Hi again! I have not written anything in a long time. I hope you enjoy this. The story is strictly from my own mind, for better or worse, but a lot of the basic beginning theme come from real life. How weird, huh? Don't forget to comment and expect regular episodes often!

Chapter 1

As the natural chatter and natter of the conversations encompassed and enveloped me, a sensation of serenity and calm slowly began to seep into my being. Several of those surrounding me attempted to include me in the multicourse dialog that flowed and eddied dynamically and fluidly among the nine other women present. However, to be honest, I was a bit overwhelmed and I am sure that I blushed a bit as I stammered and tried to find a point where I could fit into the river of words that washed around me.

“Girls, girls, girls!” rang out a clear, bubbly voice (but one that was obviously used to being not only heard, but followed) belonging to my friend Robbie. “Dee is new among us and you will just have to give her a chance to get use to the group! She already looks overwhelmed and confused! Dee, honey, are you ok, sister?

There it was: “sister”. And, remarkably, not a single member of the group seemed to act or think like the idea was ludicrous. In fact, they all seemed, if not overjoyed, at least happy to have me present.

I guess you would be wondering, about now, why all of this seems strange to me? Well, after you get just a bit more of the setting, maybe it will seem strange to you, too. You see, genetically, I'm male. I've even fathered a son. However, there is no man living between my ears. The person up there is all woman. A really weird, messed up, strange woman, but a woman. On the other hand, all my friends, and even people who have just met me assure me that I am sweet, considerate, intelligent, and just plain handy to have around. For personal reasons, I can not even live as a woman. I love my son. I don't want to be separated from him or bring him any pain that I can prevent. So, I live as, well... kind of a... errr.... enigma. I have long, pretty hair that has been (and still is, at times) various colors. I keep my eyebrows waxed to a nice, feminine shape. I have small-but-definite breasts from the several years I was secretly on estrogen. I am a world-class man-basher, though out of courtesy, I usually keep that to myself.

NOTE: let me clear this up for you now. I don't like men. In a very very general sense, I hate men. I also hate me, but I'm funny that way. I don't hate any one man, not in particular. I just hate them all. The only specific person I actually hate is me. If this confuses you, think of if you hated a particular sports team but only because they were from a town you did not like and you actually respected the individual team members. If you do not get this, do not worry about it, it is no big deal. Also, I am not attracted to men. No, not even a little. No, I am not even curious even in the tiniest amount. Now, back to the story...

So, while I don't hide my genetic disharmony, I'm being treated as a “sister” by this group of women. Now, here is part 2 of why this might seem strange: I am a sister to a coven of witches. They actually consider me a witch, too. I don't know if I am or not. I do some things that are... well... different... like massaging womens' wrists and removing menstrual cramps, massaging an elbow and taking away headaches, touching other points and diagnosing various ailments that I shouldn't have known about, much less been able to address. Personally, I consider myself more an empathic healer than a witch, but they all seem confidant that I am “one of” them. Actually, that is fine with me! These are all great, caring, wonderful individuals and I am happy to be involved with and accepted by them. In fact, I am hoping that their combined wisdom and experience will help me become a better healer and more in tune and in touch with my own body and what other talents and abilities I might have

Lately, I have been trying to expand my awareness and senses to be able to detect lifeforms, mainly humans, at a distance and around or behind objects and barriers so that I will know if someone is in a room before I enter it, for example. I don't know if I'll ever actually come to that level of talent, but it is fun to try! If I do, then I want to then move on to trying to determine what kind of life form, how large, how many, is it someone/something familiar to me, etc. If I can learn techniques such as these, this group will be a goldmine for me. Not to mention it is nice to be accepted as who I feel I really am! Speaking of which.... time to get back to the meeting!

“Robbie dollin, this might be the most interesting meeting I have ever attended!” This is met with a group giggle. “Anyway, I've never been to anything even remotely like this, so y'all will have to kind of be tolerant of me and let me know what is expected of me, ok?”

Again, there is a group giggle. “Dee, we rarely do anything.... 'mystical'. That's mostly just in paperbacks and bad movies. We mainly meet for the friendship and support. Sometimes we will involve the arts, but it is amazing what you will learn just having coffee and talking about soap operas. Really, being good friends and being comfortable with each other is so important. When we do use any power, the more we are in tune, the better things will work and the easier it will be for us all. So, for now, just get to know the other girls and relax and have fun!”

Well, I had been expecting all kinds of things! Seances or spells or pentacles or hexes or grimoires or... I don't know... witch stuff! However, the comfort and familiarity things made a lot of sense when you thought about it, so I set to doing as directed: getting to know my fellow witches.

As it turned out, 3 of the other girls were experiencing cramps from either their periods, or the PMS before. I demonstrated my empathic healing talent and was a 100% success! I also asked the 2nd girl about several things in her left leg and found out that she'd recently had a horse back riding accident and she'd been having some mild pain since recovering. I worked on her leg, too.

The girls were all amazed except for Robbie and Carrie, who had both experienced my talents first hand. They all clamored to know what else I could do. I pretty much just shrugged and told them it was no big deal, just a bit of power management. That meant I had to explain that I could sense power centers under the skin of most people in certain places and that by managing the power and tuning it, I could make people better, including removing pain and seeing what was wrong in other parts of their bodies. A great deal of it was unconscious. Or maybe it was subconscious. Yes, I think that is far more accurate. I simply did what felt right. I think it worked because everyones' bodies knew what was wrong with them. From there, it would seem my body, or more probably, my essence, would communicate on some arcane level and either do some kind of healing (repairs?) directly, or lead the subject body in it's own efforts.

I guess how it happens is less important than it really happens. I rarely meet anyone who is not skeptical, at least at first. Some people are always skeptical, even after being on the receiving end of the therapy (after all, can you think of a better word?). It works anyway. Usually. Some people are so in love with being sick or ill or just plain “messed up” that they don't want to relinquish their source of displeasure. After all, if they couldn't gripe, what would they have worth saying? It's really sad, but as nearly as I can determine, it's true. And, while belief isn't necessary for the techniques to work, I can't fix what you won't let me. Kind of reminiscent of the old joke: “how many psychs does it take to change a light bulb? Just one, but it has to want to be changed”. Corny but telling. I run into people like that occasionally but I can usually distract them to the point they release their angry or whatever other malevolent emotions they have going that are blocking me.

I can see, even read, auras, sometimes. This is not unusual, I don't think. I am pretty sure anyone who describes themselves as “a good judge of character” as being able to detect auras on some level. However unconscious or subconscious a level upon which it might be happening, I feel quite strongly that something of this nature is the answer. Sometimes I'll see the problems in peoples' bodies as part of their auras. I can do this way easier with people I am familiar and comfortable.

I am definitely empathic, meaning I can detect emotions, even when being hidden from those near me. Some people have natural shields. Others hide better than others. Some just don't have strong enough characters or minds to project. When I am very familiar with certain people, I can read them more correctly and from farther and farther away. With family members, I am even, rarely telepathic. That is really scary. I am glad it doesn't seem to work the other way!

Still, all these talents (gifts? Abilities? Powers? Whatever!) seem to be more psionic to me than magical. Mental, not arcane. But who knows? I have sisters! I am going to leave it at that. I am happy that way and don't intend to change the situation, if I can help it.

Robbie and Carrie are completely convinced that I am magical and that what I do is magical. Cool! The other sisters accept what they say and accept me on what they say.

Meanwhile... the meeting this week is basically me doing my special massages, doing readings, and all of us having refreshments and chatting and just getting comfortable with each other, as these meetings are a new thing for all of us.

Robbie has been around the craft a long time. Carrie is a dynastic priestess. Some of the others have some heritage going on, too. Me? I not only am a male, I have no idea about my magical heritage. On the other hand, I do have a strong Celtic vein in my mother's lineage. As for my dad... who can know? [insert eloquent shrug HERE].

Something I don't understand, can magic be learned? Or is it a trait that must be part of you from birth? Is what I do truly magical? Is it truly mental/psionic? Can I learn to do more as an extension of what I am already doing? I've heard that certain types of magic users are more powerful in the presence of other users of like nature. I am kind of wondering if this will spark me find more about myself.

Oh well, this is the stuff of life

Chapter 2

At work a few days later, as I head back to my particular part of the salt mines, I run across Robbie as she is marshaling her subordinates. Slipping up beside her, I greet her warmly and even get a little hug, which not the norm where I work, though a great many of the women hug me openly in defiance of company policy and basically dare anyone to call them on it. “Hey there honey!” she exclaims, “that meeting was sooooo far beyond anything I could have hoped for and you are the entire reason! You are so fabulous I don't even have words!”

I used both hands to lift my jaw and close my mouth. “Me? Pfffft, what ever do you mean? I rubbed a few backs, massaged a few pairs of shoulders, and drank all your Mountain Dew. How the fudge bunnies does that make a fat ugly freak like me 'fabulous'?”

Robbie  ½ stared and  ½ glared at me open mouthed. “I'd slap you silly but I just realized that you are serious. You are, aren't you? You are completely serious and don't have a clue and you meant every word of that question, didn't you?”

