“My dad is not a very nice person,” I explain to my therapist. “Maybe it’s because he never expected to have a child after number ten. Maybe because he was 96 when I was born. Maybe because he’s an asshole.”

My therapist signals that I should go on, “When I was born my oldest brother had just been married, my youngest,” Here I gesture with my fingers on my glass. “Well the one closest to me, was starting High School. He didn’t have time for me.”

My therapist refills my glass, and I tip it to her when I take another drink. I lean in close, “Everyone at the company—dad’s company, Sector & Sector, all my siblings, they all have jobs. Dad likes saying he’s 89% legal, well that 89% is all them. I’m the extra bit. He calls me Eleven.” I stand up and put my jacket on. The bar is empty, and the bartender is staring at me. She’s leaning up against the back wall with all four of her arms crossed. It’s imposing.

I throw her some money, really don’t know how much, and pick up the bottle. “I’m taking the bottle home with me,” I tell her.

The bartender rolls her eyes at the guy who just spent the night whispering to a bottle of Therapist (90 proof), and waves me out the door.

~

The streets here are horrible. Concrete instead of ferrocrete or permacrete. Stained with ash from the mags of the cars. They’re being rained on.

The rain is horrible. Sweet and nauseating, never enough to get you wet, only damp and sticky.

The planet is horrible. I’ve been on Wigo for three weeks, on the peninsula of…also Wigo. The city is 300 years old, and has seen a lot of wear and tear. It’s my kind of place, and I hate that, while I’m drunk like this. The buildings are sprawling and messy and cramped into, and on top of, one another. It looks like a Lego master’s nightmare.

There are garish lights everywhere, advertising everything from soft drinks to sluts, both kinds of ads feature sluts drinking soft drinks. It’s a great place to get stabbed, but they have one of the best trauma centers in the galaxy, so it’s a really great place to get stabbed.

I stagger down a catwalk, as cars cruise past in the air next to me, and I begin to realize that I am too drunk to make it back to, wherever I’m going. My house, probably. Well, a house.

There’s a storefront with a little concrete bench in front of the window. I decide it’s a nice place to get drunker and sit down on it. I almost miss the first try, but I’m down, and drunk kind of comfortable.

I don’t even notice I’m drinking now. Just like breathing.

“You look like lonely,” A streetwalker propositions me.

I do my best to focus on her under the haze of the storelight and the alcohol that’s filling up my vision. Green skin, pretty color, long dark hair, two legs. “She” is dressed like any hooker. Leather with holes in it, things packed too tight and popping out. Nice things. She’s human, just died skin, I’m almost positive.

“Female?” It sounds rude to check, it’s not. Streetwalkers here, and everywhere, cater to exotic tastes, and the only way to know what flavor they are is to ask. I learned from a few experiments that my pendulum only swings in one direction.

The street walker pulls her skirt up and I can see that she’s nothing on but her pussy underneath. It’s highlighted with some arousing garters. I begin to think that what I’ve been feeling all this time is loneliness. Then I remember that I am actually very unhappy, and this hooker isn’t going to change that. Sex probably wouldn’t hurt anything.

I give a nod, and hand the hooker my bottle of Therapist. There’s a good four fingers left but she knocks it back like it’s Coca-cola. I was actually just trying to get her to help me up, and when I put out my hand again she tosses the bottle into the gutter and hauls me to my feet. She’s strong, which doesn’t surprise me. She smells nice, which does.

“Were’re we headed, slim?” She asks, once I’ve got my feet under me. I look around the street, for landmarks. There’s a street sign, but they put those everywhere. It could mean anything. I look around under the sticky rain, in the light of the smallest green moon, “Your place?”

“I don’t think so.”

“A hotel?”

“Nothing around here does hourly.”

I’m sure it does, but she’s classy like that. And she’s gunning for a nice place to spend the night. I don’t know what time it is, but even prostitutes need sleep at some point. “That’s okay,” I try to put my arm around her shoulder and nearly succeed. “I think I’m going to be lonely till checkout.”

~

My handset vibrates on the table. I have the ear piece set to silent, I’m the only one who can hear it when it wakes me up.

That does not go well. The light from the window is knives in my brain. It is physically painful to keep my eyes open. The clock on the table blinks 12:00 because no one know how to make a working hotel clock. The hooker is tangled up in the covers still asleep. But I know I have to answer because it’s my father calling.

Actually it’s my father’s secretary, Susan. She is…depressingly polite. This is hilarious to me, knowing that my father unable to talk without issuing a slew of profanity. I assumed that was how everyone’s father talked for the longest time. Until I went to school, and called my teacher “a sweet fucking cunt”.

My language cleaned up shortly after that. My father’s beatings never worked on him.

So Susan gives my father’s orders in a cheerful California accent, and only stumbles a few times as she censors his notes. It took awhile to find a place for me at the company. I never got a trust fund to clown around with, or backpack across Europe. I work for my money, I’m okay with that. I’ve met enough rich douche bags to know just how long you live with that kind of life. Old enough to die in a drug overdose, or get a job you hate.

I got the job that I hate that I love, and still hate. Sector has a hefty arms devision. I could have run it, but my sister does that, so I get to run the guns instead. Decent pilot, know the ropes. Name a system with life and social upheaval, I’ve helped upheave it.

So the call is pretty standard. There’s a job, meet the contact here, get off the planet, end.

