Hot Commodity

A Kingdom Ship Story
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

“Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?” -- Marlowe

I woke in my sleep pod to hear a tinkling bell, and I knew very well what it meant: our ship had detected an M-class world, a habitable world, one with Earth-like conditions. Great news! I hoped I’d get to be in the first landing party. According to the terminal in my pod, I’d been asleep for a little over 1100 years; 1147 to be exact. Of course, I didn’t feel a day over 23, which was my age when I entered the pod.

I expected to see the pods around me opening as well, but they all remained closed. Only I was awake, and I soon found out why. Captain Ross was waiting for me, and he didn’t have good news. “Sergeant Martin, according to protocol, I was one of the first awakened, and pretty quickly myself and the other senior staff found we had good news and horrible news. The good news you know: the ship’s found an M-class planet, and it looks like a good one. The horrible news is that every woman on board is dead.”

“Dead!” I exclaimed. I was stunned, and before I could say more, Captain Ross continued, “Long dead, in fact. As near as we can figure, it happened hundreds of years ago. Long enough for the bodies to decompose and dry up. There’s not much left but bones.”

I began shaking, and my legs were unsteady. That meant that Oriana, my wife, was gone… that her sister and all her friends were gone as well. The captain grabbed my arm to steady me. “Sorry, Martin,” he said. “It’s a heavy loss for all of us, and I hate to hit you with it right when you’re waking, but I’m in a state of shock myself.”

“Why am I the only one in my group awake?” I asked.

“Because you’re the best general mechanic, engineer, programmer, what-have-you,” he said. “Even though this is shocking news, in a sense it’s very old news, and whether I tell the crew today or ten days from now, or even 30 days from now, it’s not going to make it any better or worse. What I want from you now is facts, information. I want to know why and how it happened, and I want to know it before I wake anyone else.”

So, I got to work. It was the best way to deal with my shock and grief. I washed and ate, and started with one of the women’s pods. I picked a woman whose name I didn’t know. Hopefully there’d be less emotional triggers to deal with. One of the medical staff cleaned out the remains for me and disinfected the pod. Then I started running diagnostics and going through the log.

Something jumped out at me right away: the dates in the log were all over the place. Just looking at the last 100 entries, some were from dates far in the future, others from 30 or more years in the past. It made no sense. The log entries should have been in chronological order, and all the dates and times should be recent. I looked at the logs from a random man’s pod, and saw what I expected: recent entries, all in order. I checked a few others, and found it was the rule: In all the men’s logs the entries were recent and in order, while in all the women’s logs the entries were completely out of whack, with dates that made no sense whatsoever. This was bad. Very very bad.

I went back to the first woman's pod and checked her pod’s clock. It was working fine. Then I started looking at the subroutines that had written to the log, and quickly saw the issue. All the pods have an internal calendar based on Earth’s calendar: a year of 365 days plus leap years, etc. The solar year. Solar because it’s based on the apparent orbit of the Sun around Earth.

What was different about the women’s pods is that they have a second, lunar calendar. It was meant to somehow manage, or at least track, a woman’s menstrual cycle, which has a timing similar to the lunar cycle. There’s a built-in problem with a lunar calendar, though: it doesn’t sync with the solar one. There are never an even number of lunar cycles in a calendar year. The lunar year comes up about a dozen days short, and the more time passes, the farther out of sync the two calendars get. This second calendar was only supposed to regulate some female physiological needs, but unfortunately it wasn’t isolated enough: the dates on the lunar calendar leaked out into the solar calendar, and vice versa. Because they were contaminating each other, they didn’t just diverge: they became utterly random and unreliable.

Some of the basic daily functions got scheduled for hundreds of years in the future. Others were marked as completed years in the past, even though they never happened. The confusion didn’t affect every system, but it did compromise the system’s essential functions, including monitoring and alerts. No danger or emergency signal was ever raised because no dangers or emergencies were ever logged correctly.