Blinking, I answered “Of course. You know me well enough to realize that I'm about as bluntly honest, about me anyway, as is humanly possible. Or in my case, freakly possible.” I dodged as she half heartedly slapped at me for self-disparaging remark.

“You are so amazing and so clueless all at once. I don't know what I am going to do with you!” Her frustration was both real and obvious. “You are sweet beyond words, you bring humor to everything you do and to everyone you meet, you actually care about people, you are insanely smart, you are more talented that any one person deserves to be what with your powers and your cooking and your poetry. God girl, you can shop like no one I've ever seen! You can find the least little bit of nothing and put it with 3 or 4 other nothings and spend nothing and have an outfit that looks like it came out of a magazine. You charmed those women in that meeting and they could see that you are a woman and a sister and that you deserved to be there! Several of my more sensitive members told me they could feel the power in you. They were impressed and believe that you will bring the group to new heights, if not to great things. And, if you ever call yourself a fat ugly freak again, we are all going to hold you down and remove every single body hair from your body 1 hair at a time with dull tweezers.”

Realizing she was being 100% truthful, I blanched. “That doesn't sound very pleasant.”

Arching one eyebrow at me, she responded with “Don't make me show you, girlfriend.”

“Umm, I'll make it a point to make sure that you don't hear me say it again”

“I'll know if you say it and, if you do, you'll know that you wished you hadn't!”

“Umm, right. When is the next meeting?”

“I'm thinking the 21st is good.”

Flipping open my cell phone and checking how that fell, I counted. “That should work for me but you know I have brain damage. You should remind me a few more times if you really want me to show up”, I giggled.

Robbie playfully swatted at me and said “Get outta here! Ok, I'll be sure to remind you because we certainly want you to be there!”

Chapter 3

Though the meeting was days and days away, the weeks passed quickly. I was looking forward to it with fervor and wondered if it would go as swimmingly as before. I had high hopes and could barely contain myself as the time passed.

Finally, the appointed day came and I arrived early and helped Robbie set up. My adoptive sister Carrie arrived almost as I did, and helped, too, after we hugged, so we were done in short order. Robbie had set up the chairs in an odd geometric pattern. As the other girls arrived, she sat them in a specific order. As Carrie and I are passed out refreshments and maked sure everyone felt comfortable, we were the last to sit, besides Robbie.

Robbie, Carrie, and I were pretty much equidistant from each other, on the outer points of the pattern. She had us all use the same mantra and guided us into synchronized meditation to try and link our powers. The apparent power was enough to raise the hair on my neck and arms, but through a supreme effort, I maintained my focus and concentration and stayed synchronized. After a few minutes she broke the mantra and we all surfaced to our normal thoughts and a surprised murmur broke out among those present. Evidently, I was not the only one that sensed the power.

Catching Robbie's eye, I used body language and facial expressions to signal and she nodded me over to her. We slipped into a handy corner and had a quick whispered conversation. She nodded to my suggestions and we sat back down. She admonished everyone to try to reattain the previous state, but this time, to picture all the power flowing into me and to picture me blossoming into my true self.

In a few minutes, through her careful direction, I could feel a tremendous influx of energy from the group. I struggled to get the proper mental images in place. Basically, I was picturing myself in the mirror going from my normal hairy male self to porcelain smooth. I was fairly sure I had a faithful image built of myself, in 3D, and I had modeled the finished image to be close to the original, but with smooth, fine, hairless skin. My skin had flushed very warm over much of my body, and my mind was quickly becoming leaden at the effort. I realized that I was drawing the group's energy at an alarming level and that I was taxing them as hard as myself.

With one final burst of will, I pictured myself as glowing perfection and break the mantra. Oddly, we broke in unison. As we all opened our eyes, I was scared to look at myself and to explore my sensations for fear of failure.

“GAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWDDDDDDDDD! That was intense!” Robbie was obviously pumped at the prospects. She rushed over to me, though I have no idea where she was getting the energy because I felt so drained from the efforts we had just put forth. “Girlfriend, get up and let me look at you!”

With only a small groan, I complied, and her mouth droped open. The other women gathered around and I suddenly wondered if I was in the middle of a fish convention. “What? Why are y'all all staring at me with your mouths open like that?”

Finally Carrie was able to respond and she simply took my hand and pulled me to a nearby full-body mirror and just pointed at my reflection. I did not understand at first, because I look liked me. Except... I didn't. There was something that was at once both subtly different and yet the same. My face was softer, radiant. My skin was much finer and felt great, both being touched and to the touch. I unbuttoned my shirt to see that I had fledgling breasts, not just man-boobs. I realized that while the overall size of my breasts has remained unchanged, my nipples were much improved. Oops. I guess I carried the visualization on more vividly that I had intended.

Robbie was jubilant and more. I was just tired to the point I could barely stand. Some of the other women were mildly tired, only a few and those the ones that had been closest to me. I realized they had supplied the energy but I had still done all the work.

“Girlfriend, that was the MOST amazing display of power I have seen in my entire life! I KNEW you had it in you! Not only that, you look so good! What are you going to do next? I can't wait to see!”

I was pretty sure the fact that one of my eyebrows was touching the ceiling despite the fact that I was sitting is what got her attention.

“What?!?”

“Do you have any idea how drained that left me? I am so tired I can barely breathe!”

“Hmmm. I had not considered that. Maybe we can work on something else next meeting.”

“Great idea, dollin. Now, help me to my car.”

Chapter 4

I was working under the assumption that the activities in which I had been participating, though I had used the other girls as a pool of power, had drawn a great deal from me, either directly, or because I had been managing so much energy, indirectly. It dawned on me it might even be a combination of the two. Still, I felt it was just the effort of managing that much power that had exhausted me. It had taken Robbie, Carrie, and several more of the group to get me into my car.

They were actually worried for me to drive home, alone. I wasn't worried about getting home. I was worried about getting from the car to my nice comfy chair once I got home. Somehow I made it. I guess I had time to rebuild a bit of energy during the drive, though it was only a bit over half an hour.

I tottered inside and managed to get to my recliner, even snagging a large glass of juice on the way by the fridge. I don't remember finishing the juice, but I woke up later in the recliner and the glass was empty and none seemed to have been spilled. By then I was ravenous and went and practically cleaned out the refrigerator.

After finally getting enough groceries stuffed down my neck, an arduous task, I felt kind of icky. I started to go shower, shedding clothes and collecting them to put in the hamper. As I cranked on the hot water I realized, again, that my body had changed. And when I got into the spray of water, I realized how much. BLARG! That was hot! I am sure I hopped flat footed over the side of the tub which is a good trick for a person as fat as me to do without preparing, first. I made the water warm instead of hot and tried it again. MUCH better. Washing my new, smooth, hairless skin was so much nicer and felt so much more right than it had before. It was really weird when I got to my nipples, but I tried not to dwell on that right then, as the point was to get clean and feeling good. I finished by shampooing and conditioning my hair, which was also weird, because I used to shave my face while I was letting the conditioner sit. I guess that won't be a problem anymore!

Getting out, I realized I had been asleep for 3 hours and it was now early evening. After putting in some laundry, I found my son and checked on him. He was, as usual, watching TV and playing on the internet.

About then, the spousal unit came in, demanding that I go get her food. Sighing, I made a run to Taco Bell and got enough Crunchy Taco Supremes to feed a small army. The Taco Bell was so close and I managed to hit as the line was clear, and the entire trip only took a few minutes. She noticed after 20 minutes that I looked different. (DUH!) She was not really sure why. (SHEESH!) “What have you done to yourself?!?” Ut oh, she was apparently livid and I was too tired to do much running or dodging. My brain was up to speed, though, because I shifted out of the console loveseat just before she grabbed for me. “COME HERE AND TELL ME WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO YOURSELF!” Blarg no! I gathered up the Taco Bell trash and carried it to the kitchen and got myself some orange juice after depositing the trash in the garbage can.

I had a sudden... well, premonition and went back to the living room and gathered up my laptop and packed it in the backpack I used to carry it, along with its various accessories and grabbed my keys.

“Where do you think you are going?!?” she demanded.

“I don't remember but I'll call you when I do.” I replied as I scooped up my cell phone.

“I'm not done talking to you! Come here!”.

“Yes, dear,” I called, as I gently closed the back door. I back the car out of the drive way and drove around behind the house just out of sight of the back door and hooked up my laptop to the cigarette lighter power inverter and connected to the household wireless LAN. I played on the net until after midnight and then pulled back in and went to bed in my bedroom in peace. I knew it would all start over in the morning, but I was hoping a good night's sleep would dull her anger a bit. It usually did.

Chapter 5
That “most amazing display of power” that had so enthused Robbie did not go unnoticed. Quite a few individuals noticed, in fact. Had I known about some of them, I would have been more that a bit miffed. After all, it was just supposed to be a harmless training exercise.

The US Department of Homeland Security would have been very, very upset, had they realized that what they were worried was the single largest internal threat to America was merely a “training exercise”. They were worried that it was a blatant warning that a major arcane power was about to be released for no good.

A group of guardian shamans was also very concerned. They, however, had sensed there was no evil intent in the power manifestation. On the other hand, they had also sensed a lack of fine control and how close that river of power had been to escaping and running amok.