“Oh, and…Eleven?” Susan doesn’t use my name anymore. I don’t know if it’s because she feels sorry for me, or because she’s afraid of my father.

No, I know she’s afraid. But I have to answer her question, “Yeah?”

“You’re…you’re gonna have to get a new body.”

I give a little chuckle. I have no idea what she’s talking about.

“The planet…where you are going…the pressure is 3 atmospheres. You need a Generation-Beta.”

She hangs up, and I can see the details on my screen.

Thats it. No question about what I want to do. Maybe I don’t want a new body. Maybe I like my body the way it is.

Nope. Eleven is going to get to be a butterfly and there’s nothing he can do about it.

I wake up the hooker and contract her for the rest of the morning. At least the money I make is going back into the system. I’m a job creator.

~

Any schoolchild can tell you, there are about 100,000 habitable planets in our galaxy. And any slightly older schoolchild can tell you that “habitable” is variable. There’s a ten to twenty percent difference in anything that can impact an organism’s survival. Ten to twenty percent difference in heat tolerance, breathing requirements, atmospheric pressure, and light and audio perception. When it comes to what’s poisonous and what isn’t, the deviation is more like 90%. Humans have one of the best tolerances to potassium, and one of the worst to arsenic. We’re special like that.

So the species segregate. Oxys hang out with oxys. 20 - 20khz range all hang out together. See red to violet? Best make some friends that can read your signs.

But people aren’t about to let an opportunity to trade go by simply because we can’t handle a three percent difference in nitrogen in the air. A half century back, a hundred different science coalitions started working on the first Generation-Beta bodies.

There’s no other way around it. You want to survive the whole universe, you have to build a body that can do it.

The process is simple enough. Butterflies. Well any insect with a staged life. Anything that goes into a cocoon. You’d think that when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly and spins it’s little chrysalis, it transforms the way you put on clothes. One day it works on legs, the next wings, until it’s a butterfly inside. Then it pops out like a new insect.

But that’s not how it works. The caterpillar goes into its cocoon and turns into caterpillar soup. Just a body of liquid that used to be a body. The brain and some of the nervous system sit suspended around a beating heart, and the butterfly grows out of that. Just like a second birth. Old personality. New…everything else.

And that’s going to happen to me.

~

I have dinner at a noodle cart in the best part of the worst part of the city. We’re on the ground level here, and the rain only penetrates in little bursts and patches that catch the sunlight. It’s always so hot here that the water is just another way to cool off, and the people just wear whatever they want, and get wet. Waterproof cloth cartridges and clothes get stocked in the shops in reams. Everyone looks a little shiny, and there’s a lot of hats.

Most of the hookers don’t wear hats, and I’ve almost become immune to the sexiness of we hair.

Susan sits beside me at the cart to give the briefing. Down here she shouldn’t need a disguise, but it would be devastating if she were recognized with me. She’s dressed like a punk, cargo pants and piercings. She’s got an elaborate tattoo on her left shoulder and she died her hair pink. She’s only the bag man on the big jobs. Usually dad sends a street urchin. They don’t ask questions when you pay them in drugs.

But they can’t answer questions either. Susan hands me a tablet and orders “Noodles and Meat no.1”.

I’m not sure why the proprietor bothered to number his only menu option.

I open the folder and start scanning the contents. It’s a six month trip. Pretty easy. I’m running silent for the last week as I near the planet. Going in the long way.

The weapons are going to Chinochkan. That’s the English spelling of their name. Once I’m a butterfly, I’ll actually be able to pronounce it correctly.

“Chinochkan is in the midst of a civil war,” Susan tells me. “Maybe a gender war is a better description. Chokon have three genders. The females are fed up with being treated like second class citizens. They’re demanding equal rights.”

Intergalactic terminology kids: the child bearing gender is referred to as the female, because human shapes don’t usually apply. In gendered language all the female pronouns are applied. If both genders can carry a child, the female is used until she bears the child. Then she gets to be a man. It’s like Ms and Mrs

“The females are normally kept in their own private continent,” Susan slurps noodles and wrinkles her nose. She adds a huge heap of soy sauce and tries again. It’s clear she’d much rather have a nice salad, but she keeps up appearances. “They’re purchased by male couples who want a child, and the money goes to pay for the rest of the woman’s life.”

“Sounds cushy,” I say with a mouth full of noodles. I think the meat is some kind of amphibian. It’s good.

Susan rolls her eyes, “They have no rights, can’t hold vote or hold office, and can’t attend school. Rape is the universal greeting on the planet.”

“I feel certain owning guns is against the law then.” Not that I care about giving guns to people who aren’t supposed to have guns. That’s kind of my job.

“What you’re shipping is concealable ordinance.”

I swipe the page and look at some very interesting diagrams.

“The resistance is trying to get the women who have been bought a way to defend themselves.”

I shrug, stow the tablet, and dump the last of my noodle broth on the street. I like drinking the broth, but here it’s seen as bad luck.

“There’s a reason you are going, Eleven,” Susan says as she dumps her noodles. She puts her bowl back on the counter and turns to me as she starts to leave. “They find human women irresistible.”

Yeah, lucky me.

~

I don’t like this doctor. He’s let himself age, or maybe he likes his own prescriptions. He looks like he’s showered, today at least; but something about him seams…oily.