After I figured out what was wrong, the captain woke some of the senior staff to discuss the tragedy and to plan our next steps. I wasn’t part of those discussions: they were above my pay grade. I knew that it wasn’t the end of everything, because we had thousands of viable embryos in storage, and half of them were female. I did hear that we’d leave them in storage for now, because once born, those babies would need tending, and we had a lot of other tasks to do if we were going to settle the planet. We’d gone from being a crew of 3000 to half that number. The ship needed a minimum of 150 people to run it, and we were meant to drop 150-300 on each habitable planet. The loss of half our number made those calculations much starker and harder to face.

While all of this turmoil and discussion was going on, the ship continued to orbit the newly-found planet, automatically gathering information. As far as we could tell, the new planet was a paradise. The air was breathable, the water potable. There were no obvious pollutants or radiation. It was rich in flora and fauna. It had vast oceans and a dealer’s choice of continents. It was rich in untapped mineral resources. Do you want to know what it was like? Imagine Earth, if there had never been humans.

We dropped probes, we did wide scans and tight scans and deep scans, and everything looked great. The only thing we didn’t find was signs of intelligent life. There were no remnants of civilization. As far as we could tell, no one had ever lived here. There was nobody home but the animals.

As I hoped, I was chosen for the first landing party. We were a group of 15, mainly chosen for our variety of specialties. I have to tell you, we worked hard, but it was like a vacation. The planet was so beautiful! The air on Earth never smelled this sweet. The water on Earth was never so pure. We took samples of everything. We sent our data to the ship. They dropped another landing party.

Then a few weeks later, a third landing party. At this point, 3% of the crew was on the planet. And for those of us who landed, there was no going back to the ship. We all knew that before we came; it was a one-way ticket. The additional landing parties made it clear that a decision had been made: we were going to start a colony. We talked about the babies that would have to be brought down, and joked with each other about who would care for them. We discussed what sort of shelters we’d need to build; so far we hadn’t seen winter on this planet.

Then the word came down: the captain was going to land the ship. That, too, was a one-way ticket: Kingdom ships aren’t built to lift off from a planet's surface: they’re launched from space. Ideally, after dropping nine colonies, the ship would permanently land on the tenth. So this was it: we were all staying here.

Things went very well, considering there were no women. Often there were fights; some homosexual couples formed; in one way or another, people adapted. The captain decided to put off letting the babies be born until after we’d gone through a winter or two. I think he was worried that no one would want to care for them. He was hoping for volunteer parents, but it only happened once: One of the gay couples offered to take two babies, a boy and girl, and that was it. No one else followed suit, and we’d have to wait six months before the two babies were actually born.

What happened next turned everything upside down: our landlords came to visit!

An actual flying saucer landed, right next to our ship. And little gray men -- or little gray people -- came out. They looked just as you’d expect: short -- less than a meter and half high, with tiny, rail-thin bodies, big black round eyes and huge egg-shaped heads. They had no muscle, no hair, no ears or nose or butt nor any sexual characteristics.

They used telepathy to communicate, which was pretty neat. They knew about Earth and humans, so -- although these particular grays had never visited our planet -- they knew where we were from and had a pretty good idea of what we were up to. They explained that this planet was an experiment of theirs, and it was exactly what I said earlier: Earth without humans. I had the pretty clear feeling that they were going to force us to shove off and leave the planet alone, but that feeling changed when they happened to ask where all our women were. When Captain Ross told them about our loss, the grays became quite sympathetic.

“That’s a serious loss,” they said. “In addition to your emotional attachments, we understand that you cannot procreate without them. Our condolences.”

They let us stay. They gave us several power supplies that proved extremely useful, and they set up shelters designed specifically in preparation for the babies and children, who'd eventually be born.

Then, just before they were about to leave, one of their number seemed to have an inspiration. He drew the other grays into an animated discussion. It lasted for some time, until one of the grays came and spoke with Captain Ross. Of course, now I know what they were talking about, but at the time it was a complete mystery. It was obviously something deadly serious, but since the majority of us were completely in the dark, our speculations ran riot.

