not really. I can assume they want to enslave the human race – use the station as their bargaining chip, perhaps.”
“Well, no. The Slitheen don’t really want the people. All they want is the planet itself.”
“Well, whatever. I never did plan to give it to them. So, I took their gold, used it to get whatever I needed to build the station, but I never intended to give it to them. No one is going to be taking over the Earth anytime soon, except for me.”
“I don’t get it. So, it’s not good for aliens to take over the planet, but it’s perfectly fine if a human did?”
“Sure. Especially if that human happened to be me.”
“What made you think the Slitheen would just leave you alone after you take their station?” Binky interjected. “Do you even know what they’ll do to you once they find out what you’re doing?”
“Ahhh! That’s why I called UNIT. Anonymously, of course. They’ll chase away the Slitheen for me, which they already have, according to my mole. Now, I’m free to do what I want.”
“UNIT,” I said. “I imagine they already know about your station.”
“Hah! We’ve been constructing the station for years now, and, during all this time, they never even knew we were here.”
“How is that even possible?” Binky asked.
“Because of this.” He then brought out a little device about the size of a pack of cigarettes.
“That looks like a Slitheen cloaking device,” I said. “They’re pretty effective.”
”Indeed, it is,” the Italian said. “This one little gadget allowed me to hide our station.”
“That small, little thing?” Binky said incredulously.
“This was all we needed. The anonymity of my entire operation depends on this one little device.”
“That’s all I needed to know,” I said.
I reached out suddenly, grabbed the little box and threw it against the bulkhead. It smashed into little bits and, just for a second, the lights blinked out.
“There,” I said. “You are now visible to Earth-based radar and other detection stations.”
“Why, you…”
While he was still reacting, I reached out, grabbed my sonic from his hand and pointed it at one of the control panels on the wall.
8. All About Running In the Dark
The station’s power was turned off, but I made a slight miscalculation – since it was spin gravity, we didn’t start drifting up when we lost power, as I was intending it to, hoping to distract the people that way. So I made some slight changes in my plan.
Despite the total darkness, I knew where Binky was. It was like I had a photographic memory now. I grabbed for her hand and knocked Tomas aside. I then reached out to where the other man was and grabbed the bag with our stuff and ran through the open door. The two fumbled around in the dark, trying to grab us.
“Owww!” Binky exclaimed when she hit her shoulder on the jamb, but I didn’t stop and continued running down the hallway.
I randomly pointed my sonic to the wall, hoping to hit one of the control panels. As I waved the sonic about, I was able to trigger one of the panels. The lights and power came back on. I went to the nearest panel, punched up the satellite plans and looked for the route getting back to Bay Two.
“Stop!” one of the people that saw us yelled. Dammit!
I switched the power off again, but I was sure of my bearings now.
“Binky,” I said, “just hold onto my hand and follow my lead, okay? Don’t get scared.”
“Okay, Quinn,” she said. “I trust you.”
“Now, run!”
In complete darkness, we were actually running.
We collided into several people, however, and Binky bumped into some walls, but I didn’t let up, knowing they’d be able to turn the lights back on soon.
9. About UNIT
We were at Bay Two’s main doors when the lights finally came on. Thank goodness for that.
The people around us were starting to get their bearings but I didn’t wait for them to notice us. I slammed my hand on the Door Release, and the blast door slid open.
I pulled Binky inside, closed the door, pointed my sonic at the controls and short-circuited it. It felt good to finally be safe. But…
“Umm, Quinn…”
I looked around and found us surrounded.
Thinking quickly, I lifted my sonic again and pointed it at them. The sonic’s warbling was loud inside the landing bay.
“Don’t move!” I said, “unless you want some of this!” I waggle the sonic.
They complied, and even raised their hands.
“Okay, now move away from the phone booth!”
They backed away from my TARDIS. I opened the TARDIS’s door with my key, and we jumped in.
As soon as we were secure inside, I went to the main controls and started the TARDIS. In moments, we heard that familiar groaning noise, and we materialized back into outer space, about eighty kilometers from the station.
Binky laughed. “Would the sonic have really hurt them?” she asked.
“No,” I giggled.
Binky turned on the monitor and saw the station.
“What’s that?” Binky said, pointing to half a dozen metal slivers approaching the station.
“I imagine that would be UNIT’s missiles. I called them earlier saying I’ll take care of their cloaking.”
“Ahhh…”
A light started blinking on the panel.
“A message!”
I turned the monitor on, and a video message from the Doctor was displayed.
A blonde woman was looking at us. “Good work, Doctor Quinn. Congratulations. Now, I need you and Ms. Kristensen to go somewhere. There’s another cassette tape you need to find.”
“Dammit!” I exclaimed.
“Did the doctor regenerate?” Binky asked.
* * *
Roberta “Bobbie” Cabot is a transgender girl from DC. She transitioned in 2004, and has been living as a girl full time ever since. With a mom from Italy, a dad from Quebec, and a spouse from Kyoto, her writing (and her speech) is less than perfect. However, she doesn't really speak Italian, French or Japanese, although she can puzzle them out a bit. She is a fan of sci-fi, drama, love stories, romcoms and comedy/sitcoms, - these are the kinds of stories she looks for. Her only “claim to fame” is her still-incomplete story, “Danny,” which was first posted in Crystal’s Storysite back in 2009 (“Danny” is also posted on TG Storytime). Her most recently posted stories in TG Storytime are “Shepherd Moon,” “Autobots Revisited” and “Drew Nance, Girl Detective - Book 1: The Secret of the Old Clock.”
If anyone wants to contact Bobbie, one can click “Roberta J Cabot" in the list of authors in the story header, then click “Send author a message”.
* * *
* * *
There was a loud roaring in Axel’s ears followed by an eldritch tearing sensation and then a burst of wind hit Axel as he knocked on the door to Heather’s apartment. Abruptly, everything went dark and then Axel found himself in a familiar apartment.
“Oh, fuck, really Tessa?!”
The sound was all the confirmation he needed, because the voice that had given life to the words belonged to his twin sister! Axel looked down at the diaphanous nightgown that did nothing to hide the soft full weight of his pendulous breasts, or the tiny waist that sloped down to the newly shaven vagina between his legs. Axel took a deep breath, Tessa’s floral perfume filled his nose, and he felt the garment brush, feather light, over his sensitive skin, teasing his bright pink nipples to full erection. Axel glanced around and saw a pair of dolls. Each fashioned to look like the siblings, bound together with enchanted twine.