I sit on the stupid table and a stupid bot takes my vitals while he dicks around on the computer for a second. I’m pretty sure he’s updating a quick-fuck app. That I’m okay with, only maybe don’t do it while I’m sitting her with my ass hanging out of my hospital gown?

They take lots of panels. The scanner arm reads the inside of my elbow for a full half-hour while I stare at the walls, and Doctor Oily asks invasive questions about my medical history. He looks at the tablet for a long while, then saves it, stows it, and leaves without saying anything.

A nurse comes in to tell me it’s time for a brain scan, and leads me down a hallway. This is the first part of a four day process. I get into a RIS, which looks like a giant robot vagina. They let me listen to music. It’s cold. I’m naked. I try to lie still and not think about the racket the machines is making.

After four of five hours they let me out, but I’m not allowed to sleep until I start seeing things. They won’t give me medication to make that happen, not even coffee. I watch netflix with wires attached to my skull.

When I report small hallucinations, I get to sleep. I’ve got an IV and they pump some melatonin in me, and keep the wires on while I sleep for twelve hours.

One of the nurses is young, and calls me honey. I call her “doll,” and wonder if it would violate medical ethics to pay her for some company. I notice she has a ring, when she holds my hand. She does it because they’re putting me under anesthesia for some electroshock. That isn’t the most wonderful experience, but her hand is nice.

More wires, and they stick me in a room full of pornography and a sex-bot and tell me to have a couple of orgasms. Partly they’re seeing how my basal ganglia react to stimulation. Partly they’re storing up a swimming team in case I want it later.

Obviously, ethically, my new body will be sterile. Jokes on them, I insured that a long time ago.

They pull the chips in my ear and my thumb. If I have them when I go into the tank, best case scenario, they end up lodged in my lungs. I have to remember to carry a lot of cash on me for this trip, because I can’t get a new ID chip for a year at least. My ear bleeds a ton, before one of the nurses notices blood dripping onto my neck and stops it up.

I’m gonna miss my sleeves. I’ve been working for years to cover my arms, and now all my tattoos will go away. Sloughed like my dissolving body. Whatever. Half the fun is getting them done anyway. Everyone has a tattoo they regret, so I have some great new regrets to look forward to.

They show me the body I’m going to grow. Same face. I could look better, but I’ve gotten used to my ugly mug in the mirror.

I’ll have bigger eyes. They’ll see into the IR and UV spectrum. Not a lot, but enough to pick up some weird shit. The human eye can distinguish color difference down to 1 nanometer. I’ll get down to 0.1 nanometers. Ten times the colors. Picking out new curtains will be a snap.

Different ears. Ones that can hear higher frequencies. Ones that won’t cop out when the going gets over 120 decibels.

Type A muscles, better for living in a higher gravity; denser packed, building mass five times as fast, losing it ten times as slow.

They comb over my genes, turns out I have a strong risk of skin cancer. That’s gone. So is prostate cancer. Butterflies don’t get polyps, so there’s no colonoscopies in my imminent future.

I ask if I can be better hung. Everyone laughs at that. You don’t have the money they say. Hilarious. They ask if I’m Jewish and want to be born circumcised. I try not to be terrified at the thought.

After four days I finally get to put on real clothes. There’s a little seminar with a projector that goes over how to use the tank. It’s complicated as hell, so they give me a packet I won’t use, and a nurse bot I will.

The shipment has to go out in another day. When it comes to running guns you have to move quick before a cease-fire is declared. I’ll change on the plane.

The tank looks like a big glass womb. That’s all I have to say about that.

I sign a whole bunch of papers, leave the hospital and get ritually shit-faced in a high-class brothel. It’s a long standing tradition of mine to leave planet feeling like hell.

~

Her name is Big Bertha, and she looks like a tit. Someone had a sense of humor about that, from her nose art. She’s painted gun-metal, where her paint hasn’t burned off, revealing the gun-metal…metal…underneath. Her exterior is dinged and scored. She’s seen some shit.

Class-D, beetle hold, 200 tons empty, carries another 300 in cargo.

I get my stuff shipped over from the storage unit I’ve kept in the city. Printer, wardrobe, and my personal collection of instant-arrest-ordinance. I try to buy some food, because some quartermaster at the company thinks I love noodles. I like noodles. I don’t like nothing but noodles for one week, never mind six months. But I can’t buy 100 pounds of food in a few hours, so I get dinners for special occasions. Like when I’m so sick of noodles I want to puke.

While the crane loads the last of the freight, and the reactor gets hot, I take my tour. She’s a mess, like me. Lights burnt out in the corridors. Last painted a hundred years ago. Barely up to any code or standard. I think I can stand living here for awhile.

Bertha has been cool for a month, and stowed outside in the rain, so there are a lot of things to get done. I’ve got the ground crew running around and taking off covers, and it takes them an hour. I fail a check and find out they forgot one. They’re good guys, but I think they all got trashed last night too.

The drive is hot, and my flight window is 200 miles away from the city. Flight control takes an hour to clear me, and then it’s another hour to the equator. Big Bertha handles like a brick marionette, but I hold the sticks like a pro.

I hit the stratosphere and real gravity goes away, replaced by the inertia definers I’ll be feeling for awhile.

There’s a hurricane forming down there, and I have twenty minutes to watch its lightning pulse as I climb.

When I pass the Van Allen Belt the jump drive is charged and I make the leap, just inside where it’s legal. I spend some time locking the flight deck, locking the brain, and building my back door into the security systems. I’ll be in patrolled space until I wake up, but there’s no reason to take a chance on piracy.