The captain convened senior officers and staff, and they spoke deep into the night and continued into the next day. They didn’t emerge from their discussion until after late afternoon, and they all looked a strange mixture of haggard, excited, and wary.

Captain Ross called for a general assembly, and all 1500 of us gathered in the theater on our ship, so we could be comfortable and everyone could hear him.

“The grays are about to leave,” he told us, “In fact, they’re in a hurry to go; they’ve been called home for some reason they haven't disclosed to me. You all know what a help they've been, especially in the fact of allowing us to stay on this magnificent planet. They've given us power supplies, they've built structures for us, and they've given us a lot of information about this planet that will be immensely useful now and in the future of our colony. In a word, they've helped us, they've looked out for us. They've taken our best interests to heart.

"And now, before they leave us to our own devices, they have one last big bit of help they want to give us, and we’re going to accept their help. It's going to give us a big leg up. I'll make an enormous difference in every way. I'm talking about an immediate, positive change, one that will fill the huge gap left by the people we lost: our women."

He paused a moment to let all that sink in. The entire theater was silent: listening, puzzled, maybe confused. What could the grays do? They couldn't bring the women back from the dead, could they? We all leaned forward, on the edge of our seats, waiting open-mouthed for his next words.

The captain continued: “You all know that we’ve lost half our crew. It’s been a devastating blow to every single one of us. We’ve all lost someone dear to us, someone we loved, someone we longed for... someone we loved to look at. However, if we take a step back from the personal tragedies we’ve all experienced; the tragedies we are all still mourning, and look at ourselves as a body, as a society, as a group united by a unique mission, what do we see? We see a crew that's lost its female contingent. Half our number is gone. All of our women are gone. Some of you have found ways to deal with it; others are just suffering.

“The grays have a solution: it's a technology they've had for a very long time. It’s like nothing we have on Earth or on our ship: the grays have a device that can take a person, turn them momentarily into some sort of plasma, and recreate them in another form. They’ve offered to use this technology on us: they’ve offered to turn half of you -- half of us, that is -- into women.”

The room erupted with exclamations, shouted questions, and side comments. Captain Ross let it go for a few minutes, then put up his hand. The noise abated a little, but not enough, so he shouted, “QUIET!” and everyone settled down.

“You might wonder why, if they have that technology, do all the grays look the same? If they can look like whatever or whoever they want, then why are they all little and gray? The answer is: in the past, they went absolutely nuts transforming themselves. They went overboard and turned themselves into the wildest things you can imagine, until finally their entire society got so chaotic and crazy, that they swore it off. It all just stopped; they quit using it. They chose to take on this plain gray appearance as a huge overreaction against their flamboyant days. At least, that’s what they've told me. Crazy, I know. Why am I telling you this? What does it have to do with you? With us? What it means for us is that the grays know that the technology is safe; they've used it extensively on themselves. They also admit that in the past they've come to Earth and used this device to experiment on humans. Yeah, I know. It's terrible and shocking, but again the point is, they know that it works and that's a mature, safe, and stable technology. They apologized for the liberties they took on Earth in the past. Now the circumstances are very very different: they’re helping us now. They're picking up an oar and helping us row.

“Let's get down to brass tacks. I'm going to give you the numbers: The first number is 1500. That’s all of us. That's the whole crew. Out of that number, we’re going to exclude the men who love men. If you’re homosexual, you get a pass: You’ll remain a man unless you specifically volunteer to change. Now, I’m just spitballing, but if, say, 10% of you are gay, that leaves us with 1350 men. That means that roughly 675 of you will have to change. I understand that we could have problems arriving at that number, so here's how it's going to work: First we’ll take volunteers, and then we’ll let the grays choose at random for the rest.

“This has all got to happen between now and sundown tomorrow, which is when they’re taking off. Of course, this is going to be a big change, and I expect we'll have to do a lot of follow-up and adjustments, but that's all going to come afterward. We’ll arrange for counseling afterward if you need it, but in the next 24 hours, we're going to take a little more than six hundred of you and move you over to the female side of the ledger. We need this, and it's going to happen.