A husband/wife team of wizard and witch had been tuned in to a ley line that ran near Robbie's house and had also sensed the river of power. Being basic crooks and thieves without much power of their own, they wanted what they smelled.

A group of psychics in Russia had felt some disturbance but were unsure what had caused it and decided that that much power should be in the hands of Russia, maybe allowing the Motherland a chance to recoup some of its lost power and influence.

An ancient Chinese mystic in a hidden dell near the Yangtze River had sensed the same disturbance. He had some idea of how it was generated and felt that such a group of mystics deserved the guiding hand of his wisdom, and if they were properly respectful, maybe even he would even deign to become their divine Emperor.

And finally, another group had sensed the small coven: a group therapy session in Spokane, Washington went totally out of control and the moderator was later found tied up with bedsheets and stuffed in a closet. The administration was still not sure how 11 addled inmates of a state mental institution managed to escape so quickly, quietly, and efficiently. The fact that Fargo was leading them caused no small amount of worry.

Chapter 6

Ignorance is bliss. Fortunately, I was also ignorant of the fact that I naturally shield myself psychically. I guess it is an natural ability as part of being empathic. None of those seeking me were sure of my location any closer than somewhere in the general US. I was safe. Until the next time I used a large burst of power in an unshielded fashion. The problem is that using that much power is like a beacon. You can shield a beacon but it takes preparation and you have to be careful to not catch the shield itself on fire from the heat of the beacon. I, and the other sisters, was safe for a while, but I didn't even realize the danger to come.

Meanwhile, I was loving the new me. My metabolism had been greatly increased due to my recent escapades and not only did I have a subtle new look, but I was also loosing some much hated blubber and I was loving it. I was not sure, but I even suspected my new boobies were growing. Or maybe they were just becoming more apparent as my tubby tummy was shrinking. Either way, I was a happy, happy girl! Well, almost! People were now assuming I was a woman, thanks to my already feminine presentation that was now heightened by more feminine features.

Of course the spousal unit was fit to be tied. Somehow, though, when I looked her in the eye, and thought my most calming, soothing thoughts, and pictured myself massaging her body, somewhat erotically, at that, she became all flustered and lost her train of thought and eventually gave up trying to be mad at me. A couple of times, we even ended up living out my thoughts. It was kind of interesting! Still, I had hated sex long enough that the novelty of that wore off quickly and I mainly used that as a defense more than a pastime.

The right wingers at work were also fretting, but they could not really say anything. I was still, ostensibly, using the male dress code, curse them all for the discrimination and bias, but now it was not doing them any good, I was still being addressed as “ma'am” and “miss” and all they could do was fume. I was finally getting to enjoy myself!

My sisters were all ecstatic, too. We had another meeting, but I waved off any ideas of trying to use any more power than what I needed for massage and touch therapy. Oddly, I was much more powerful at this, now that I had changed. No one was really sure why, but the women who came to the meeting with cramps were certainly grateful! There was also one woman who had twisted an ankle that morning. Somehow, I could see the damaged tissue. I had done that before, but it had always been ghostly and insubstantial and I had assumed it was mostly knowledge of anatomy and wishful thinking. Now it was almost as real as looking at the ankle itself. I knew what needed doing instinctively and could literally see the tissues as they were maneuvered back into place and gently tended, easing the swelling and speeding the healing so that days worth of recovery were packed into a few minutes. She wasn't perfect when I finished, but she was almost pain free and barely limped where she had been forced to come in using crutches. I realized my empathic healing skills had been greatly advanced.

Because all of these functions were performed empathically, and I had a natural shield on my psionic actions, I went undiscovered this time. In fact, the forces seeking us still had no idea where to begin searching.

Word begin to spread locally, though, that for many healing needs, I could help quietly. I managed to keep it just among the family of the sisters, at first, but people being people that didn't last for long.

I was approached by a news investigator of one of the local TV stations and I laughed it off successfully, thanks to their natural skepticism. At that point, I quit doing any healings except for the sisters themselves and for my immediate family. It grieved me that I could help people but didn't dare to do it because of fear of retribution for helping people but I felt in the long run, I had to stay below the radar.

Chapter 7

Homeland Security thought a lot of itself. It thought that it was the only power in America capable of saving America. Including from itself. I'm sorry, but that was not only rude and arrogant, that was just asinine. On the other hand, DHS also does not hesitate to be very serious about its concerns. They had stationed sensitives in all 50 states, and in the larger states, like Texas and California, there were sensitives in the two or three largest cities. They were hoping to at least get a sense of which direction to start looking, because as of right then, they were pretty much clueless. They didn't like that at all. They were the only group seeking us that actually had a decent amount of resources and manpower.

While DHS had plenty of manpower, they didn't have much in the way of actual talent, at least for this kind of activity. The Guardian Shamans were only a few men and their wives, but they had a tremendous amount of talent and practice and lore to guide them. They were all in South Dakota, so they didn't have the chance to triangulate, as DHS hoped to do. What they did have was the best idea of who and what they were seeking and how best to get started. They simply all took a vacation to Oklahoma, which was almost due south of where they had started, and they just started fishing until such time as the next power burst occurred.

The husband and wife team were truly looking for a needle in a haystack. They didn't have any extra manpower. They didn't have any real experience. They didn't even have much talent (except for cheating people at every opportunity!). What they did have, however, were some old tomes on magic and some favors people owed them for pasty misdeeds performed. By researching every possible minute in every volume they could find about detection, they were hoping to find us by some obscure and arcane spell.

The team of Russian psychics was dubious they could do anything to find us at all, but felt their sense of patriotism to Mother Russia required them to at least try. They decided to schedule a 20 city tour through the US to prospect for further knowledge of us and our whereabouts.

The Chinese mystic had found a traditional Shao Lin enclave near Kansas City, MO and was making arrangements to fly there. He was going to be trading pretty much on the veneration given to the aged in his Asian culture, his accumulated wisdom and experience, and make up any deficienty with pure, unadulterated BS. He preferred to think of it as bluffing, but then, I'm from Texas and I'm the one writing this story!

Our friends from the mental institution in Washington state had no plan. They practically had no goal. However, this completely was not interfering with them having fun! Their leader, an interesting individual of small stature, respectable intellect, and completely androgynous appearance, was simply enjoying not having to take medication everyday, not having to endure the criminally tasteless food, or overhearing the guards, errrr... attendants of the institution placing bets on if Fargo was male or female, or maybe a hermaphrodite. Fargo was never known to use any feminine wiles or male charm and had somehow wrangled legal orders that only Fargo's physician was to examine her (him?) and that he (she?) was to be allowed lockable, unmonitored access to a private bathing facility. The orders had been challenged over and over, but they came down from very high indeed and there was no real chance of anything changing. Fargo did not really associate with anyone, inmate or guard or therapist or administrator and so no one really knew his or her gender. Fargo was happy that was and was giving no clues. Fargo had already lead the group from Washington pretty much in a direct line to somewhere near Denver, using hitched rides, foot power, and, once, a stolen garbage truck. Since then, Fargo had been careful to not let Joshua drive. The lack of plan suited Fargo just fine. Sooner or later the source of that power would flare again and maybe be close enough to find.

My powers continue to grow.

Whistles are disturbing.

Will we ever learn Fargo's gender?

Chapter 8

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 9

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You don't hate me?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 10

Not everyone was having things as easy as me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 11

STAY TUNED!

Wow, now the spousal unit is horning in!

Do Chinese Mystics look good in pink?

Did I wait too long to add more chapters?

Have you left me a comment yet?

Chapter 11

With the spousal unit now not a problem about makeup and wardrobe, I used a lotion that was “subtly color enhanced”. That means it was a lotion with a fake tan built in. Before I put it on my face, I did a really good skin cleansing and used toner and moisturizer. I wanted the best possible platform from which to fire my salvos. Since I already had great skin, thanks to my sisters, I was fairly sure I would look like I was wearing makeup because of the touch of color.

After carefully smoothing it on and using a sponge to make sure it was adequately and evenly applied, I checked the mirror. I looked less fugly! I was wishing I had on eye makeup and lipstick, and maybe just a touch of blush, but I was already 1000% better off than before I started meeting with my sisters.

After brushing out my hair, I returned to the bedroom and started picking out some clothes. I slipped into a cute smily face thong and deviated from the permitted dress code by putting on a bra. (I was down from a 48 band to a 40 in just a few weeks! I could easily make do with a 38, and now I was filling out -nicely!- a B cup!) I slipped on a black polo-style shirt and khaki cargo pants and finished off with pink and white cross trainers.

I wondered if I would get fired today? I didn't think so. Mainly because I intended to cheat. I did not feel guilty about it at all, either. After, the very person on whom I intended to use my special talents had cheated me over and over on this subject. Oddly, he was a fantastic manager so long as his sense of religion was not disturbed. I simply needed to bring some fresh air to his very closed mind.

Arriving even earlier at work than usual, I ran across three sisters that I had tapped to “help” me. Robbie, Carrie, and Jaynie were all very interested in relaxing the restrictions against me. I intended to use my empathic talents to push my distress and position to my boss in a very powerful manner, using those three sisters as a boost to my own talents and will. We weren't sure we would be able to get all four of us into the office but it was my only real hope of overcoming his objections, I felt.