Now it’s time for a long, long, nap.

~

The nurse-bot hooks me up. This includes jamming some needles into my skull. I’m prepared as I can be for that, which turns out, isn’t enough. While that’s happening the tank is filling with goo from a bunch of different sources. I have to climb stairs to sit inside, and then scrunch up a bit. There’s a new tube connected to my heart. That takes some deep breathing exercises to stave off the panic while it’s happening.

The water tingles a bit in a way that I know would get painful after awhile, fortunately my body won’t be around for that long.

Nurse puts another tube down my throat and I submerge, very glad that the drugs are going to knock me out soon.

A month goes by. I don’t dream.

Thank god.

Being born sucks. A tube opens and spills a whole bunch of amniotic fluid into a sluice. My naked body comes with it. It does not go down the sluice.

The light hurts my eyes. My pupils have never had to constrict before. Apparently the first time that happens it’s fairly painful. Who knew.

I’m exhausted. It takes me over an hour just to get the strength to wiggle my fingers. I’m laying inside an incubator, and breathing for the first time in four weeks, and that’s taking up all of my energy right now.

After a couple of hours of laying there I finally muster the energy to sit up. The heats up on the ship, and the incubator has helped, but I still feel cold. There’s a mirror on the wall in the med-bay. I avoid it. Something in me wants a grand reveal.

I leave sticky foot prints on the deck, and waste the water for a shower, so I can get all the gunk off. I get out feeling less than human, and make my way to the bunk house to gaze in my self reflective reflection.

Everything hurts.

My knees hurt.

My fingers hurt.

My breasts hurt.

The Image of a pretty, young, girl, stares back at me.

Shit.

I’ll be honest, I panic.

First because some girl managed to stowaway aboard the ship. That’s a huge problem, she’s going to be hungry and I only have enough food for 6 months of me and no one else.

This assumption lasts for long enough for me to turn around and see no one behind me.

My heart rate is going wild, and I can feel my pulse in my wrists as I try to figure out whether or not it’s a trick mirror. I hear when people are friends they play pranks on each other. I don’t have any friends, so that theory has a pretty short half life. I cup my hands over the mirror anyway, in case it’s a two way mirror and…

…and I’m not sure what. It’s only when I cup my hands that I realize I can look down.

I don’t. I stare at the mirror, and at my hands. It turns out “the back of my hand” isn’t just an expression. I know what my hands look like, and these are not them. I can see their reflection in the mirror, see the mirror hands almost touching mine.

It’s not just because I’m a butterfly. My hands would be different anyway, I know that. You can’t get all the veins and ridges to match exactly.

These are definitely a woman’s hands, the kind that haven’t evolved for punching people or working on cars. No big veins. No wide spread. No knobby knuckles.

Dainty. Pointed. Feminine.

I put my head against the mirror and close my eyes. Breath softly. Fight the panic.

My hand moves from the mirror and runs up over my ribs. My skin is new, never been touched before. It’s pretty agonizing. Yeah, there is definitely a breast there. I know what a breast feels like in my hand, and I’m feeling a breast right now.

“Shit,” I say it out loud this time, and realize it’s not my voice that’s saying it, it’s a girl’s.

Deep breath Eleven.

I look down, get hair in my eyes, and look into the mirror again instead. My hand brushes the hair back behind my ear, and that little thing almost makes me scream. That was a perfectly natural movement. You’re not a woman.

Red hair. Really really red. Blue eyes, they haven’t changed. Bomb shell figure.

It’s hard not to ogle butterfly women on the street, but I don’t because I’m a gentleman. If you’re going to grow a new body, why not make it count? So they have gravity defying breasts, tight waists, wide hips. They’re almost cartoonishly super-normal.

Now someone who is probably me has all that stuff. I look over my body, and it’s pretty impressive. Then, looking at myself, my nipples tighten up, in a way that I notice. Focus on what’s important, Eleven. Right now you can’t do anything about this.

That’s a healthy thought, to lead to healthy action. My therapist bottle would be proud.

~

Shit, I’m ravenous.

I’m not putting on clothes, I can barely stand the feeling of my own skin. My fingernails brush my thighs as I head to the mess. They aren’t too long, but they’re too long. And they hurt, and leave marks on the skin that take awhile to fade.

Dinner is blue goo out of a jar. It smells like baby food, and probably tastes like baby food. The microbiotm in my gut hasn’t developed yet. I can’t eat dairy products, or honey. It’s gravy and creamed vegetables for now. I’ve got some pills to take. In the end I’ll be able to eat things that would kill a human. Knowing that doesn’t make the baby food taste any better.

I can’t get over my hands. They aren’t my hands. Sure they’re a womans, but I get a feeling I’d feel confused anyway.The veins are all wrong. Knuckles not even wrinkly yet. As I eat, I constantly wonder who the fuck is feeding me. I go through six jars, feel full, and eat another one just to be sure.

Then I sit an stare at the empty jars for awhile, and just numb out.

I run my hand through my hair. It’s different hair too. Too thin. I debate crying. It’s been years since I cried, but it seems like the appropriate thing to do if I’m going to be a woman.

Fuck it.

I turn the gravity off in the bunk house, and give myself a little shove over to the bed. There’s a couple little heaters here for this contingency, and a fan that will blow over my face. Without it, my breath would build up in front of my mouth, and I’d suffocate on carbon dioxide.