“You’ll make it easier if you volunteer, and let me say there are two ways to volunteer: the first is to come to me or senior staff and say that you’re decided to take one for the team. The second way to volunteer is to mock someone who’s stepped forward. So keep that in mind.

"Another point to keep in mind is that this is going to happen. Any of you who are getting ideas of fighting it or running away, forget it. These grays have the tech to find you and pick you up wherever you are and they can change you, no matter what you do or say. I don't want it to go that way, I don't want to force anyone, but we need this, so if we don't get enough volunteers, they're going to choose the volunteers.”

The atmosphere in the theater was getting ugly fast. The most common remark was something along the lines of: “You know that Ross isn’t going to change -- none of the senior staff will.”

Captain Ross shouted for quiet once again, and said, “We're far from Earth. We need to adapt to survive. This is an adaptation that can save us. We've got a small window to get this done, and afterward we'll sort through the consequences."

Again the room got loud, until Ross shouted a final remark: "One last thing: if you volunteer, you get to choose what you’ll look like. If you didn't volunteer, the grays will choose for you. If you don’t make a choice, the grays will choose for you.”

His remark was met with a very muted response. It was a direct threat, and nobody liked it. Ross made a few more remarks and dismissed us. The room cleared out quickly, but I stayed in my seat. I thought for a moment, then walked to the front. There were about a dozen other guys who were still in their seats.

“Captain,” I said, “I’d like to volunteer. Hell, I don’t want to volunteer, but I’d rather make a choice than have one forced on me.”

“Good man,” Ross said, and he shook my hand. The other men who had stayed in their seats also volunteered. He looked us all over, took down our names, and said, “Okay. Here’s how it’s going to work: the machine will scan your DNA and work up five possible variations of how you’d look as a female. They'll show them to you, and you get to pick one. Keep in mind that you only get ten seconds to choose. If you don’t choose before the ten seconds are up, the grays will choose for you. Clear?”

“Why ten seconds?” someone asked.

“Because the grays want to get out of here tomorrow. They don’t want to hang around waiting for some nitwit to make up his mind. So, be ready. Be decisive. Report to their ship tomorrow at 0500. Dismissed.” The other men left. They all seemed as nervous as I felt.

“Hey, um, Captain Ross?”

“Yes, Sergeant Martin?”

“Do you think I could go and do this now? And get it over with? I think the waiting, the suspense is going to drive me nuts. If I'm going to do it, I just want to get it done. I don't want to lie awake all night thinking about it. And... uh... maybe it’ll make it easier for the others if they see that I… uh, survived, I guess.”

Ross considered a moment, then nodded. “I like the way you think, Sergeant. Just do it, right? Decisive. I like that. Tell you what: let’s go visit the grays and see if they'll let you do it now. Sounds like a hell of a good idea to me. Maybe it'll jump-start the whole damn process. And it'll give me a chance to see how this thing works. Give me a minute to send a message to senior staff, and we’ll walk on over there.”

The two of us entered the grays’ ship and were escorted to a very bare room that held only a table and a chair. I was asked to be seated, and Captain Ross and the gray left the room. In my head, I heard the telepathic instructions from the gray: Five possible reconfigurations will appear on the table. You will have ten seconds to choose; if you do not choose within ten seconds, a random choice will be made for you. We will begin in three seconds… two…