We all huddled together and quickly decided a frontal approach would give us the most momentum, so we simply strolled into the office he shared with all his management subordinates and we found him there alone. Robbie led us in, Carrie and I holding hands, with Jaynie following. She closed the office door behind us and we assumed a tight diamond formation, me at the leading point of the diamond, holding hands with Robbie and Carrie and Jaynie with her hands clasped over ours from behind me.

I quickly focused an imagined beam of power from my forehead to his, willing him to be fair, to realize that he had been discriminatory. I drilled at him with all my will that he would feel the need to make amends and to end the unfair restrictions. I opened my mouth as I observed him being almost stunned, definitely speechless, and just a bit glassy eyed and said, “Daniel, you have been unfair to me. You have lied to me, brow beat me, and openly discriminated against me, sexually and otherwise. You also sexually harassed me about my underwear. It has to stop. What are you going to do?”

Now that I did not have to talk, too, I intensified my efforts to influence his thoughts and intentions. I could almost feel his resolve crumbling beneath my pressure. “I... I thought we... umm discussed this before? You have to follow the dress code in order ... in order....” He took his head in his hands and dry washed his face.

“No, Danny, we discussed nothing. You dictated your hate mongering tyranny to me and expected me to put up with your arrogance and supposed moral high ground. I am done with that. You broke the law. You cheated me. You just did me wrong. And from this point forward, it will all come to a crashing halt. I am tired of not being noticed for my hard work. I am tired of you ignoring our department because it runs, since we lost our salaried management. I also expect to get a sterling review next month. I am going to wear make up and bras and womens clothes. You are going to put it down to the fact that my body is changing and that all the deviations are necessary to accommodate my changing body. If anyone objects, you will inform them that because of circumstances beyond our control, adjustments had to be made. Any further objections will be directed to me personally. If they don't like that, then they can shut the fudge bunnies up. Is that all clear?”

He shook his head as I focused every last erg of mental energy on him. “Ye.. yes, I understand and you are correct, I have not done you right and I hope you will forgive me and that we can work past that.”

“Yes, Daniel, I think that is not a problem.” We shook hands and my sisters and I walked out grinning. We had slain the dragon, metaphorically speaking. And, I had proven to myself that not only was a receiving empath, but that I could also influence people.

Normally I would have felt bad about what I had just done, but in this particular case, I had only righted some previous wrongs. I had also pretty much convinced myself that what I did was empathic, having to do with emotions and intentions and sensations and not telepathic. I knew I had telepathic tendencies in certain, limited circumstances... or what appeared to be so. It might have also been educated guesses based on what empathic information I was receiving. I still was not certain that there was no magic involved, however, because I had involved my sisters. I instinctively knew, also, that I had done well with my psionic sheilding.

At least I thought I had...

Chapter 12

The DHS had operatives in all 50 states, Mexico, and Canada, strictly with the hopes of triangulating on us. Only two of their operatives detected us and it was such a low power defuse tingle, they ignored it. It did not help that they were watching for magic use, not psionics. DHS 0, Us 1

The Guardian Shamans definitely noticed the activity. They were mildly thrown off by the change in flavor from magical to psionic. Still, they were fairly sure that it ws us. The fantastic effort I had made at shielding had, however, thrown them off about my location. Again. They realized we had grown a great deal in talent, power, and, most importantly, control. They were fairly confident that the power center was somewhere south of I70 and north of the Equator. Still, they had eliminated one third of the continental US and from previous observation, they felt that we were in the US so that narrowed the field quite a bit. Based on their wisdom and experience, they were guessing they would find us south of I40, west of the Mississippi, and east of the Continental Divide. They held a council and decided to contact their Coushatta relatives in Louisiana to see if they could further narrow the field of focus. Guardian Shamans 0, Us 0

The husband and wife team completely missed the psionic episode. They were in Italy, anyway, exploring contacting some resources in Romania. Them 0, Us, 1

The Russian psychics were in Toronto this time, but they immediately detected our activities. They also knew we were in the Central Timezone and no further north than Kansas. That still left a huge area to search. Coincidently, their schedule soon took them to several cities in the search zone, including Dallas and Houston. Psychics 1, Us 1

The Chinese mystic has noticed us as easily as the psychics had and had been in a deep meditative trance when the event occurred. He knew our general direction and was able to draw a cone from Kansas City south. He felt we were most likely in an area defined by lines drawn from Houston to Tulsa to El Paso back to Houston. Mystic 1, Us 0

Fargo felt an itch between his/her eyes and looked directly in our direction. However, being in Key West, it was possible for him/her to go a long way west. He/she was fairly confident that that New Orleans the right direction and had always wanted to go there. The inmates had made a decent amount of money beach combing in the past weeks and bought a very run down old excursion boat and started along the coast back towards the Mississippi Delta.

Chapter 13

The spousal unit was waffling. That was fine. It was time to see if I could use the boost from the sisters to do some larger scale changes and still stay shielded. We had whitened my teeth and shrunk my Adam's apple. I had been working on ways to reshape my jawline. While the sisters were helping me, I had scanned my jaw psionically/magically, as well as several of theirs to see how they might be made differently. I had also gradually restructured my vocal cords to keep my clear, pleasant voice and extremely broad vocal range but to lift it into the mezzo-soprano range, quality wise.

However, to do what the spousal unit wanted, some more wholesale methods would be required. Basically she wanted a fair amount of belly flab to just go away. She wanted other things, too, but she was going to have to take what she could get. After all, it was not her that was going to have to put up with the drain that using that much magic would require.

After working out some scheduling conflicts, we got the spousal unit together with the sisters. She did not like the fact that she was blindfolded, but it was a requirement we had until we felt was necessary to protect the sisters from her revealing their identities in case she decided to have a burst of religious fervor and turn us all in as witches. I wasn't worried so much for myself, but I didn't want to involve them in my messes.

We got her all arranged with the sisters and me in the geometric arrangement we felt would best suit the power requirements we projected and still allowed me to shield us. I set up a separate ring of sisters around us charged with nothing but monitoring us and adding whatever shielding talents they had to mine.

We all had started with a picture in our minds of how the spousal unit should be shaped if she was not fighting a weight problem. Once we had that image firmly in our minds, we took each others hands. The other sisters and I began the mantra and began our descent into the mindstate needed for the flow of power we needed to make something of this magnitude happen. The outer circle joined us in the mantra, watching, waiting, and focusing tightly on shielding us as best as they were able.

This time, using many fewer sisters and finding I was able to still draw on far more power, most of it coming from the Earth itself, I allowed only tiny flows of power, a few at a time, to form a globe enveloping the spousal unit's body. I pictured the globe slowly encasing her, massaging her skin and muscles and skeleton, slimming her, relaxing her, reshaping her, while at the same time the fat tissue that plagued her for years was slowly siphoned off into another globe of flows. As I coaxed her body into the best shape of her life, I gently touched her joints, healing the wear of the years. I buffered her skin to a polished smoothness. I even removed the hair from her arm pits, bikini line, and legs.

I was working with a lot of power, but it was like using many, many glow tubes instead of a nuclear explosion. The flows of power I was using were each tiny, in and of themselves, but the total was very respectable. Still, I used my enormous natural shielding ability on each individual filament of power used only the minimum amount of energy to do any particular task.

It seemed like only a few minutes when I decided I had made enough changes to the spousal unit and begin terminating each flow of magic. When the final flow was dissolved, I carefully balanced each of the sisters in the group, making sure we each exited the mantra as we entered it. We left our meditative states almost as one and carefully looked at what had happened.

The spousal unit was looking much better. She was slim and trim and had excellent muscle tone (I couldn't take a lot of credit there. It was partly her genes and partly her lifestyle.) Her skin was almost as wonderful as my own and she moved much more gracefully. On the floor in front of her was a spherical bag made of her excess skin to hold the fat that has been drained from her. (Did not want to make a greasy mess in Robbie's house, you know!) She carefully stood up and walked around the bag and walked over to see herself in the mirror.

Of course, you know what happened next. She fainted!

Chapter 14

I hope it was worth the wait! And don't worry, more is already planned!

Just a quick add on to the previous 3 chapters. More to come later.