I close the cover, so I don’t wake up in the middle of the room, and curl up into a ball.

I cry myself to sleep.

~

I don’t know how long I’ve been out. When you fall asleep crying, you’re supposed to wake up happy. Instead I come to consciousness fitfully aware of how fucked I am.

It’s total-fucked. That’s how fucked I am.

Might as well report that to someone.

Turn the gravity on. Everything falls nice and slow, because I’m smart like that, and I can’t just jam the I-Defs on.

The ship pharm tests my skin conductance for stress, and allows me a xanax. I know better than to take it with alcohol, so I take it with alcohol. I have some calm going on, I’m ready to talk to someone else.

Probably not about this, but I can handle talking.

Then I make my way to the flight deck, and unlock the brain. The Sector & Sector logo appears on my screen while the mainframe boots. A star and an S (that’s my father), surrounded by eleven suns in stages of eclipse (that’s his children). The bottom right is completely hidden with only the corona showing (that’s me).

I’ve got a private secure channel to Sector & Sector. Whoever answers will know without a doubt it’s me. I adjust the camera so only my face shows, I’m still not putting on a shirt. Even the leather pads on the seat are like sitting on razor wire.

I look at my face in the camera for several minutes. The butterfly proportions are wrong. My eyes are too big, my mouth too small. I cup a breast in my hand and adjust the camera down for a quick second. I’m the figure of jealousy to the best tits in the galaxy.

The channel clicks open but there’s only a green cursor on the corner of the screen. In an emergency, I might not want anyone to know I’ve got a line out.

“Hey, Coms.” Anyone manning the com station is called Coms, “I have a minor problem.” Don’t choke up Eleven.

Five minutes later I have Susan on the screen. I’ve pulled her out of bed. I’m not sure if she’s getting laid, and this intrigues me more than it normally would. I might have a problem here. Her hair is back to normal, shoulder length, straight and blond. Her makeup is microbial, so she rolled out of bed and her eyeshadow is perfect.

Her facade breaks for a second, and she whispers, “Fuck.” Then, “I’m pretty sure that’s you, Eleven?”

I tuck my bottom lip under, and give her a little nod. Please don’t freak out, Susan, or I’m gonna cry again.

“Hang on,” and the screen goes dark.

A minute later she’s back, and moderately composed. “Well. Your doctor isn’t going to make it through this week, not after your father has something to say about it. In the meantime we have to get a doctor we can trust. I’ll put in calls and ping you in two hours.”

Professional. Thank god. I have to kill the glimmer of hope that there’s an easy fix for this, because I’m 60 light years away from anything habitable.

“You look exhausted.”

“I was just born.” And I’m kinda in shock.

“Why don’t I call you in eight hours, and you get some sleep.”

I feel some tension drain out of my face as I nod. We sign off at the same time.

~

I swim back into consciousness, and for a moment everything is okay. And then it hits me. I don’t have to adjust my balls. That’s new.

For the next nine months (at least) I have a woman’s body. I have a vagina. That’s a little hard to reconcile. Probably best not to think about it.

I think about it.

A lot.

Everything is sensitive as hell. I have pussy lips and I can feel them rub together. Connections are still being formed between my brain and body, but for the moment I am very conscious of my clitoris.

I don’t know what to do about any of this.

I’ve been asleep for nine hours. I have to pee. Susan has surely called me by now.

First things first. I float my way over and turn on some weight, until I’m standing on the floor.

For the first time I don’t have to give a little hunch to get my bladder right. That’s new. For the first time, I hit the bidet button after I pee and not by accident. That’s uncomfortable.

~

This time sitting in the chair isn’t agony. There’s probably a book somewhere that will tell me how long it takes my skin to adjust. I was never much of a reader, so it’s going to remain a mystery for now. I’m still eating when the com comes through. It’s not the secure channel. Susan must have briefed everyone. Knowing that makes it harder and I cry a bit over it. I’m still crying when I answer the com, and Susan lets me take a minute to compose myself before she starts up.

“I have Doctor Jordan on the second line. She’s been briefed on your…situation…and has more information for you. I’m afraid that for the foreseeable future you’re fu—in trouble. Eleven we need you to stay on this run. There’s a lot of money involved, and meeting the Chinochkan for the first time cements a relationship that will keep other units from muscling in. They place a lot of emphasis on punctuality.”

My nose doesn’t run when I cry. My eyes are larger when I rub them though so it kind of evens out.

“So you want me to…” I can’t really finish the sentence, but Susan nods anyway.

“I’m gonna bring Doctor Jordan on the line, unless you want to take some time…” Susan is being understanding. It’s worse than her distant professionalism, because I need it so much.

Doctor Jordan has her own Gen-B. Her features are like mine, the way I have to get used to looking in the mirror. She’s stunningly attractive. That’s me now.

“Mister Sector? May I call you Eleven?”

I nod.

We both wait for Susan to get off the line. She doesn’t take the hint, so after an awkward minute I boot her from the channel.

Dr. Jordan starts right up, “I’m sorry that this happened to you. Unfortunately there’s not much we can do. Adjustment to a new body would be difficult even if it was your own gender. The neurological damage will take awhile to undo.”

“So it’ll be at least a year?” Hold out hope Eleven.

“Eleven, we aren’t even sure how some of the drugs that put you under work.”

Ignore that. “Do you know anything about what will happen to me?”