“Really, Tessa, this no-notice body swapping has got to stop.”
Ever since Tessa had learned that she was a witch and could swap bodies she’d been doing this to Axel. The first time she’d asked his permission, and curious to see what it must feel like to be female he’d agreed. What he hadn’t known was that every time they swapped bodies a connection built between them, making the next swap easier. The first time they’d had to hold hands while Tessa used her magic and Axel had to take part in the rite by agreeing to the switch. That first swap had just lasted two days and Axel had admitted to Tessa he’d enjoyed it.
That hadn’t been enough for Tessa. The next time she’d invited him over and swapped bodies halfway through lunch, by brushing her hand against his. That swap had lasted a week. It had still been fun, especially getting dressed up and going to church as each other while their parents remained clueless.
Then a few weeks later he’d been helping Dad in the garage work on his project car and Tessa had poked her head in. “Hey, Mom is taking me to the spa, she wanted to know if we should pick up dinner on the way back?”
Axel looked at her from under the hood of the car and muttered, “Must be nice.” While their dad had shouted not to worry about the men, they’d grab a beer and a burger when they finished up. Tessa’s eyes met his and the world spun around. Axel had a great time with his mom and Tessa had claimed she enjoyed spending the day with Dad.
That swap had lasted a month and Axel had to practically beg Tessa to swap back. She’d refused until after Axel finished his first period. Except for the cramps and bleeding, Axel explained several weeks later to Tessa over lunch, it had actually been a lot of fun.
Then he’d met Heather at the University. She was bright, sexy, funny and amazing in bed. Tessa had tried to call several times and something told Axel she wanted another swap. So he’d been avoiding her, and spending as much time as possible at Heather’s place. There was a part of him that loved every second he spent as Tessa. A part that was growing stronger every day. He sometimes caught himself looking at Heather’s dresses, wondering how they would fit and imagining himself as Tessa trying one on. These thoughts both scared and thrilled him. All the more reason to avoid his sister. Now, evidently, she’d figured a way to swap from across town!
The door to the apartment opened. “Tessa, I’m home!” Axel jumped as Colton, Tessa’s current live-in boyfriend, sauntered in. “Ah, babe, I see you’ve got one thing on your mind!” Colton exclaimed his eyes drinking in Axel’s scantily clad form. He moved across the room and swept Axel into his arms. Axel felt his soft nubile flesh mold to the firm athletic form of Tessa’s lover.
“I’ve missed you,” Axel heard himself say and to his dismay felt a deep moist ache grow between his legs. Colton lowered his mouth to Axel’s breast taking his hot nipple between his teeth through the thin material. Jolts of carnal delight raced through Axel’s lithe body and he reached out to caress the rock-hard cock between Colton’s legs, “I need you sooo bad.”
Then it hit him, in addition to swapping bodies, Tessa had bound him to act like her until swapping back. ‘That tricky bitch,’ he thought before Colton stretched him out on their bed and he lost himself, to his delight, in a world of feminine orgasmic bliss.
Across town Tessa pressed her masculine lips to Heather’s sensual mouth. When the kiss broke the blonde nursing student, with the body of a stripper, leaned back to look up at her man.
“Axel, don’t you have work today?”
Tessa reached out to caress Heather’s amazing ass and nuzzle her succulent globes before responding, “Screw work, I have to have you. Right now!”
* * *
* * *
I rushed toward the hospital, siren blaring and lights flashing. My partner was in the passenger seat, breathing heavily, eyes half-lidded. "Stay awake," I told him, and reached over to shake him. "The nanites can't reprogram your brain as easily if you stay awake. GREG! Wake up!" His eyes flew open and he looked at me, then at himself.
"We're not gonna get there in time," he said. "Promise you'll kill me if this stuff turns me into a mindless --"
"No," I said, "you know I'm Catholic, we don't believe in assisted suicide, and besides you're going to beat this thing." I kept coaxing him to stay awake for another mile; toward the end he had his eyes wide open, looking fixedly at me. I didn't blame him; in his place I wouldn't want to look at myself either. "We're here," I announced as I pulled into the emergency room entrance. I parked as close to the door as I could get -- there was an ambulance there too -- jumped out and ran around to open his door, then hefted him out and supported him on my shoulder as we staggered toward the door.
"Black market nanite infection!" I called out as we stepped in. "We need to flush them from his system as soon as possible before they infiltrate his brain!"
The receptionist hit an alarm button and a minute or two later a couple of nurses and doctors in biohazard suits came and got me and Greg and escorted us to a couple of rooms. They quarantined me and tested my blood, while they got Greg anti-nanite treatment as fast as they could.
But not fast enough.
* * *
They stripped me and took away all my stuff to disinfect, and kept me bare-assed in a hospital gown for the rest of the night and much of the morning. They checked my vital signs every hour and drew blood
every couple of hours. I kept asking how Greg was, and the nurse who drew my blood wouldn't tell me -- patient confidentiality. They asked me who his emergency contact was, and I said he didn't have any family, which was pretty much true. He had an almost-ex-wife, but he hadn't spoke to her without a lawyer present in months, and his parents were dead. "I'm one of his closest friends," I said. "Please let me see him."
"Not until we're sure it's safe," the nurse said.
"I can put on a biohazard suit."
"Maybe. I'll talk to the doctor." But it was more than an hour before I heard any more.
When they finally let me out and gave me back my stuff around dawn, the doctor said: "He's been asking to see you. And the active stage of the infection is past, he's not contagious now. But you should be
prepared -- he looks different."
"I figured," I said, remembering the small changes I'd already seen in the squad car on the way to the hospital."
"Actually, she's female now."
"Yeah, that's what that bastard Tillman said. I could rush Greg to the hospital and maybe you could stop him from turning into a -- I won't use the word he said -- or I could stop to arrest him." I'd shot him, but he must have been wearing body armor. I didn't stop to chase after him after he shot Greg with the nanite dart, obviously.