DD

Chapter 14

The DHS monitored a slight increase in activity, but it was kind of like when the air conditioner fan in a house has a low hum. It is the same volume in every room and you don't notice it because it is so low and so uniform. What was different, though was this time there was also ley line usage this time. In their first break, they were able to determine from the lines used, that user(s) were somewhere south of a line running from southern Oregon to Washington D. C. That cut down the search area a great deal. Assets were reshuffled from the eliminated areas and used to reinforce further south. DHS 1, Us 1

The Guardian Shamans were immensely surprised to sense that the ley lines were being used this time. They would have had as little clue as the DHS without that, but now knew that the user(s) were in the northern half of Texas. They moved to a friend's house in southern Oklahoma near one of the Indian Casinos for the next stage trying to zero in during the next activity. Guardian Shamans 1, Us 0

The husband and wife team actually felt the ley line use and gave up their search in Hungary and flew immediately to Las Vegas to try and build up some cash in their normal illicit manners and to try and trace the ley line usage forensically. They had found a follow user spell that can do that under certain conditions. They weren't sure where to start, though, because they had been too far away when the access took place. Them 0, Us 1

The Russian Psychics where totally clueless this time. My careful shielding was even more stifled by the outer ring of sisters. Russians 1, Us 2

The Chinese mystic was very alarmed at what he sensed. He now worried he was outclassed. On the other hand, he was able to reduce his search area by half. Mystic 2, Us 2

Fargo and crew, literally, as they sailed slowly and problematically along the Intercoastal Canal off of Alabama. They had had to weather several punishing storms, multiple mechanical breakdowns and Rollo being convinced he was a dolphin. This was especially trying as Rollo couldn't swim to save his life (literally) and kept having to be rescued. Fargo was having much more difficulting remaining androgynous in the subtropical heat, not to mention trying to keep Rollo rescued without having to strip at least partially to give aid. When I tapped the ley lines, Fargo looked straight in my direction, again. This time, though, he/she/it had a compass and maps. What saved me is the maps were all coastal charts that did not go very far inland. Crazies 2, Us 2

Chapter 15

The spousal unit was beyond elated. After she had fainted, I had gotten up, too, finding I was only mildly fatigued and not bothered at all. The sisters and I had bundled her into the car and I had driven her home. She came to in her own recliner. When she awoke, she jumped up and gave me more affection in a few minutes than she had in the past year.

She seemed quite happy with her new body. She had always been heavily busted, something that made me jealous, but had not been especially curvy before, otherwise. In order to not exceed myself, I had not done a great deal of skeletal manipulation, though I had worked to heal her aging joints. She had plenty of soft tissue, though, to rearrange, and I had taken more liberties there. After she had ravaged me for a few moments, she glided into her bedroom and started trying on clothes. A moment of listening to “oh this won't fit... gonna need more of these... I wonder if I can wear...” I realized that I was going to have to pay for what I had done to her. She was going to want to go clothes shopping. My sins were many and my bank account was small.

Oh well, I had been limping, clothes wise, myself. I had added some lingerie and inexpensive jewelry, mostly earrings from the clearance rack at Wal*Mart, but other than that had only picked up a few baby-tee style tee-shirts. Maybe if I went with her, I could slow her down and get some goodies for myself, too! I needed some nice feminine slacks for work and some more shirts and blouses and maybe some jeans for when I was on my own time. Oh, and maybe one or two skirts or dresses...

This might be fun, after all!

Sorry for the break in the action. Between work being a real pain in the posterior and a vacation because work was being a real pain the posterior, it has been a while since I could string enough minutes together to finish a chapter... and now... on to the story

Shopping with the spousal unit? Will wonders never cease?

Chapter 16

Dropping back into my favorite chair with a small grunt, I kicked off my sandals and reclined the seat back and propped up my feet. I had power shopped until I was ready to drop. The spousal unit was now sporting new threads and was happy and we had put up all our purchases. I had managed to keep the amounts down to numbers that wouldn't threaten the budget of a third world nation... barely.

And... I had only had a SlamFast bar since I had gotten up this morning and it had been hours ago! The problem was, I sat down before I got any food together. I had left the laptop within reach, though, and checked the bank account. I ordered a medium pepperoni pizza for my son and a large veggie supreme for us. I paid for it online and called my son in to show the pizza person the charge card and to give the tip. He was happy enough with that arrangement because it got him his favorite pizza ASAP.

The spousal unit was happy. We had both been dieting and this would be a treat and she had the new clothes, too. We had been almost the same size when we got married and that had gone back and forth. Other than being taller, I was now smaller than her in all regards, but only barely. We could easily share most of our clothes.

In my fatigue-induced relaxed state, I was almost to the point of dozing off when I felt a sensation, almost at tickle, at the base of my consciousness. My shields were still up and doing their job but were now “porous”, something I did not normally allow to happen. I could just ever so slightly detect a feathery probing touch my shields. I tightened up to the point I had closed off all the pores but one, and that one I made intrusion-proof, but could still detect through it. I visualized it as an unbreakable window. Nothing could touch me through it, but I could see what was out there and I could also focus my mental energies though it as probes as well as offensively.

Back tracking the touch, I found the Guardian Shamen using spirit totems to try to sniff me out on the astral planes. They were too well shielded for me to do more than detect and locate them without tipping them off, but I felt no hostile intent on their part.

I knew instinctively that they were looking for me and had been for a while. They would also be interested in my coven sisters. This was somewhat disturbing. If they had alerted to me, who else knew about me? I had figured out that I could do a great many things if my determination and visualization were both good enough. Using a mental image of passive sonar, I attempted to listen in to anyone else looking for me. I found the DHS crew almost immediately. Giving credit where credit was due: they had plenty of power focused on finding me. They just had no finesse or subtly. The very amount of power they were using made them blind to me. It also provided me plenty of astral noise to make the echoes I needed to use my psychic sonar. In a matter of an hour, I had located all the assets DHS had assigned to me, including their mundane (non-magical, non-psionic, non-psychic) members just from the surface thoughts radiating out with the power they were using.

As I was tracking down one particular ley line that DHS was taxing heavily, I happened, accidentally, to notice the Chinese mystic in meditation. He had excellent mental discipline and a moderate amount of power and talent. However, he did not understand the concept of firewall-style shielding. He was using a visualization that was basically a Chinese battle shield with a hole in the center to allow him access through it. I just flanked him and looked around his shielding. After checking carefully for traps and hazards, I let my awareness sneak up on him and read his surface thoughts remotely. Think of reading someone else's paperback book at the park, from up in a tree, with binoculars. While they are reading, too. They turn the page too quickly. Or not quickly enough, They get fingers in the way, etc. I managed to get the general gist that my power burst was what had attracted him and how he was of the opinion that his “mentoring” would be best for everyone. Blarg, best for him!

I thought for a minute and considered how I formed my shields and how he formed his... and then I built an psionic construct that would appear to be attacking him in a circular pattern, forcing him to continuously reinforce his shield. In actuality, the construct was drawing the excess energy from his shield. It would also drain any attacks he made. The ironic thing was if he stopped attacking or defending, the psionic construct would eventually run of out stored power and dissipate. I thought that might take a while, I'd built it to be efficient and to soak up every last erg of available power. Also, I'd know if it started getting low.

I spotted the Russian psychics fairly early in my explorations but they were busy giving a show and were focused tightly enough I didn't realize that they were a potential threat, even though they were manipulating an amout of power that was not insignificant.

I didn't spot they husband and wife team at all, due to them not being stateside and not having access to enough power to attract my notice.

Fargo and company were still offshore and also escaped notice.

I realized that the ley lines were a problem and visualized them gradually shifting so that they would not be directly beneath me withing a few days. I know this sounds like something that should be a red flag to those assigned to watch, but the ley lines would sometimes shift in a drastic manner for no particular reason. I personally had the suspicion that they played in response to the strongest draws on their power flows. I had simply used an visual image of someone similar to me but many times stronger taping the lines at points that would cause them to withdraw to accommodate the new power requirements. I'd be in a position to decoy everyone that was looking for me from a strong but stealthed position that allowed me full use of my talents and abilities and actually made finding me harder the more power I used, openly or otherwise. [insert evil giggle HERE]

And now give me 2 points on all other parties concerned! Well, wait, I hadn't spotted the husband and wife team, but they weren't a real issue, anyway.

Chapter 17

Already in progress!

Chapter 17

Having survived the shopping expedition, I met up the next day with Robbie and Carrie. Robbie had the day off and Carrie and I both had worked early shifts and were done for the day, so we met at a mall that was convenient to all three of us. We idly strolled, popping into various stores, even occasionally trying things on, though they managed to embarrass the fudge bunnies out of me at Victoria's Secret. Hah, forget it! That is for another story! Anyway, we eventually worked over to the food court and shared a veggie -n- dip tray that the barbecue place was test marketing while we delicately sipped some luscious iced teas.

As we were almost done, four large sweaty men bantering with each other raucously exited the fitness club that was just off the food court. As it so happened, we were sitting in a U shape around a small table and could all see that particular exit. Carrie, being newly freed from her long-term boyfriend, tensed immediately, gazing in their direction. I had been telling about how I had gotten some free Starbucks and kept telling my story when Carrie vacantly tapped us each on the shoulder and pointed towards the men as they were insulting each other, continuing their locker room dialog, while they continuously disparaged each other's choice of which food court vendor to pick for their post-work out munchies.

Robbie turned and looked and her eyes got wide. Then she pinched herself and said, “I'm a married woman with a 3 year old. I can look but I can't drool. Much.”

I just rolled my eyes. “I guess my story has been killed in favor of checking of the beef.” I rolled my eyes again, independently for extra effect. All my effort was wasted as both women were entirely focused on the (in my opinion) losers. “Y'all can stare vacantly at those wastes of skin and fresh air. I'm going to go down the mall to Sam Goody's and shop for CDs.”

Without looking away, they simultaneously each grabbed my arms just above the wrists and pulled me back down into my chair. Again, simultaneously, they both said, “You can't leave now, look over there!”