“There have been…experiments. And mistakes. In fifty years it’ll be an actual therapy, and even a “larva” will be able to get another larva body in the opposite sex.”

I’ve never heard that term for my old body before. I’m pretty sure it’s derogatory.

“But it’s illegal as hell. When your doctor is apprehended, mistake or not, he’ll have to plead down to death.”

“So what’s going to happen to me?”

“Well. Long story short? You’re going to get very horny.”

Oh.

“Your pituitary gland has noticed that your testicles are shrunken. It doesn’t know that they’re missing. So it’s going to send you through puberty again, which means it’ll produce a whole bung of luteinising. And that’s going to make your sex drive hardcore.”

I don’t think thats the medical term. “Acne?” It’s the first thing I ask and I don’t know why. My voice is timid. Trembling.

“No,” Doctor Jordan laughs, “your skin is far more resistant to infection than your larva.”

I terrible thought occurs, “Do I have to deal with, um, my time of the month?”

“You have a Gen-B,” Doctor Jordan tells me. “You only have to have your menses if you want to.”

My nose still isn’t running, but I sniff anyway and nod.

“There are pills that will make your uterine lining build up,” Jordan continues, “but, as you might imagine, most women don’t see a reason to undergo it at all.” She pauses. “Are you eating the goop?”

“Does it taste like baby food?”

“I think it must. It’s made of the same stuff. Just be glad you don’t have to teethe again.”

I think I like her. I think I might like her more than I should. I think all this liking might be a problem.

“If you were planet-side there would be hormone treatments that would make it easier, but I don’t think the ship pharm has anything that will help you.” She pauses, I think delicately. “Eleven, you really need to cut out the booze.”

Why? What have you heard?

“Your neurology is in crisis. For the next month or so, trying to augment it is going to cause you serious problems.”

I roll my eyes, but I’m embarrassed. As a way of not thinking about it, I turn to…the thought of Dr. Jordan’s teeth on my nipples. I might have a problem here.

“You have my com. Lets try and stay in touch, at least weekly, over the next six months.”

“Sure, that sounds fine.” More than fine.

“Get a lot of exercise, almost as much as you sleep. Bye,” she signs off.

I’m alone with my thoughts which have moved on to the way a Gen-B pussy tastes.

~

It’s a week later. I’m five months out still. On solid foods now, and I can eat honey. I haven’t consciously eaten honey in years. It’s probably in some things I’ve eaten, I know. But just sat down and eaten honey on toast? Just not a part of my diet.

To make sure I can handle it, there’s honeycomb in the galley. Like bears eat. Like I ate as a child, on toast. I put it on an English muffin. The first bite just sits in my mouth for a full five minutes as I taste it. After all that baby food, something familiar from my childhood is a frighteningly amazing experience. It takes me 40 minutes to have breakfast. I pack a third of the honey comb away, for when I need comfort food.

Exercise. Four hours a day. It’s actually physical therapy, but I don’t call it physical therapy, because that makes it sound like I’ve been shot. I practice balancing, which I’m pretty good at now. Then I lift heavy things for awhile. I’m not going to be chubby, but why chance making this body look less incredible.

There aren’t a lot of mirrors on the ship, but there are tons of screens and cameras, and I wander around with the mirror settings on. I’m trying to get used to it, but I’ll be honest. Every time I see my body, I can’t help but touch it. Sometimes just my face, but my breasts are gorgeous. I look like a different person touching myself, and it’s hot as hell.

I’ve tried touching my pussy. I didn’t want to at first. It’s been hard to accept that this is the way I am for now. Normally a run like this would be a wankfest, there’s not a lot to do.

I’m aroused all the time. My nipples could cut glass for 23 hours of a normal day. But my little clit is still too sensitive to rub around.

I can get close with just my nipples though. Before I go to sleep I have to touch myself, it feels like I’m a teenager again. I lay back and pinch my tits and feel shock waves go down my spine, and tingle my pussy. But it’s not enough. Eventually I fall asleep, feeling my snatch soaking wet, and frustrated completely.

~

I’m totally guilty. I want to cross. That’s the way I think about it still. It’s a solo run. There’s no one around. And I feel embarrassed about wanting to wear women’s clothes.

It’s been three weeks. The fans on the ship don’t hurt my skin. My long hair doesn’t rip my shoulders to shreds. I can wear it down now and I don’t wince when I move my head too fast. Of course my old clothes don’t fit, for a start they have an inseam. I tried it out with my boxers. Just put them on and wore them about Bertha for a bit. But I felt…

I don’t know how I felt.

I guess like I was dressing wrong.

But women’s clothes are wrong too, and I feel terrible looking through the printer’s wardrobe mods. There’s a lot of stuff in here. I knew I’d need new clothes. I’m not surprised to find the women’s section has 3 times as much as the men’s. It makes me feel a little proud. I’m not sure of what.

Yeah they’re all synthetic. Even my father can’t afford to wear organic textiles every day. To be honest, I don’t even think he could tell the difference between modern poly-cotton and organic cotton. It’s just a status thing.

In the bunk house, with the printer, I pull out my tablet, connect it, and look at the options again. My heart rate is going up. Instead of action, I ping Doctor Jordan.

She answers in a chipper mood, “Eleven! You’re early. What’s going on?”

It’s only been a couple of days since we talked last. The conversation has been light, while I try and figure out what’s going on in my head. She’s been supportive, hasn’t pushed me too far, so calling her up for this feels okay. Scary, but okay.