"Well, we weren't able to stop the physical transformation. It was too far advanced by the time he got here. The changes to her brain... well. There were several strains of nanites in her blood. We managed to flush some of them but not all. We think there was one that was supposed to increase her sex drive, and one that was supposed to decrease her intelligence..."
"Yeah, that fits what we've seen with Tillman's other victims."
"Well, we got rid of those. But there was at least one we didn't catch in time."
"What?"
We'd arrived at Greg's room. The doc opened the door and led me inside.
There was a woman in a hospital gown lying in the bed. She smiled up at me. Her hair was long, and blonde for the first eight or ten inches, with brown tips that were Greg's original short hair. Her figure -- well, you can imagine what a misogynistic asshole like Tillman would do to his enemies, I don't need to describe it.
"Master," Greg said, "I would rise to greet you but I'm so tired."
"You need to rest," I said with a sinking feeling. "But what's this about 'master'?"
"You're my master, aren't you? You'll take care of me, I'm sure of it."
"We think she imprinted on you," the doctor said, "on the way over here. The slave conditioning nanites got to work on her brain early on and you were the first person she saw. You said she has no family?"
"His parents are dead," I said, not mentioning his almost-ex-wife.
"If we can't get rid of the nanites and come up with a way to undo the conditioning, there will have to be a competency hearing. The court will appoint a guardian for her, and you'll need to command her to obey whoever her new guardian is. If you're right and she has no living relatives, you could ask the court to appoint you her guardian."
Or they might award custody to his almost-ex-wife. Damn. Belinda would make Greg's life a living hell, not that it wasn't already heading that way even with the best-intentioned guardian in the world.
"Or he could convince the court he's competent to take care of himself," I said. "Right, Greg?"
"Anything you want, Master."
"Please," I said. "This isn't an order. But please call me Jack, like you've always done."
"All right... Jack." It took her a visible effort to use my name.
"Do you still know who you are? Your name, and all the stuff that's happened to you for the past thirty-four years?"
"I'm Greg Jermyn," he said. "Unless you want to call me something else, M-- Jack. Sorry. Um. And I can't remember thirty-four years back, only about thirty-one, and those early memories are pretty vague."
"That's good." At first I'd been afraid the nanites had erased his memories. But he went on:
"And I used to be a police officer, but now I'm your slave. You take care of me, and I do whatever you say."
I felt sick, and swore I'd bring Tillman down if it killed me.
"You want me to take care of you? Right now I'll do the best thing know how to do to help you. I'm giving you one and only one order, the only order I'll ever give you: Act like a free person. Think for yourself. If I ever slip up and give you an order, question it. Don't obey it unless you think it's a good idea and you're doing it for your own reasons. If you ever find yourself wishing for someone to tell you what to do, ask yourself, 'What would I do if I didn't have any master?' and do that. Got that?"
"Yes, Jack."
"Good. I'll see you later, Greg," I said as a nurse came in. "It looks like they need to work on you some more."
The doctor shook his head as we left the room. "It's a good plan, but I'm not sure it will work. She'll still get anxious when she's away from you for too long. You'll need to give those orders regular reinforcement. Maybe you can use the conditioning against itself and eventually wean her off her addiction to pleasing you, but I'm not sure."
"We'll make it work," I said, sounding more confident than I felt.
* * *
Trismegistus Shandy is the author of more than thirty transgender stories, available at Smashwords, Amazon, BigCloset, Fictionmania and TGStorytime.
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* * *
Ethan Winters picked up the antique lamp and laughed at just how 70s it looked. His parents were still in diapers when this thing would have been new. He held it in the light and looked for chips or breaks. A little dusty and in need of a new shade, but nothing major. He knew it would be a perfect gift for his dad for Father’s Day.
The old woman behind the register had a facial expression that said I have worked here for decades and no one has ever bought this piece of shit when Ethan stepped up to counter to pay for the lamp. He thought she didn't even want to sell it to him, honestly, though he didn't run into any trouble.
He drove back to his apartment and set the lamp down on the kitchen table. He put it out of his mind as he watched TV and Google Searched on his iPad for something to read to pass the time with. He had three hours until he had to leave for work and knew it would be an annoying day.
The first hour was comprised of TBS reruns of American Dad, about the only Seth MacFarlane show Ethan could still stand. Even so, it was mostly background noise, he’d seen that episode a couple dozen times.
The second hour was when things got interesting.
Ethan got up and walked into the kitchen to grab a soda. He passed the lamp and swore he heard an odd noise. He picked it up and turned it this way and that, upside down and rightside up. Nothing was out of the ordinary, though he still had to clean it up.
So where had that sound come from? Nothing was rolling around inside the lamp when he shook it, nothing else was on the table near it, it was almost as if the sound had come from nowhere. He held the lamp close to his ear.
But the voice wasn't coming from the lamp. “Hi there!” came the voice of a young woman, around Ethan’s age. He looked around for her, but couldn't see anyone or anything. He checked the lamp for a speaker, but found nothing.
Something was… Wrong, for lack of a better term.
“Over here, Master,” the voice said. He was a little disturbed by the Master part, but he followed the voice to its source and saw a very cute face smiling at him from the TV.
Ethan walked over to the TV and saw her eyes tracing his every footstep. “You… Are you…”
“Talking to you? Yes, Master, I am.”
“Why are you calling me that?”
“You bought my lamp. By Djinn law of the Magical Concordance, Page Eight, Section Nineteen, Paragraph Three, I am hereby in your service until you either die or sell my lamp. I can only grant you three wishes per day as dictated by Page Seventeen, Section One, Paragraph Twenty-two. Wish one can be reversed, wish two can be reversed with caveats, and wish three cannot be reversed.”
“You… You’re a genie?” Ethan asked, his voice full of surprise and confusion. Genies were the thing of Disney movies and TV shows that were on reruns when his parents were young, they weren’t real, were they? He stepped closer to the TV. “You’re really a genie?”
She nodded. “Yes, Master, if that’s the term you wish to use. I’m here to grant you the wishes you desire. Now, would you kindly let me out of my lamp?”
Ethan looked down at the lamp in his hands. “How… How do I do that?”
“Just remove the light bulb and say Najwa.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Is that some sort of magic word?”
She giggled. “Sort of. It’s my name.”