At the risk of causing a flap, I stood back up, half pulling them both to their feet, and pulled loose from the collective grips. “Listen, men are the enemy. Men are my antithesis. And men will never, ever be a reason for me to not shop if I want to shop. I have less use for men than I do my appendix, which, by the way, I no longer have, and like men, do not want!”

I had them at “men at the enemy”. They both stared at me with their mouths open, jaws working like they were fish out of water. I reached over with each hand and gently closed their gaping jaws and said, “Look. I'm not normal. I know I look pretty much like a woman these days, and I am still changing and becoming more feminine and less masculine daily. But I don't need a man in my life. I don't want a man in my life. In fact, if I could live my life and never, ever see another man so long as I lived, it would be too soon. I've mentioned this before so I don't understand why you have so much difficulty with the concept.”

“Dee, I guess we keep forgetting you were born in the wrong body and that you have issues,” Robbie said. “But you are right, I don't understand. I mean, after all, if you are a woman, would being attracted to a man be such a problem? You are so militant that you try to not even be around men. That just seems extreme to me. And, I promise, I do not want to upset you or hurt your feelings. I am just trying to understand how all this works.”

“Well,” I drawled, “as I said, men are the enemy. I don't like how they act, I don't like how they look, I don't like how they smell, I don't like what they do, I don't like what they watch on TV, I don't even like them to look at me. As a group, I hate men. I don't hate any one in particular, because I feel like the only person I have a right to hate, that I am justified in hating, is myself. And I used to do that. I used to do that a lot, and with great vehemence. But, now that I am becoming the person I should have always been, I am finding less and less for which to hate myself. In fact, I have not had a good self-hatred session in so long, I'd have to say that I don't hate myself anymore, anyway. So, I don't hate anyone in particular. I just hate all men as a group. Kind of like hating some team that beat your team, even if you have a crush on one of the members. You can hate that member as part of the group yet be gaga over the individual. I won't ever be non-negative about men. And I'll tell you something else, no one will ever suffer for my outlook, either.”

“Dee! How can you say that? That is so... well, it is so... mean! Yes, mean, that is it!” Carrie continued to sputter for a while, then continued with, “What if you met the man that was your soulmate. Or rather, didn't meet him because you were too busy hating men? What about your dad and your son? I think you mentioned having brothers, too! You are wasting valuable energy hating men. You have to stop it. Besides, there are some great men in the world. You just have learn to overlook some things, sometimes.”

“Wait wait wait.” My turn to sputter! “This from the girl that last week was tell me that she was going lesbian because men sucked and no one could trust them and that they could all go to hell? Ok, this soulmate business: I ain't got one. And if I did, and that person turned out to be a man, I would gladly accept death by burning at the stake before I would accept a man as a soulmate. Fudge bunnies, as terrible as I am at relationships, I wouldn't even accept a woman as a soulmate. I am too messed up and no decent woman deserves being around me 24/7! As far as my dad and brothers being men, and my son, well, I can't help all that. I suppose they are good as far as men go, but that is not hard to do, either. And the energy garbage? I have plenty of energy for that. I am really talented that way. I don't have to stop anything and there are no great men. And, finally, I don't have to overlook anything for any man. I told you, I am not normal. I used to call myself a fatally fugly fat freak. I suppose deep down, I am a freak after all, because I can't stomach the thought of being around men if I can avoid it! No, I refuse to change my outlook on men because I see no reason to stop being right.”

They both sat and shook their heads at me, so I used my final salvo to get some breathing room, “You can think what you want about what you like. That won't change what is right for me, even if it is wrong for you. Now, I'm going shopping for a new CD or two, then I may head down to the Pit Lane and buy a NASCAR shirt for my son. I have my cell with me if y'all want to talk to me. Or, you can find me there. Or, you can go with me.”

They both sourly waved me on my way. I shrugged as eloquently as possible and picked up my purse, got a refill for my tea, and started off for Sam Goody's. Of course, that was when the strap had to break on my sandal, tripping me into a support column. The dong my head made as it impacted against the steel girder was quite impressive. I was not even dizzy. My head was intact and I was gathering up my purse and standing up as I realized the four losers had surrounded me. Two each took my arms and picked me up off my feet and then set me back down. I was instantly angry enough to do something stupid, but, somehow, I did not kill any of them, however tempting it might have been. “Thanks guys, I've got it from here.”

Now is about when Robbie and Carrie pushed in between them. “Dee! Dee! Are you ok? That girder rang like a gong at a Japanese restaurant! How is your head?”

I'd had enough. Normally, my mental shields are not physical in the least, but now I was being crowded by four smelly apes. I was not a happy princess. Without really consciousnessly thinking about it, I visualized my shields becoming hard and then explanding outwardly in an expanding sphere. Somehow, I filtered the other two women out of the response, so that only the men were pushed away. I quickly and angrily took off my other sandal and threw them both in my purse and stormed off, glaring my darkest, most threatening glare. My son feared that glare worse than missing meals. But not quite enough to miss a NASCAR race. Oh well, at least I knew where I stood!

Anyway, I stalked down the mall to Dillards and actually managed to find some more sandals I liked and they were even on sale! Sweet! Robbie and Carrie caught me as I was carrying my choice to the register.

“Umm, Dee, what did you do back there? How did you move all four of those hunks without appearing to even have touched them?” Uh oh. Robbie sounded upset, scared, and possibly even weirded out. And it can be really difficult to weird out a practicing witch!

Uh oh. Looks like I might have bitten off a bit more than I wanted to chew, this time!

Chapter 18

Mostly finished, posted soon

New score updates!

Apologies are rendered!

Cash is tendered!

Sorry for the delay, hope you enjoy, thanks,

DD

Chapter 18

The DHS sensitives were all really upset. Not only had I completely disappeared, but now the ley lines were shifting in a pattern that looked planned. In quite a few instances, critical junctions had moved away from the sensitives that had been camping out there just to wait for me to tip my hand. Because of the power diversions I was using, I had also deprived them of available power, doubly blinding them. The power rebound was giving most of the monster headaches and rendering them insensitive until they could recover. DHS 1 Us 4

The Guardian Shamen were very, very off-balance at my latest hijinks. Moving the ley lines was a feat they had not predicted. To be honest, they feared what repercussions it might have. They felt I was doing too much too soon and redoubled their efforts to locate me. It was, however, no use. My shield techniques were solid gold and my talent for them was getting stronger every day. On the other hand, they knew instinctively that I meant no ill to anyone, so they did not fear my intent. Still, while they were not completely blinded, like the DHS, the shifted ley lines had weakened them somewhat. Guardian Shamen 1, Us 3.

The husband and wife team were still airborne somewhere over Europe for eventual connection back to the US. They felt nothing and knew nothing. On the other hand, because they had almost no power, they were not affected by the ley lines shifting. Them 0, Us 3

The Russian psychics had problems. While using their talents in conjunction, 3 of their number had been astrally projecting along a ley line I had manipulated. It had stunned them to the point they were trapped half in and half out of their bodies. The rest had linked in an attempt to lend the stunned ones enough strength to reconcile themselves. They were beginning to think this had been a very, very bad idea. Russian Psychics 1, Us 6

The Chinese mystic had more problems then he could possibly handle. He could literally shield while he was asleep. He could also use his dreams as a chance to attack. He soon learned the futility of attack, awake, dreaming, or otherwise. What he could not grasp was not shielding. I was not so naiive as to think he would not eventually solve the riddle and escape the cycle. I was just confident it would not be soon! Chinese Mystic 2, Us 6

Fargo had finally realized that dire misdirection and had finally gotten pointed in the general direction of New Orleans. Being off the beaten path had saved the Crazies from being jumbled about like some of the other groups had been. Crazies 2, Us 3

Chapter 19

Robbie and Carrie were both staring at me like I had grown a 2nd nose. Or something. Actually, Robbie was doing her patented  ½ stare  ½ glare. Carrie didn't seem exactly happy with me either. I sighed and paid for my new sandals and sat down in a nearby chair and put my old shoes in the box and put on my sandals while I gave them my one hope for not being pounced on: my best innocent dumb puppy dog that had accidentally eaten Sunday lunch look. It failed pretty miserably. I sighed again and hunkered down to weather the worst of it as I finished buckling my sandals.

Robbie was the squall line and rained on me with, “DEE!!! Answer me! What did you do? And WHY?” By now, she'd realized she was verbalizing with the force of an airliner leaping off the tarmac. She motioned for Carrie to help her and grabbed my arm and heaved as Carrie realized what was being asked of her and scrambled to do likewise.

“What!?” I exclaimed at a slightly more subtle volume and tone of voice. I lunged for my purse and barely managed to hook the strap as they towed me away like a stalled automobile. “Hey, don't I get a clue where I'm being dragged?”

You, young lady, are going to apologize to the hunks!” Robbie was obviously not going to be swayed. Carrie was smirking and was not going to be a bit of help. Darned adoptive sister. Lot of good she was doing me, at the moment.