Five tiny figures appeared on the table in front of me. They were extremely high-quality holograms, about 15 cm high. Five women, who moved and turned so I could see them from every side. Three I excluded from consideration right away. Seven seconds. Of the two remaining, the middle one was a stunning sex bomb. I couldn't help but stare at her. The other one still in consideration was on the far right: she was a nice, normal-looking woman, like a young soccer mom. The sexy one had an hourglass figure and long reddish-blonde hair. Her hips and breasts were big, but not gigantic. The soccer mom had a slim, athletic look. Her hair was short, easier to maintain. She looked like a runner. Her hips and breasts were nice, but not as wide and obvious as the sexy one. Five seconds. As I looked from one to the other, I realized that I didn’t want to be overtly sexy. It made me nervous. I didn’t think I’d be able to bear the attention. I was afraid people would wonder who I was pretending to be, if I made that choice. If I took that body, I’d really be asking for it. I felt a lot more comfortable with the idea of being a soccer mom. She looked like a woman who could get things done. So I began to reach for her. Suddenly, the sexy one stopped moving and looked up at me. Now that she’d caught my eye, her tiny sexy figure stepped forward and reached her arms toward me with open hands, as if she wanted me to pick her up. Then she looked me in the eyes and smiled at me. It was like the sun coming out. Two seconds. She had such a beautiful smile! I found myself smiling back, and out of fascination and instinct, I touched her. In the same moment, I realized I’ve been fooled! I meant to choose the other one!

Everything went black.

When I came to, Ross was standing over me, smiling. “Well done, you!” he said. “Excellent choice!” As my head cleared, I remembered the “choice,” and moaned, “Oh, God,” and nearly jumped out of my skin at the high, lively, distinctly female voice that came out of my mouth.

“Oooh, nice voice too!” Ross exclaimed. “That’s a bonus!”

“Uhhh,” I groaned, looking down at my well-sized breasts, my tiny waist, and the… well, the gap between my thighs. Nice legs, though, I couldn’t help but say. “Captain, this isn’t the one I meant to pick.”

“Never mind that,” Ross said. “You’re a pioneer! You’re the first! No one has ever done this before!” As he spoke, he was helping me to my feet. “Come on, we’ve got to show the senior staff.”

I was still a bit groggy, but not so much that I didn’t notice how naked I was. “Can I get some clothes first?” I asked him, as I leaned on his arm. “Oh, yes, of course,” he said, laughing. “Don’t worry, we’ll come to that. We'll come to that.”

He walked me from the ship, where a huge crowd of men had gathered. “HOLY SHIT!” someone shouted, and the sentiment was echoed by several others. Feeling hundreds of eyes on me, I woke up fully in an instant, and clutched Ross’ arm a little more tightly, not because I was afraid of falling, but just because I was afraid.

I expected to hear catcalls and wolf-whistles, but there was none of that. I looked into the faces in the crowd and what I saw was fear, raw naked fear. Every man there knew that he had a 50/50 chance of ending up like me tomorrow. As Ross and I made our way back to our ship, the weight of the fearful gawking nearly did me in. I know I looked beautiful, but I was striking terror into the hearts of nearly everyone there. I was enormously relieved when we entered our ship’s elevator and the door closed behind us.

“You made quite an impression,” Ross commented, smiling. I don’t think he and I saw the same crowd.

"Captain, can we go to supplies first?" I asked him. "I'd really like some clothes. I really need some clothes."

"Oh, yes, yes," he replied. "Of course we'll do that."

Instead he led me, still naked, into a conference room, where all the senior staff were assembled. It was a group of about 15, all men of course. Like the men outside, they were all eyes. Unlike the men outside, none of them showed a trace of fear, so it was clear that all of the men in this room were exempt from the gender-swap lottery.

“Here we are then,” Ross announced. “Our first convert, if we can call them that. This was Sergeant Martin, or Martina as I guess we’ll call her now.”

The head of medical services spoke up. “That’s a rather obvious choice of name,” he said, and I could hear his disdain dripping off the word. “Also, Martina is a fairly masculine name, and one that will remind everyone that she used to be a man. I suggest we call her Claire. All in favor?” The proposal was passed. I tried to open my mouth, but I didn’t have another name at the ready.

“Claire?” one of the men called to me, speaking to me as if I were stupid, “Claire, could you bounce on your heels for us?” Puzzled, I complied, and immediately saw what he was getting at: he wanted to see my breasts jiggle. “Again?” he prompted, and then, “Now turn around and let us see it from behind.” I did that as well. I could feel my ass cheeks jiggling, and heard the sounds of their approval.