Ethan sighed. This sounded crazy, but he was talking to a cute girl inside a TV. Maybe if he did what she asked, he’d wake up and realize he was late for work. This whole thing being a dream would be a kindness.
He unscrewed the bulb, removed the shade and set the lamp down on the floor in front of the TV. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and said, “Najwa.”
And then nothing happened.
He opened his eyes and saw nothing but static on the TV. He looked down on the floor and saw the lamp. Had he just imagined everything that had just happened?!
“You have so much porn stashed away on here,” she said from behind him. He spun around and there she was, sitting on the couch, holding his iPad. She was dressed in what looked to be a belly dancing outfit, pink and gold with a transparent veil over her face. Her chestnut brown hair was short and framed her face. “Wow, I’ve never had a master with this strong a masturbation habit.”
His eye twitched. “I don’t… I mean I…”
She giggled. “I’m just teasing you, Master.” She set the iPad down on the coffee table and sprung to her feet, stood at attention and then saluted him. “Najwa Djinn, reporting for duty, Master! Please give me your first wish of the day!”
Ethan just stared at her blank-faced. “Do… Do I havta do it now?”
She lowered her hand almost as if she’d been scolded. What’s with her? he thought. “Do you not wish to take advantage of your first wish as soon as possible, Master?”
He scratched at the back of his neck. “I mean… I can’t think of anything to wish for. Do you… Do you have any suggestions?”
She frowned. “I don’t make the wishes, I just grant them, Master.” She put her hands on her hips. Her skirt swished this way and that. “Please, think of something? I want to serve you, and I haven't been out of my lamp in centuries, I need to know if my powers are still sharp.”
Ethan stammered, “O… Okay… Um… Can I… Um… What are the rules again?”
She sighed. “I can only grant you three wishes per day. Wish one can be reversed, wish two can be reversed with caveats, and wish three cannot be reversed.”
“So, if I wish for… Say… Godzilla to attack the city, you can do that and there's no consequences?”
She nodded. “Yes, though I don't know what this Godzilla is. I’ll have to peer inside your mind.”
She stepped around the coffee table and touched Ethan’s head. He watched as her eyes glowed and felt some sort of vibrations radiating from her. Her hand became warm, almost too warm. He tried to move her hand away, but found he couldn't move!
And then he could as she moved her hand away on her own. She shook her head, as if in a trance. “So, Godzilla is a giant lizard monster from Japan. Why do you want it here?”
He shook his head. “No, that was just a… Wait… You’ve been locked away in that lamp for centuries and didn't know what Godzilla was,” he pointed at his iPad, “but you know what porn is and how to use an iPad?”
She turned red. “I’m… It’s a little complicated, now, do you have a wish yet, Master?”
Ethan rubbed at the back of his neck. “Fine, I… Wish my car was newer.”
Her eyes lit up - in the metaphorical, happy sense, not the literal sense from a few moments ago - and she smiled. “Thank you, so much, Master!” She walked over to the window and looked around. “Um… Which one is your car, Master?”
Ethan sighed. “The red Toyota Prius down there.”
“Okay.” She took a deep breath and started to say something in a language he couldn’t understand. Suddenly, wind began to kick up, as if there was a tornado in the middle of the apartment. The lights flickered, the pictures began to fall from the wall, the coffee table was suddenly in mid-air. Ethan tried to back away, but he found he was already up against a wall he didn’t even realize he’d backed against.
The wind intensified, lifting the TV from the entertainment center and ripping its plug from the wall. The couch was thrown back against the wall close to the door, cracking the wall in several places. The window itself cracked, then broke, the wind throwing thin glass shards all around the room. Ethan ducked before several of them hit where his face would have been on the wall.
And as suddenly as it began, the windstorm in his apartment died. He looked up and saw the window and the wall it had been a part of were now gone. Najwa stood there, a smile on her face as she motioned for Ethan to look outside at her handiwork.
“Cuh… Can you... “ he stammered. He needed a second to collect his speech again. “I really wish you’d clean up this mess somehow.”
She smiled wider. “Of course, Master!” She started speaking in that language from before, and the wind once again kicked up. This time, though, the micro-tornado in Ethan’s apartment was spinning the opposite direction, the pieces of wall and glass were all being sucked away from where they’d landed, the furniture moved itself back to where it had been, the TV plugged itself back into the wall.
Ethan stood up again and looked around at his once-again pristine (well, aside from the odd empty pizza box) apartment. “Do… Do you need to make the place go all twister-y?” he asked.
She looked surprised. “Oh… You don’t like that?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Oh, sorry. My previous Master loved it when I would summon the winds of change to precede a wish. Also, your car is much nicer now.”
Ethan sighed. “Can you just… Don’t use that wind again, please?”
She nodded. “Of course, Master. Now, do you have a third and final wish for today?”
He crossed the room to the window and looked outside. No one seemed to even realize anything had happened, let alone that an apartment had been essentially destroyed by a localized tornado. People were walking around, talking, ignoring everything. “Do your powers change reality in general?”
She nodded. “Oh, yes. By the Magical Concordance, any magical being such as a sorcerer, sorceress, witch, warlock, succubus, magical girl, demon or angel will be immune to the mental effects of my changes, as will you, my Master.”
“So, everyone who knows about my car remembers…” He looked down and saw his car parked along the sidewalk. Where there had once been a red Toyota Prius now sat a significantly newer, considerably more green Dodge Challenger. If This whole situation wasn't already crazy, Ethan thought he’d be going insane.
He laughed. “Now I wish I had a hot date to take around in that thing,” he said.
And immediately regretted the first part. He hadn't meant that as an actual wish at all.
“Ooh, that's a good wish, Master,” Najwa said as she took his hands. “Now, let me see… Ooh, you have several neighbors to pick from.”
“How do you know that?”
“Whenever I touch you like this, I can see limited thoughts. Oh, yes, that one should do.”
Ethan realized just a second too late. “But all my neighbors on this floor are men...”
“No problem, Master!” she said with much glee in her voice as her eyes began to glow and the floor beneath them turned a bright white.