“Umm, first off, I'm going to rebel like a hungry mule if you call them “hunks” a single time more. Just to punctuate my determination, I planted my feet and showed how apt the description I had used would be. Robbie and Carrie both almost fell as their grips on my arms broke and they struggled to control their momentum. “Second off, how do you know where they are? Thirdly, why?” I guess you notice I ask “why” a lot. :P

Robbie rounded on me like a carload of teenagers on a prime parking spot at the mall. Yikes. “Dee, I'm surprised at you! You are always so sweet and considerate and compassionate at work, in fact, anywhere I see you! But now, just because some men (wow, I never realize how much venom she could put into one word!) help you up, you go beserk! Now you are going to march yourself over to the food court and apologize to them and then you are going to thank them for helping you!”

She grabbed at my arm again, Carrie quickly mirroring her. I returned the favor by firmly grasping their arms, too, and dragging them at right angles to their intended course, stopped in front of a bench by a fountain at a mall corridor intersection. Gently but firmly pushing them back against the bench so that they had to sit down, I spun and sat between them. “I will admit, I was angry. I will admit, I was mildly rude. I will also point out I did them NO HARM. I pushed them as gently as I did you to get you to sit on this bench. I will also point out I was pretty jangled from, as you so quaintly put it, ringing that girder like a gong at a Japanese restaurant. Now, I will do as you ask, if you ask, and you stop pulling me around like a red wagon.”

Robbie thought for a moment and it slowly dawned on her that I was not her 3 year old daughter, that I was an adult, and that I could be reasoned with. Well, after a fashion, anyway. I'm pretty weird and very stubborn. However, I'd already agreed to do what she wanted if she just relaxed a little bit. Deciding this was a battle she'd already won, if she just didn't push too hard, she said, “Ok, since you put it that way, will you please apologize the h... umm.... guys, and thank them for helping you?” Good save, huh?

“I already said I would. Come on and show me where the smelly apes went.”

I had been ready to dodge Robbie so I was caught by surprise when Carrie whacked me in the deltoid. “Stop calling them smelly apes! One of them might even by my future boy friend!”

Oh dear. “No, you called them hunks enough times that I get equal time because my opinion counts as much to me as yours does to you. I will, however, refrain from calling them smelly apes while the smelly apes are close enough to hear me. And that will have to do.” I crossed my arms and semi-pouted and she just sighed and gave up. “Walk already, I still don't know where the smelly apes are and I want to get this over with.”

Robbie responded with a full on glare, but the mouth open variety, to let me know she couldn't believe I was being such a prissy bitch, but she took me by the arm, much more gently this time, and led me back in the original direction. As we got back to the food court, she and Carrie stood on their tiptoes and kind of gazed around while I stood there more lamely than usual. Finally Carrie spotted them and pointed and we set off again.

As we neared their table, Robbie whispered, “Remember, you promised!” and released my arm.

I cruised to a stop in front of their table where they were scarfing down Chipotle's burritos the size of their forearms when they finally noticed us and looked up. “Umm, hi, I'm the rotten bitch that y'all helped up that pushed y'all away and stomped off like some kind of spoiled princess and I just wanted to apologize for my rudeness and thank you for helping me. Thanks, and I'm sorry for being rude. By the way, my sister here is currently between boyfriends and thinks y'all are hot.” As I had said the last I had pulled an empty chair between Carrie and me and had dodge back out of reach from both her and Robbie.

Carrie turned 3 shades of pink and red and orange and looked in danger of her ears catching on fire. Smirking at me when I'm down is dangerous, but I had my shields open to reading the empathic responses of the smelly apes and I knew that Carrie would have some phone calls tonight. What I didn't expect was, while the third one was watching a model quality blond 2 tables over, the forth one was interested in me. Houston, we have a problem! Thinking quickly, I pumped a sudden burst of power into getting him to notice the same blond and number 3 and hit him with a hormone burst as soon as he spotted her. His jaw dropped and he started drooling so I felt much more confident. Meanwhile, Carrie still needed some help with the guys. She probably needed help breathing, too, but one thing at a time. I pointed to smelly ape number one, “please give Carrie your hand so she can write her number on it.”

Carrie definitely needed help breathing now. As she turned to panic at me, I handed her a pen and made writing motions. She appeared to be on the verge of swallowing her tongue, but she wrote the number on his hand. Smelly ape number two already had the idea and needed no prompting to get his paw to Carrie A.S.A.P. for his copy of her number.

I smiled and and snuck a wink to the stunned Robbie and took my pen from Carrie's numb fingers and as I dropped it in my purse, said, “Well, thanks again and y'all have fun!” I linked arms with Robbie and Carrie and firmly guided them back away from the apes and towards Sam Goody's. I still hadn't gotten a new CD!

Robbie, being the less involved in all the shenanigans, recovered first. “What just happened?”

“I thought you might go with me to Sam Goody's, because I still haven't found a CD I want.”

By now, Carrie was almost remembering to breathe. “I just gave those two hunks my phone number.”

My turn to smirk. Until Robbie smacked me in the other deltoid. My turn to glare. “Whyfore you hit the weirdo?” Ouch, twice in the same deltoid and I don't seem to be as inured to a mild pounding as I was when I was fully male. “HEY! This is getting ridiculous!” She mimed doing it again, but only glared this time.

“You made her give them her phone number.”

“The first one is all about her bewbies and is a smelly ass. The second one thought she was cute and might not be so bad, just your typical smelly ape instead of smelly ass.”

Robbie opened her mouth to ask how I knew that, then remembered and shut her mouth again. Then she asked, “Which was which?”

I laughed. “I don't know, but I could point them out for you if I was standing in sight of them. You know I don't pay attention to men if I have a choice about it.”

They both caught my arm and pulled me back in the direction from which we had just come, but behind a large potted palm. We could easily see their table. I focused my senses and tuned my shields again. “Ok, the smelly ass is the one in the dark blue shirt. The smelly ape is the one in the white shirt. OUCH! OUCH! This has got to stop, I have as much right to call them what they are as y'all do whatever blarg it is you want to call them.” I crossed my arms and rubbed my deltoids where they had been punching me.

“I think instead of worrying about their shirts, I'll ask what color hair they have. They are more likely to remember that then what shirts they had on. You know how men are,” Carrie giggled.

I muttered, “Yes, smelly,” then took a step backwards and they smacked each other's hands and they tried to pop me in the shoulders again. I ignored their glares. Maybe they would stop hitting me now.

We finally got to Sam Goody's, which turned out to be our last stop of the day before we all split up and went home.

Chapter 20

[sorry, got too sleepy before I could finish this chapter, but it is in progress!]

Lectures for lunch!

Chapter 20

The next day at work, Carrie was her old happy, bubbly self. Mr. Ape had called her first, so she was able to ignore Mr. Ass when he called. Mr. Ape seemed to interest Carrie a great deal. I thought he was a little old for her, but she'd figured out that kind of thing before and come out of it alright. I decided she was a woman and had to make her own mistakes and earn her own victories, and I'd come running if she called for help.

Robbie was still just a bit miffed at me, but I think it was mostly because she just wanted me to remember “the lesson I'd learned'. Whatever. I just acted like everything was peaches and cream. Wait. I hate peaches. I decided to act like everything was bananas and cream because I really like bananas!. Still, she was the leader of our coven and I was her star pupil and it couldn't last long. I figured one more, maybe two, lectures, and we'd be back to normal. She caught me at lunch and I got ready for lecture number one. (I wasn't wrong)

“Dee, I still can't believe you treated those nice men they way you did!”

I carefully rolled my eyes at her, independently, of course. Then I rolled them back the other direction for extra emphasis. “I had rang the gong and I was mad and dizzy and disoriented and embarrassed and then there they were, the very people I was most trying to avoid. Yes I was rude instead of my usual sweet self. I'm, well, not human... well, that is a bad argument but you know what I mean. And despite becoming more and more feminine, I am no more accepting of men than I ever was. In fact, as I get less ugly,” I ducked her swipe, “as I was saying as I get less ugly, I am less tolerant of them, not more, because now they seem like more of a threat then ever.”

“I give up, Dee, I really do! I don't understand your prejudice. The funny part is I know just how strong you feel about it and if I didn't, I would probably have no idea. You are normally sweet, despite the fact that it was you that said that. In fact, you are a very compassionate, sweet, caring person. I've seen, myself, when you were in a full-on effort to help people, even men, a few times. It is not something you do part time. You really care and it is who you are, not just what you do. That is why I am so damn frustrated!”

I knew the word “damn” was there just to nettle me because my language rarely, if ever, included swear or “cuss” words. I even kept less blatant things to a minimum, usually being satisfied with “oh my” or “wow”. “Well, Bobby, I am pretty much at a loss to explain it. We both know it has a lot to do with the fact I was frustrated to the point of suicidal madness while I was trapped in a male body. I guess I still associate males with imprisonment and bondage and punishment and entire boatloads of negativity. I don't even try to justify those impulses. To be honest, I don't care if anyone feels I even need to justify them. They feel right to me and so long as I don't hurt anyone, no harm, no foul, no crime, no time. I've spent all my life trying to find one reason or another not only trying to justify my feelings and motivations, but to justify my very existence. I'm not doing that anymore. I am who I am and I am what I am and I feel and think what I feel and think. Those who don't like any of that are free to leave me the fudge bunnies alone and I will happily do the same for them!”

“But Dee, do you realize you are hating roughly half of the human race?”