“What's wrong with you?” the head of engineering scolded. “You’re like a bunch of 14-year olds! You want to see her jiggle? Please! Let's not waste time! Let's get down to business: We need to see the part that counts! Come here, girl! Sit on the table and open your legs. Show us what you’ve got down there. We need to see your gear. That’s what this is all about, isn't it?”

I froze. No one had ever spoken to me like that before. When he saw I wasn’t moving, the engineer impatiently rapped on the table with his knuckles.

“Hold on now,” the chief of medical services said, in a more kindly tone. He took me gently by the shoulders and turned my back to the men. “Let's not behave like animals. Think of this poor girl’s dignity. You can’t ask her to sit on a table like that. It’s crude! Look here: We'll have her bend over the back of this chair. In that way, we can look to our hearts content, and spare her the indignity of having to see our faces.” He bent me over the chair and set my hands on the arms of the chair. The chair back was a little high, so it made me come up on my toes. “See?” he said to the others as he spread my butt cheeks to open the view. “Oh, my God!” he exclaimed. “She’s as soft as butter! You have to feel this!” After caressing my ass for a moment he took hold of one of my breasts and massaged it. “This is magnificent!” he exclaimed. “Those grays really know their business! If the other girls come out looking like this... I think we'll be very well set indeed!”

Soon there were hands all over me, stroking, patting, rubbing, groping, and then the engineer asked, of no one in particular, “Can we?” and slipped his finger into my pussy. He and I gasped in the same moment. “She’s wet!” he cried. “Wet and warm! Feel this!” His fingers felt around for a moment, then withdrew, and he exclaimed, “Smell this! God! I'm getting hard as a rock!” Things went on like this for two or three minutes, until the engineer placed his wet finger on my butt hole and began toying with it. “So, what do we do now?” he asked. “Draw straws?”

I raised my head in alarm, but before anyone could answer, we heard an explosion, and the entire ship lurched. I fell to the floor, as did most of the others. In the fall, the engineer’s finger got pushed all the way into my butt. I wiggled in discomfort, but I was wedged in by some furniture and couldn't get away. Instead, I shot him a dirty look, but he gave a haughty look right back at me, and his look said, I’m not taking it out, and you can’t make me. He began caressing my ass cheek with his thumb. In a low voice, he said to me, “My finger is in heaven right now.” I wiggled some more, but he didn’t pull his finger out of my butt.

“What the hell happened?” Ross shouted.

“Someone tried to blow up the grays’ ship,” one of the officers replied. He had a radio to his ear.

"Casualties?"

"We don't have a real count yet," the officer said. "A couple of grays are dead, and maybe a dozen of ours. Many wounded. Oh, crap! Oh, hell! The grays ship looks like it's prepping for take off!" He spoke into the radio, asking for confirmation. "Yeah! Damn it! What? Say again." He listened a moment. "They took off! They've gone! The gray ship is out of sight! They're gone! The grays are gone!"

“Shit!” the captain exclaimed. “I’ve got to get out there!” Ross jumped to his feet. He grabbed me by the arm, pulled me to my feet, and dragged me, stumbling behind him into the hall. The engineer’s finger slid slowly from my ass as I stood.

Ross ran me through some hallways and down several stairs until we were quite alone. “In here,” he said. It was one of the rooms that housed the air-purification pumps. “Hide behind the pumps,” he told me. “Don’t make a sound and don’t let anyone see you. If ANYONE calls your name, do NOT answer. Do you understand?”

I nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“If the grays have really left, that means you'll be the only woman on this planet for a good long time. You're going to be one hot commodity. So stay hidden. I will come back for you. Do not let yourself be seen. Do not let yourself be heard. Do not answer any call. I will come back for you.”