Ethan looked down at the bright white, his head the only part of his body he could move. He watched the light travel up his legs, watched his pants melt away. He felt the hair on his legs burn away, almost painfully so. The light reached his crotch and he wanted to double over in pain as his dick felt as though it was being beaten into him with a hammer. He looked away for just a moment, then looked down again and saw his legs had been replaced by the most gorgeous pair of legs he’d ever seen on a woman, and his crotch was buried in hair that wasn’t even his natural brown but a reddish blonde. His hips were wider, and his ass felt like somebody had plastered a pillow onto it.
The light moved further up his body, shrank his stomach, thinned his waist. He felt his organs being moved, shrunk, changed. His bones shifted size. The light moved up to his chest and suddenly he felt the weight of what he knew had to be breasts. He couldn't tell how large they were, but they felt too heavy for his comfort. His hands and arms shrank, and his fingernails took on a glossy sheen. The light shrank his shoulders, giving his body an almost perfect shape.
The light engulfed his head, now. He felt his face rearrange itself, his lips grew fuller, his eyes wider, his nose shrank and his cheeks puffed out. His skull snapped, cracked, broke, then melted into itself, almost like liquid being poured into a mould. Hair tickled his neck and settled on his shoulders. He heard a high pitched squeak escape his lips, likely his vocal cords tightening and adjusting.
Najwa let go of Ethan’s hands and stepped back. Her mouth was curled into the most cartoony smile he could imagine. “You look PERFECT!” she screamed. “It shouldn’t be too hard for you to get a date now.”
Ethan wanted to hit himself in the face. “Did you need to make me a girl?! Couldn’t you have done it to somebody else?! Or, I dunno, just made a girl appear out of thin air?!” For some reason the idea of actually dating Najwa herself didn’t enter his mind, but he was quite distraught over what had just happened.
She shook her head. “Sorry, Master. I can’t just make a person appear out of thin air, as you suggest, because that would be breaking Rule Thirty-Seven, Section Two, Paragraph Nine of the Magical Concordance. Only God and those bound by Heavenly magic are allowed to do that.”
“God and Heavenly… How many magic people are there?!”
“Oh, lots, Master. And as for why I couldn’t change someone else, I have a certain amount of time to grant your wish before the wish is then erased from existence. If I hadn’t changed you immediately, you could have never wished for the potential for love again. And I can only change someone if I’m near them, as I just did with you.” She stepped forward again and wrapped her arms around Ethan. “Oh, Master, don’t worry! I’ve put all the required feminine knowledge in your brain to help your transition, and I’ll be here in case I forgot anything. Plus, there’s a lot of hunks in this building, so finding a guy shouldn’t be a problem at all!”
Ethan sighed. “You don’t even know if I like guys…”
She patted him on the back. “I took care of that, too, Master!” She took a step back but kept her hands on his shoulders. “You especially like well hung, handsome men.”
He rolled his eyes. “So, basically, you made me any female soap opera character who isn't experimenting with her sexuality.”
“Well… I sorta just mixed my second Master with my own preferences. My second Master liked to wish for well hung guys whenever she was bored, that's why the law about making people appear from thin air exists.”
Ethan was about to say something when he heard a knock on the door. He recognized the (wonderfully deep) voice as belonging to Winston, the guy who lived across the hall from him. “Mia! Did you still need your sink fixed?”
Najwa stepped back and… For lack of better term evaporated back into her lamp. After a moment, she appeared on the TV again. “You may want some clothes on, Master.”
Ethan - or rather, Mia - sighed. She really did need her sink fixed, and Winston was a decent guy. Maybe if he was between girlfriends, she might have a chance with him. After all, Najwa had decided to make this her permanent wish for the day. Mia would need to start adjusting to her attraction to guys sooner or later.
But, she thought, tomorrow, I wish for smaller boobs. These things are too big, even though my mind is adjusted to them.
* * *
* * *
Garth settled onto his back, the stars in the night sky were intensely bright. He looked up with a hungry grin as Ashley, the buxom blonde captain of the cheerleading squad, lowered her dripping pussy onto his iron-hard shaft.
“Oh, damn, that feels good Ash!”
Ashley slowly continued to impale herself, taking the full length of his cock into her tight wet love tunnel. Then eyes going wide she leaned forward grinding her sensitive clit against the pelvic bone at the base of his cock. “Oh God, Garth, you’re so big! I love having you inside me.”
Slowly, the teenagers moved against each other in a sensual dance as old as time. Then just as Garth couldn’t hold back any longer an image floated into his mind. The raven-haired beauty, Adila, from Saudi Arabia, naked, in a dark canopied bed holding up a piece of parchment and chanting. The image came into sharp focus and Garth felt his attention split. He could still feel Ashley and his body as it moved beneath her, yet at the same time he felt like he was in the same room with Adila, like he could reach out and touch her.
Adila attended the same elite high school as Garth and Ashley. Garth recognized her because he loved to tease her using every racist and sexist name he could think of, but at the same time he couldn’t deny the attraction. He’d just found out, on Friday, that her parents were returning to the Kingdom. He’d laughed at her, telling her that she was going to be married off soon to some Sheik. When Adila had dashed away in tears, Garth had felt bad, and wondered, for the first time, if maybe his taunting had hit too close to home.
Abruptly, Garth felt his balls clench up and an explosion of sperm shot from his dick deep into Ashley’s womb, “Allah, help me, that feels amazing!” Garth heard his own voice say. ‘What?’ he thought as he watched his own large hands move up to caress Ashley’s milky globes. Then the world seemed to spin around and he felt his spirit pull up and away from his body.
+++
There was a loud pounding at the door and Garth rolled over feeling the massive movement of soft succulent flesh on his chest. “Eadilat, tastayqiz!” At first the words made no sense and then his sleepy brain translated, “Adila, wake up!”
Garth struggled to sit up, his body felt unbalanced, strange, and he brushed back a curtain of silky ebony tresses and then his saw his massive naked breasts. Gasping Garth reached up to cup the luscious orbs and discovered what it felt like to feel a boob being groped from the receiving side. Then he slid one tiny hand between his thighs and discovered only smooth skin and a tiny slit where his once mammoth rod had been.
Before he could wrap his mind around the impossible truth the door burst open and shock raced through his feminine body. A woman he somehow knew was Adlia’s mother stomped in. Garth let out a soft screech covering his naked chest, “'Ana yaqiz” he gasped, “I’m awake,” in Adila’s dulcet tones.