“And that is a problem.... how? I don't hate the people, just the gender. Do you realize how many people hated me and how many still do? For how I was born, not for anything I did or did not do, but for how I was born. I have that right, or that wrong, or whatever you want to call it. Let me spell this out for you. I am still married to the spousal unit. As my body finishes changing, that makes me, for all practical purposes, a lesbian. However, we don't have sex, so maybe I'm a faux lesbian. I don't like sex. I absolutely abhor men. I love quite a few women as friends but I'm not attracted to them. I'm weird. The typical rules do not apply to me. I don't want a life partner or another spouse or a companion. I'm finally coming to not hate myself and until I go from hating myself to not hating myself to actually liking myself, I am facing a period of adjustment. Probably a long period. I never see myself ever again seeking any kind of partner or companion. No dating, no flirting. None of that. I am terrible, horribly terrible, at relationships. I completely don't need  ½ of the human population.” I glared at Carrie as she was trying, and not very hard, to stifle some giggles. “What?”

“She's about to rip you a new one and I'm going to laugh when she's done. I mean, I was worried about you when you ran into that girder, and I know you were mad beyond words at yourself for that. I know you were ready to do terrible things to the nice studs,” as she flinched a bit under my even more intense glare, “but I was proud of you for not hurting or harming them but instead just leaving. On the other hand, men are men. They are half of the human race whether you like it or not. Personally, I like men. I like strong, manly, masculine men. I like men who work up until they are hard bodied and make me drool. You are right about men sucking. Some of the do it right though.” She and Robbie shared a quick cackle over that. “You just have to accept them for who and what they are. Sure, Robbie and I both man bash when we are fed up with them. That is part of being a woman. What bothers us is you hate them all the time and you hate them so much. It just isn't necessary!”

Robbie jumped in at this point, “No. It. Is. NOT! You are going to have to get over all that sometime or you will never finish developing as a human being. Hatred requires too much energy and colors too many perceptions and distracts you from too many wonderful things. It separates you from the Goddess. You can't properly utilize and channel the power of her and the planet and nature when you hate such a huge chunk of the... of the life... of the life force and life forces of the planet. You have to heal before you can reach your full potential. That's all I have to say.”

“Ok,” I shrugged.

“Ok? All you have to say is 'ok'? What you mean is 'nothing you two have said makes any difference and I'm not going to change'.” Robbie was completely aghast.

“That pretty much nails it. I call that an 'Amy-OK' after a friend of mine that used to do that to me. She smiled instead of shrugging, though. Here is what you have to understand. I'm not hurting anyone because it is not personal. No one is hurting me because I'm not militant about it. I'm not going to be hurt by the lack of men in my life. And, finally, no man is going to suffer any loss by the lack of me in his life. To be completely candid, I see no reason for you to be all up in arms.”

“How the f.... umm, rather, how do you figure that you won't be hurt by the lack of men in your life? And the even more ludicrous statement, how do you know that no man will not suffer from the lack of you in his life? Besides, what about your son? He's going to grow up to be a man, no matter what you do.” She fixed me with her “ha, I've won because you'll never wiggle out of that one” glare.

“Let's see if I can answer you in the order of how I was asked: I won't be hurt by the lack of men because men suck and I hate them; no man will suffer from the lack of me because I'm not important and because a man stuck being with me would be miserable and therefor would suffer while one not with me stands a reasonable chance at happiness; and finally, my son is who and what he is, but he is also family and I can't choose my family and I accept him how he is, for better or worse. I can do that, you know. I have been doing it a long time and I will quite probably be doing it for a long time to come. You already knew I was a realist and a pragmatist so don't act so darned surprised.”

Robbie sniffed and was about to give up when she suddenly rounded back on me and blurted, “you still don't know if there is no man that will suffer from the loss of being with you!”

“Robbie, if you can't accept the fact that I'm asexual, that I don't want anyone, then think of me as a devout lesbian so at least you can latch on to the idea that there will be no men in my life and there is a less than zero chance of that changing.”

Robbie just turned away muttering as Carrie laughed openly and threw her arm around my shoulders and said, “Sister, you realize that you are still wrong, don't you?” Then she skipped away and caught up with Robbie

Chapter 21

I was practicing my various shielding techniques and experimenting with how I could manifest my shields physically as I sat and sipped my machiatto at the coffee house after work one afternoon when a large smelly ape dropped down in the chair opposite of me and said, “Hello!”

I wrapped my shields tightly around myself and made sure I had no physical apsects in use and started packing my laptop in silence. The smelly ape only let his mouth gape open a slight bit as I slid the laptop itself down into my backpack and started zipping the closure.

I caught up my machiatto and rose, slipping my backpack over one shoulder in one smooth, graceful motion when he finally sputtered, “I said 'hello'.”

I finally looked at him, something I had studiously not done until that point, and said, “Ok,” and walked out to my car. As I unlocked the door and planted my rear firmly in the seat he rose from his chair. I spun on my seat and carefully tucked my feet into the car as I plopped my backpack in the floor of the passenger seat. By then, he was at the door of the coffeehouse. I pulled my door closed and locked my car (electric locks!) and popped the ignition key home and started the engine. Now he was standing outside the driver's door of my car. I began buckling my seat belt and turning on the car stereo. As I straightened up and reached for the stick shift, I noticed him standing behind the car so I would not be able to back up without running over him.

I was tempted to use the physical aspect of my shields but just as I was beginning to focus a better idea came to me. I took my mobile phone from my purse and dialed 911. As it happened, a police car was on the parking lot for a routine status check. The police officers pulled into the parking slot next to mine. I looked in my rearview mirror and the smelly ape was now very antsy and was walking away. The officer driving the car quickly hopped out and went after the smelly ape. The other officer was a woman and she rolled down her window, so I rolled mine down, too. “Thanks for showing up so quickly. I don't know what the smelly ape wanted.”

“What is going on, anyway? The dispatcher said that you were unable to back up because that man would not move from behind your car and since we were on the same parking lot already doing a regular welfare check, we were probably here before she even got everything typed in.”

“Oh, I was in there drinking my machiatto and goofing off on my laptop when the smelly ape crashed across from me and expected me to like it. I packed up my laptop, grabbed my cup, and off I went. I guess he got his smelly ape feelings hurt because he stood behind me keep me from leaving. I guess he did not see me using the cell phone, or didn't care, or didn't see you on the parking lot. But then, I didn't see you, either.”

The officer made a few notes then used her walkie talkie to speak to her partner. “Ma'am, technically, he was in violation but the worst that is going to happen, in the big picture, is he gets your name. That is, if you file charges. If you are really wanting to take action, we'll cross the Ts and dot the Is, to be honest, to hurt him most and best, just write this all off and drive away. I'll tell him you said he was not worth your time or trouble and to cut him loose. His fragile male ego will be burst, you get to leave in peace, and he still has no real idea who you are.”

“Do it. That means I can leave now?”

“Yes ma'am. Have a nice night and I'll be sure and needle him for you.” The gleam in her eye promised that and more.

“Well, officer, you make a good case and I'll trust you to do what's best.” I waved and rolled up my window and backed away.

Chapter 22

More in my head... not sure when I'll get down onto a screen!

I wrote this chapter quickly before work this morning, but I wanted to keep my hand in play.

It is short but might be important later, depending on my muse. I hope you enjoy!

DD

Chapter 23
“... and then you add the egg mixture and treat it like a scramble, cooking gently until it's fluffy.” I finished describing on of my favorite breakfast recipes to Carrie.

“It sounds great!” she trilled.

“Oh, it is, and by serving it with different garnishes you can....”

Carrie spun in her chair to see what had caught my attention to the point that I had stopped talking. By the time she turned back to face me, I already had my laptop packed and my orange mocha in hand and was standing. “Where are you going? Are we leaving? What did you see that made you get up so quickly?”

I handed her her coffee cup and grabbed her gently by the upper arm and propelled her to the nearest door and towards my car.

“Don't worry about that. We'll go get your car and go to your house. Maybe I'll show you another recipe when we get there.”

Carrie put on the brakes and grabbed the door frame of the coffeehouse door with both hands. “Wait juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust a minute! Why are you pushing me out of the coffeehouse? We just got here are I'm not ready to go home, yet!”

I pushed past her and said, “If you must know, it's the smelly ape that tried to chat me up in here the other day. I don't intend to deal with him right now.”

“So you are just going to run from him? I thought smelly apes didn't scare you and that you could handle any of them!” She had an odd gleam in her eyes.

“Do you want me to handle him?” I put enough venom in my voice for her to realize what a bad idea that would be, even though I was in no mood to do any harm, or even cause trouble. I just wanted to relax with my coffee and chat with my adopted sister.

“How do you know what he is going to do?”

“How do you know what is going to do?” I finished unlocking my car and plopped down into the driver's seat. “If you want to go finish our coffee, not to mention get a ride back to you car, you might want to get in, now.”

She sighed and stomped around and got in. “Can we at least go to the bookstore? I've run out of anything fun to read.” And so we finished our little jaunt perusing used paperbacks and CDs.

The smelly ape was not further mentioned. I thought.

Chapter 24

Expect more on the other groups here, when I get a chance to write again