I look down as I explain the situation. The part where I don’t want to, not the parter where I really want to. The wrongness of wearing girl clothes. I feel more vulnerable than I’ve ever felt while sober. Halfway through I just give up, toss my hands, and wait for her to say something.

“Oh honey,” Doctor Jordan sounds like she’d touch my shoulder when she says it. Or my hair. Or my… “You should do it. Just start slow, you don’t have to wear anything risque. But you can’t run around naked all the time. Why don’t you just print some clothes, try them on, and call me back?”

We hang up, and I put my head in my hands. My nipples are so hard, they hurt.

I turn back to the wardrobe. I know I should just pick up some plain cotton panties, and a sports bra. But there’s an icon my finger immediately hovers over. It’s a pair of panties with flowers and lace.

I print out three bottoms and three tops. Red, black and purple. Some of them have straps, some of them have lace. All of them have frills. All of them are inventive.

Then I really take a risk. Stockings and heels.

~

After a little bit of holding my first bottoms, I figure it out. There’s an off color seam on the inside of the panties, but only on the left. That’s how you tell, without a fly.

The panties feel so good, going up my legs. I tuck them under my pussy, and they feel foreign and wonderful. The lace brushes over my thighs as I make an experimental parade around the bunk. My hips have felt different, but I’ve been frumping around the place. When I really start to walk I can feel them swing. I’m sure my ass looks incredible. I set all the screens in here to camera, and watch myself.

In a haze of hedonism, I pose, and snap a couple of pictures. I’m feeling a little demented when I lay a tablet on the floor and straddle it. Look down at my body from a worm-eye angle. Shit I look good. After a couple of seconds I notice a damp spot on my crotch.

So I switch to bras. I know this body was perky enough not to need them. I don’t know if I doubt that, or if I just want to wear a sexy bra.

No. I know.

They take a little bit to work out, and I end up looking online. There are a bunch of “life hacks” for putting on bras. I feel like I’m getting a jump start on this whole “woman” thing. I don’t know how they worked in antiquity, but all I have to do is pinch the clasps together and hit the tag, and they bind right up. The shoulder straps take a lot of working out, the little adjuster things are over my shoulder blades, which seems like bad design. There’s some stuff online about how to fit the shoulders right. That’s great, because when they’re wrong, they’re really wrong.

With the first one on, I model for the screens. I have cleavage now! Again, little bits of lace tickle my skin. Looking at myself in the mirrors, my nipples are like little pebbles. A quick check. Yep, that damp spot has grown.

I double down on this crossing thing, and pick up the hoes and garters.

Putting on the tights is intuitive, of course. Until I get to the garters, and then it’s back to the Internet to figure out how they work. Apparently I’m not the only woman not to have been taught this.

I just called myself a woman. I don’t know how to feel about that.

Okay these panties are absolutely damp now, I have to change and start the process over.

~

The next ensemble is red and black. Lacey with little flowers. It’s see through in places I’ve never seen through before. The bra goes on first this time. It squeezes my tits together, almost too tight. Almost not tight enough. I can feel my pussy get wet, when I tuck my legs together for another picture. It makes my toes curl a little.

These tights are finer, and lined with red lace. I put them on and clip them to the garter belt in one smooth motion.

Panties still off I go over the shoes. I decided not to get too complicated, and didn’t want to set the heels too high. So three pairs only have inch heels. The red pair though. The red pair is six inch stilettos, in shiny red leather. I jump in the deep end and try on them on.

Here’s the thing, I don’t know how to put on heels. I put them on the way I wear my boots. This means that I’m kneeling in one, while I buckle the other. This is hardly optimal, because I can’t bend the ball of my foot, because these shoes don’t work that way. I have to grab the bed post when I get both feet beneath me, and I catch a glimpse of myself on the monitors.

I’m squatting, in red lace tights and bra, on the tips of my heels. My pussy is bare and glistening. I can’t help but put my fingers in my mouth, and brush a finger over the shutter button on the monitor. I take more than a couple of pictures like that.

Okay. I’m ready to touch my pussy now.

The clothes have me hotter than ever. I turn off the monitors, then turn them all back on again. Why do I want to watch myself? Why wouldn’t I want to watch myself? I’m hot as hell.

Still in the stockings and heels, still squatting, my fingers run down my chest to my stomach. It’s a straight line to the tip of my clit. On the monitors I can see it peaking out of my engorged lips. I don’t go straight for it, I’ve been around the block a few times. I know what a woman wants.

What this woman wants is tantalization.

So I start at my my bellybutton, or the place my bellybutton was. Which is my belly. I run my fingernails over the center of my abdomen. Gently brush them over. I feel my toes curl, just a little bit, and shift my weight on the heels. And then my fingernails get down lower.

I don’t know what I’ll like down there, so I start to experiment. First it’s fingernails over my labia. Turns out I like that a lot. One nail goes up one lip and down the other, and I do that more than a couple of times.

My right arm starts to get tired, and I realize it’s because I’ve been running it through my hair. I rest it on my breast instead, and start playing with my nipple in time to the finger on my labia. The bra’s gotta come off, and I pull myself away from my pussy long enough to fling it across the room.

Then running from one side to the other, the flat of my nail bumps up against my clit hood and I almost fall over.