“Good, we are all packed. The limo will be her in thirty minutes. Now get dressed, it is a long flight back to the Kingdom.” When she shut the door, all Garth could do was stare in shock. Somehow, he knew Arabic. Somehow he’d become Adlia!
* * *
* * *
We had always believed that things wouldn’t change. I mean, not too much, anyway. Children grow, the old die off, lives weave back and forth into and out of each other’s spheres. Those were expected.
But Margarine Day changed so much more than those things. Do you know what it’s like to watch your wife turn to margarine? I’m sorry, that was an insensitive question. Of course you do. Sometimes I can forget that we all lived through it. Sometimes it feels like I didn’t even live through it. Like it was some dream. That life before Margarine Day was just this thing I’d made up for myself to feel better.
I’m rambling. You know the basics. You probably lived the basics. I woke up like it was a normal day, took a shower like it was a normal day, ate breakfast like it was a normal day, kissed Tabetha goodbye like it was a normal day, and then, very unlike a normal day, she began to melt. And then I began to melt.
This wasn’t a metaphor. This wasn’t in the “I’ll stop the world and melt with you” sense of the phrase. She melted, and I melted, and suddenly there were two gelatinous puddles on the floor of my foyer. I’m lucky I hadn’t opened the front door yet.
I’m sure you know the rest of the story, too. After a few hours we reconstituted, just like the rest of the world. And as our puddles had mixed while we had been goo, we had reconstituted with some shared traits. Both of us were my former height of 5’9”. Both of us had her springy little chestnut curls. My eyes. Her nose. My hands. Her genitalia.
Yeah.
For her, things almost went back to normal. Sure, she had to buy some new clothes, and sure she had to deal with a few friends or coworkers who had changed, and she didn’t quite have a husband anymore, but Tabetha was still, in essence, just a taller Tabetha.
I wasn’t the same. And my changes did not stop that day. I suddenly had a uterus. A menstrual cycle! Eye color, height, those things don’t change a person too much,but my very chemistry, the hormones that my body began producing, were radically different, and they made me radically different.
My body started changing. Developing. Over the months, my face rounded out. My thighs rounded out. My muscles became slimmer, my frame slighter. I remember one day, Tabetha came home with a bag from Target. She acted coy and lead me to our bedroom, and then I discovered that she’d bought me a bra. Without noticing, I’d developed into a moderate A-cup, and Tabetha had decided it was becoming noticeable.
Those changes didn’t stop either. They kept on developing gradually. Every so often I’d have to buy new clothes or new underwear.
Somewhere along the line, people started to treat me differently. Not the people I’d known before Margarine Day, but the people I met afterward. At least at first. How I was treated would affect how I acted, and I found myself forming habits while around new people that would carry over to old friends. I knew I would be talked over, so I learned to wait, to pick my spots in the conversation, to commit key points to memory and integrate them on the fly into my response when I did have the chance to speak. And because of that, I learned to speak more quickly. My mouth had to keep up with my mind, everything had to come out lest I lose it.
I learned that people paid me more attention when I paid my appearance more attention. Again, this started just when I was around new people, but I got into the habit, and I noticed that even old friends, even female friends, even Tabetha, just seemed to be nicer to me when I had invested more time into my makeup routine.
One lazy Saturday morning, I woke up and got dressed and made my way into the kitchen, and when Tabetha followed me in, she stopped.
“Are those my jeans?”
They were. I’d grabbed hers by mistake.
“You should keep them. They look better on you than they do on me.”
They did. So I kept them.
It was a few weeks later when I woke up to Tabetha’s kiss and had to cut it off. I told her it didn’t feel right. That something was off. And she agreed. She had felt it for a while, and had been trying to keep up a brave face for my benefit. She seemed relieved that I felt that way too.
It wasn’t until that afternoon when it clicked that I was attracted to men.
Which is why I’m here. I need to file divorce papers. We’re doing it amicably, but we’ve decided that two heterosexual women can’t stay married to one another, no matter how much platonic love they feel. I know, you’re probably disinterested in the details, you just need to know what terms we’ve agreed to. But thank you anyway for listening to my story.
* * *
* * *
Three men, a woman, and a dog sat in the lifeboat, watching the ship they'd barely escaped from disappear beneath the waves.
"Stop touching my breasts," the oldest man said to the woman.
"They're mine now, I'll touch them if I want to," she replied.
"This is your fault," the second-oldest man said to the oldest man.
The youngest man yowled and scratched his butt, while the dog looked on resentfully.
"How is it my fault?" the oldest man said indignantly.
"If you hadn't botched the body swap spell and shuffled everybody on board --" the second-oldest man retorted.
"Who barged in and interrupted me while I was working the spell?" the oldest man interrupted, glaring at the woman.
"Hey, I had no way of knowing you were working a spell," the woman said, pausing momentarily from feeling herself up. "It's not like I wanted this."
"You sure are acting like you enjoy it," the oldest man replied. "And even then, we would have been okay, mostly, if the captain hadn't wound up in Rover's body."
The dog barked once, as if in affirmation. The youngest man turned his head and barked as well. The oldest man ruffled his hair.
"Anyway, we'll be fine when we get back to civilization. I almost had the counterspell figured out when we hit those rocks. Once we get to a big city, I can buy the ingredients I need to switch us back."
"If we ever get there," the woman said.
* * *
* * *
A group of researchers stood in front of the camera screens; why they were standing was anyone's guess. Sometimes one of them pointed a pencil at one of the many screens and mumbled something unintelligible, writing quickly.
One screen in particular was being watched, for the seventeenth time that week.
* * *
"Hey! Look at all this coke!" Max said, pulling out his credit card and arranging the sodium nitrate into lines. His group laughed, and one boy in particular, in another group, rolled his eyes.
"Get a grip, Max," John said, going back to his own experiment.
Why the teachers decided it was a good idea to shove a bunch of random students into a room and have them perform experiments about different things was beyond John. John only knew that Max and his group were supposed to be dealing with aqueous solutions, not solids.
Solids was Group Thirteen's job. Group Thirteen scared John.