“When you come, can you bring me some clothes?” I asked. He looked me in the face for a few seconds. His eyes dropped to my breasts and ran down the rest of my body before he replied, “Oh, yeah. I’ll be sure to do that.”

“Fuck,” I said after he left. He was never going to give me clothes. Never.

For more than an hour I shivered in that room, waiting. I didn’t sit on the floor because I was afraid that the dirt and dust would work its way up inside me. Finally, exhausted from nerves and boredom, I lay on my side and fell asleep. When I woke, I was hungry and had a full bladder, so I listened at the door, and not hearing anyone, made my way to the bathroom. There I had my first experience of peeing like a girl. I expected a straight stream, like what I was used to, but maybe at a different angle. Instead, what came out of me was a hissing spray that wet my butt and the backs of my thighs. I hoped it wouldn't always be like that, and that in future I'd have more control. When I had a chance, I'd have to look for a feminine hygiene manual in the ship's docs.

After I washed up, I examined myself in the mirror. Yes, I was a stunner, and the fact frightened me. If I’d been less exciting to look at, maybe the senior staff wouldn’t have treated me so badly. Then again, they were dogs, and probably would have manhandled me no matter what I looked like. They would have done what they liked, but they would have complained while they did it. I looked at myself from every possible angle, and then, lost in thought, I carelessly left the bathroom and stepped into the hall. Immediately a soldier spotted me and shouted to his colleagues, “Hey! Hey! Here she is! I’ve found her! Over here! I’ve found her!”

I tried to run, but they caught me. I struggled, so they bound my wrists and ankles. I shouted and tried to bite them, so they gagged me. There were five of them, and they stood around me, looking down at me, as I lay naked on the floor. I could feel the lust radiating out of them. One of them knelt down and put his hand on my thigh.

“What do we do now?” he asked. “Draw straws?”

“No, you idiot,” replied another. “We have to get the hell out of here and back to our camp.”

"We're taking her with us, right?"

"That's why we're here, isn't it?"

“Exactly how do we get her out?”

“I sent Dawson for a body bag,” was the reply. “With all the carnage outside, we can stun her, put her in the bag, and carry her out like it was nothing. Nobody will think twice about it.”

A strong voice called out, “That’s a pretty good plan.” It was Ross’ voice! “Yeah, it’s a pretty good plan -- assholes!” They raised their weapons, but before any of them got off a shot, Ross shot first, and stunned four of them. Before he stunned the fifth, he said, “By the way, I already got Dawson. He's trussed up like a turkey. He may as well have picked out his own body bag.”

Ross came and stood over me. He was bruised and bloodied from the melee outside, but he looked like a victor. He was breathing hard and smiling. He also had a huge erection tenting his pants. “Look what we have here,” he said. “A damsel in distress. We can’t have that, now, can we?” He bent down and lifted and slid me so I was sitting against the wall. He looked me over, from top to toe. I had never felt so naked, so exposed, so vulnerable in my entire life. Ross then stood me up against the wall, and bent down so that I fell onto him, over his shoulder. When he straightened up, he was holding my legs against the front of his body. My ass was high in the air on his shoulder, and my face was looking at his back. I tried to talk, to shout to him, but the gag turned it all to “mmfft, mmm, nnn!” He patted my butt and said, “Keep it up, babe. You can’t believe how sexy that sounds.” Then his hands roved over my backside and legs. "You can't believe how sexy this feels, either."

He kicked open the door to a cabin, and tossed me on the bed. I was still naked, lying on my back, still bound and gagged. “This is like a dream,” he said as he unzipped his fly. “Remember, Claire,” he told me as he opened his pants, “You volunteered for this. You came to me and asked to be turned into a girl. I’m going to thank you for your dedication as many times I can right now and I'll be back for more later. Oh my God, I’m so glad the grays let me tip your hand. If you had chosen that skinny, mousy one....” He clicked his tongue, shook his head, and lifted my legs in the air, exposing my virgin pussy. “Here it comes, Claire! Here it comes! Great ready, cause the train is heading for the tunnel!”