"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" Group Thirteen simultaneously screamed, a thermite reaction going off. John, despite standing fifteen feet away, suddenly felt very hot.
"That's downright dangerous, assholes! Take it outside!" John, ever the mediator, screamed.
Group Thirteen hi-fived, laughing after the reaction petered out. The entire class had felt the reaction (indeed, Jessica screamed and caught fire for standing next to it; she was under the chemical shower now) and was shocked silent. First explosives, now thermite reactions, and John was pretty sure their next experiment was radioactive.
He went back to his own experiment, the shock factor silencing the whole class into doing the most hated thing: Calculations. And then more calculations, when they inevitably forgot to follow Hess' law, or whatever.
John didn't know what he was supposed to do. He was alright at chemistry, but he couldn't think of anything his experiment was supposed to do. It had isotopes of Cobalt, Iron, Silicon... even a tiny bit of Gallium was hidden in there.
He waited for his solution to begin boiling, at which point he would dump it into his other solution, and hopefully they would react to fill the balloon with a gas. John still didn't see how they were going to reach the gas phase, especially since it was so highly pressurized that it would make a supercritical fluid if anything.
His testing environment was highly, highly pressurized. He was very eager to see iron as a supercritical fluid.
The solution started boiling, not enough pressure. John retracted his arms out of the apparatus, upping the pressure. So many bars of pressure. SO MANY.
John was frankly amazed no heat was leaking out. The temperature was so high in there, the pressure incredible...
The solution was poured into the other, and the whole thing.... disappeared. An invisible gas, detected solely because the balloon had inflated.
Then it deflated, the gas leaking out.
"Uh oh."
John broke the silence of the class, backing away. "So, some super-hot solid is just going to appear in a few moments, and probably burn down everything."
* * *
The group nodded to each other, dropping the clipboards. One of them signed onto a computer, composed an email with a subject of a variety of letters and numbers, the content simply saying "Experiment successful. Release them."
* * *
John spun around, eyes darting about. He was beginning to panic. It had been three minutes, the solid should have shown up by now. But it hadn't.
He felt a chill down his spine. Everything was getting so cold, but that didn't make sense. His was the only experiment being active, and it should be warming everything up... He screamed as his eyes went milky white and his entire body felt like it was on fire. Every nerve in his body activated in pain, and his vocal cords gave out. It felt like he was liquefying. Faintly, he believed he saw a small cloud of silver form. Was that the experiment cooling down directly above him?
An eternity of pain later, and nothing felt the same. Everything was so sensitive, even the air. His chest rose and fell at different intervals than usual, as if his lung capacity was smaller. Either that, or something was constricting her chest. The cloud of gas was also completely gone.
Something felt wrong within her head. It felt as if her brain was on fire.She quickly went through what she could remember. She wrote her name on the paper… wait, that was it. She kept remembering the name “Jane”. Why? That wasn’t her name. Other things felt both weird and familiar.
Jane, who kept trying to think of herself as Jane, stood up. No, not Jane, Jane. JANE. As hard as she thought, her old name would simply not pop into her head.
She got a decent look at herself by looking down. She was very obviously female. That... wow. It sort of made sense. Now why was none of this freaking her out? By all rights this should be the literal worst experience ever.
Jane stood again, as she had fallen, shuddering. She... felt the desire, no, need to do more science. She basically ran to her calculations and began writing down notes. She didn't know how she knew they were notes, as they were not in English. It was almost as if she were in a trance. Her brain felt on fire once more.
Fourteen men in hazmat suits walked in, two of which indeed were carrying something radioactive. Instinctively, Jane knew the other twelve were for her.
She spoke some language, probably Latin. Though, it may have been Ancient Greek. Either way, she didn't actually know the language. It was if she were but a mere passenger in her own body. It was quite the thrilling experience, actually.
No no no that was wrong in every way. She hated this. But that experiment she ran did something to her. Something bad. She loved, no, hated it.
Well, she got the feeling she was the head of the testing here rather than a mere participant of the experiments, so that was acceptable. Quite a new life to jump into, but she was adapting well.
* * *
* * *
“Ugh, my head hurts!” Sitting up, Zach used one hand to brace himself. His head pounded, and then he noticed how the tight red dress clung to every curve and he could taste the hint of cherry from Kathrine’s lip gloss. Glancing around he spotted his body in an identical chair only a few feet away. “Oh, fuck, it worked.”
“Of course, it worked,” Thomas answered. “Now, we need to hurry and get you upstairs to the party before Kathrine is missed.”
Zach climbed unsteadily to his feet trying to adjust to the four inch heels. “What about her?” He gestured toward his body, “How long will she be out?”
“I set the machine to keep her under for the next four hours. Plenty of time for you to get in and get out.”
“You think? Four hours to find Senator Harrison’s safe, crack it, and steal the documents?” Then Zack looked down, “And I’ve got to do it while wearing this ridiculous body?”
“Your agent, Dexter, said that you can crack any safe. Just an hour ago you were telling me that this job shouldn’t be too tough, as long as I had a way to get you in. Well, my boy, you are ‘in!’ You are wearing Senator Harrison’s daughter’s body. You’ll be able to move freely through the penthouse without needing to think up an excuse. He’ll never suspect you’re there to crack his private safe.” Then he leered at Zach, “And that is one of the sexiest female bodies I’ve seen. Ridiculous is a misapplied adjective!”
Slowly, Zach made his way out of the room and then to the elevator. The fact that Thomas had somehow rented an apartment in the same building and just five floors below the Senator’s penthouse told Zach that the man must have some serious backing. Arriving at the penthouse, Zach was greeted by Kathrine’s father.
“Baby, you look fantastic!” the distinguished looking man exclaimed, wrapping Zach in a hug and kissing him on the cheek. It took all of his self-discipline not to pull back. Then Harrison whispered, “Mr. Taylor is here. His divorce just went final, I’ve got you seated right next to him.”
“Oh, er, thanks . . . Daddy.” Zach stumbled, wondering what the business tycoon looked like and if he was supposed to recognize him.
Harrison gave the woman he thought was his daughter an odd look, “Kathrine, you know he is my single biggest campaign donor? He just joined the billionaire club. Be nice, you never know, Kathrine Taylor has a nice sound.”
Zach moved away from Kathrine’s father and into the lavishly decorated penthouse. The sound of his heels on the polished marble floor felt too loud to Zach, he was used to moving with as little noise as possible. As if this wasn’t strange enough, Zach became increasingly aware of his soft, sexy, body and the flesh on his chest that seemed to move with a mind of its own.
His normal body was over six foot and he made sure to keep it in the best condition possible. There was no denying that Kathrine’s body was fit, but everything felt so soft and the absence of his normal member between his legs was as disturbing as the flesh that Kathrine had put on display with this red dress. Zach glanced at the slim lady’s watch on his wrist, “Only an hour to go until dinner!”
“If you’re hungry, I can grab something for you.” The young man in the tux was handsome even if Zach couldn’t remember his name. For a second, Zach thought about telling him that his eyes were “up here” since he was staring openly at Zach’s chest.
“That would be lovely.”
Anything to get rid of another guy trying to get his temporary body into the sack. Using the opportunity, Zach broke away from the pre-dinner mingling and headed into the private part of the residence. It took him a few minutes to find Harrison’s study. After that, locating the safe was a snap. With a glance at his watch he knew he had enough time and went to work.
Once open, Zach ignored the diamonds, the bonds, and the neatly stacked rows of cash. Instead he scooped up the documents he’d been paid to steal. Rolling them up he stuffed them in the handbag he’d brought back to the penthouse. Zach made his way to Kathrine’s room and dropped off the bag before returning to the party. He’d have to wait until after dinner to retrieve it and return to the lab.
Several hours later, Zach slipped once more into the apartment converted into a lab. “Doc! I did it! I’ve got them.” He was greeted by silence. Slowly, Zach made his way through the quiet, dimly lit apartment and into the living room where the equipment had been set up. Then he froze in stunned shock.
The chair that had held his body was now empty, but laying next to it was the seventy-year-old body of Dr. Thomas Kraft. What was more shocking was the knife sticking out of his chest. “Oh, fuck,” Zach whispered in his new, soft, sexy alto.
* * *
The gentle breeze caressed Zach’s perfect, delicate, feminine skin causing his flesh to prickle and sending a shiver down his spin. Trying to look calm and sophisticated he continued walking through the park.
“Dexter said that if anything went wrong, to wait a week, and then to meet under the Fifth Avenue bridge at midnight. Well, it couldn’t have gotten much worse!”
After finding Thomas’s body Zach had searched the lab for clues. That’s when he’d found the backpack and the bomb. Knowing there were innocent lives in danger, he’d quickly called 911 and reported a bomb in the building. Shortly after the evacuation the damn thing went off. Luckily, it was small enough to only destroy the lab although it had set off a serious fire. The fire had ruined several floors of the building including the penthouse, but Harrison had assured his “daughter” that she shouldn’t worry, everything was insured.
The drama from the bombing was enough for everyone who knew Kathrine to write off any of Zach’s odd behavior, during the last week, as PTSD. Suddenly, a tall figure stepped from the shadows. Zach took a deep breath, very aware of how small he was, how vulnerable, and that he was totally alone.
“Dexter?”
“Not exactly.” A familiar voice said from the shadows.
“W-What? No, it can’t be.” Zach gasped as his former body stepped out from under the bridge.
“You look surprised.” Zach spun to her right now seeing the tall sinister form of Dexter, the agent she used to set up her jobs.
“What’s going on?”
“Not particularly bright, is she?” his former body said, moving to stand in front of Zach.
“No, Zach was a great safe-cracker, but he was always a little slow.”
“Would someone tell me what’s going on?”
“First, the documents.” Dexter demanded. Slowly, Zach reached into her purse and pulled out the papers.
“Here, just as promised. Now, what’s going on?”
“Excellent,” the new Dexter said, then looked at Kathrine-in-Zach.
“We’re square.”
“Agreed.” Then with a chuckle, Kathrine ravished Zach’s new luscious curves with his eyes. “To answer your question, I’ve been trying to escape my controlling father for years. The ass plans to force me, well you, to marry some businessman or politician. Thomas, here, with his mind-swapping device offered me a way out.”
“What?” Zach gasped looking at Dexter, “Thomas?”
Thomas nodded, and flashed a grin. “After you left, Kathrine and I met Dexter. Unfortunately, he wasn’t very happy going from thirty years old to seventy. Luckily, Kathrine here is quite a skilled fighter. All those years her father forced her to study martial arts paid off.”
“That and a young, strong, fit male body!” Kathrine said with a grin. “I never dreamed how good it would feel to be so strong!”
“So, you’ve got those corporate research documents, when do we swap back?”
At this Kathrine laughed, “Whose life do you think it was Thomas arranged for me to take?”
“What?”
“I’ve always dreamed of being free of my family and my obligations. I managed to hide several million dollars in offshore accounts. What I never expected was that I’d love being a man so much that I wouldn’t want to give it up! Enjoy your new life, Kathrine!”
* * *
Woo boy. Y’know this was supposed to go up in March? March! A good 90% of that was me (Hikaro) not getting off my ass and doing better with trying to get contributors. I take full responsibility for that, and I intend to do better next time.
On the subject of next time, if you want to contribute to the next Mixed Tape, please email me here:
Or get me a PM on BigCloset or TG Storytime. The next Tape will come out when there are enough contributions, so I dunno when that will be, but don’t expect it any sooner than in two or three months if we’re lucky.
Oh, ya want the rules now? Okay.
1) Story length is 500-2500 words, 4000 at the outside, but not recommended
2) Anything goes as far as content
3) More a request than anything, but an author blurb, we’ve been kinda lax on those recently
Again, the next Tape won’t go up until there are enough contributions. As it gets harder and harder to get people who want to contribute, it takes longer and longer to get a Tape out that isn’t like three stories long, and thus it makes it harder to determine when a Tape will be posted. Remember, you can’t read a Mixed Tape if nobody contributes to one, so don’t hesitate!
Also, in case you’re wondering about the division of work here, Trismegistus Shandy did all the editing, picked the story order; Hikaro just put them in order and pretty much roped people into contributing.
See ya next time. Whenever the hell that is.
Comments
glad to see the mix tapes back
maybe my muse will let me contribute again.
Hopefully
It'd be wonderful if you could.