“Oh, that’s nice,” my voice surprises me. It’s not my voice, and it’s also the first thing I’ve said out loud in a couple days.

What do women do while they do this? They moan. I’m breathing hard already, but practice some kind of sound in my throat. That feels pretty right.

The moan seems a little premature. Time for the main event. Lets see how I feel about tweaking my clitoris. I bring a finger up from the edge of my hole, noticing how wet I am, and flick it over the edge of my clit.

Turns out, I don’t like that at all.

So instead I put two fingers under my clit and rub up and down.

I don’t like that either.

I’m getting hotter and hotter, and I’m not getting what I want here.

This time I put three fingers together, one on either side of my button, and one on top it. I push the hood over it, just a little bit, and go in tight circles. Then bigger ones. Then much bigger ones. An electric cable runs from the tip of my core, straight up my spine. My knees tremble. My left hand leaves it’s tit alone, because I have to lean back on it, and run my fingers over my dripping pussy. Now my ankles are weak and off balance, but I’m getting pretty close. Then I fall off the heels, and land on one of the monitors. My elbow collapses too, but I’m too busy with my cunny.

I kick a foot out and catch it on the edge of the bunk, and then give up and fall onto my back, panting hard. I’m close, but now that I’ve got a feel for it, I’m ready to draw it out.

~

A girl’s first time should be special, right?

I’m too horny for special. I have a vagina and I plan to use it.

Still, I turn some of the monitors to little candle pictures, as I sit on the bunk. Lean back on the pillow. Pinch a nipple with either hand. I roll them a bit, and then give a soft tug. My breasts are engorged, and when I pull on my nipples I feel a leap inside my pelvis.

I realize that I’m still wearing the stockings and shoes. This excites me even more, and I hook my heels over the rails of the bunk. There’s a monitor in front of me, and I can see this sexy girl. Her stockings and heels on, spreading her pussy straight for the camera.

Can I try a finger inside me?

It feels an equal amount painful and pleasurable. That’s gonna take some working on, apparently. I pull the finger out, and reflexively slip it into my mouth as I paw my pussy with my other hand. Of course I taste delicious, like sugar and salt on your fingertips. My legs spasm a bit more.

I try another moan, just to see how it goes, and then start doing it naturally as my fingertips build me up. I’m doing it like I’m breathing now. When I go over the edge I actually lose myself enough to give out something between a scream and a gasp of delight.

My knees, ankles, and toes all jerk; trembles at first, and then hard. My heart rate shoots up, and a feel a burst deep in my solar plexus. The orgasm goes on for longer than I expected. It’s twenty seconds of gasping and thrashing as my back spasms and I pinch my nipples in ecstasy.

My moans drag into a low “ooooooooooooh” sound, and I feel my skin flush. That’s a surprise, but it brings the orgasm home to a full body experience.

I lay still on the bed for several moments, and don’t realize it when I drift off to sleep. Stockings still on, one heel half off, the other on the floor.

“How has your week been?” Dr. Jordan has a plate of chobbish and is munching away. I have (ugh) noodle rations. We’ve been having dinner together once a week for four weeks now. It’s been about four days since I managed to get off for the first time, and now I’ve been doing it at every opportunity. Sometimes I dress up, sometime just my thoughts are enough to get me off.

“You said I’d have a teenager’s libido. That’s pretty much true.” I still fantasize about Dr. Jordan’s mouth, but I’m learning to control it.

Dr. Jordan sounds professional when she says, “Oh?” But she shifts her shoulders a bit. I feel like that means she’s more interested than she’s letting on.

But I’m getting comfortable with her, and I’ve never had a strong filter, “I’ve been jacking it like crazy. I feel like I’m fourteen again.”

“Eleven,” Dr. Jordan’s voice sounds like she’s trying to broach something. I wave my chopsticks at her, my mouth is full. “Please put your legs down.”

I didn’t even notice. I have one leg up on the armrest of the chair and the other splayed out in front of me. The best I can do is give her a why? look.

“Eleven, I don’t know how long you’re going to be like this. Certainly for the next year while you make this run. Obviously there have to be tests, but your second birth took a huge toll on your brain.”

I take one leg off the arm of the chair, and sit up straight. I wrest an ankle on my knee.

Dr. Jordan continues, “So in the meantime you have to get used to having a vagina… ” She pauses while I fail to get the hint. “… which I can see right now, Eleven. You must know how a girl crosses her legs, if only from observation.” She makes some serious eye contact for a moment, “I find it … very … distracting.”

And then just like that she’s my regular doctor/friend again.

So I sit and put one knee over the other and feel my hips fall into place. It’s much more comfortable than I expected it to be. I start thinking over the past four weeks of sitting down and wonder if I’ve been doing it wrong all this time.

“So you’ve learned to masturbate?” Dr. Jordan gets more doctoral. But like, a really weird personal doctor, who wants to know if you frequently masturbate.

I’ve noodled up, so I can only nod, and I think I probably do it more eagerly than I mean to.

Dr. Jordan doesn’t wink. I’m almost positive she doesn’t anyway.

“That’s an important rubric. It means almost all of your skin has lost its birth sensitivity. How are the soles of your feet?”

“Okay, it doesn’t hurt when I walk anymore. The deck is cold. I haven’t tried socks yet.” I consider telling her about the heels.

I tell her about the heels.

I play it cool, she already knows about the clothes. But there’s something in my new voice. It sounds like I’m telling her a secret. That’s a girl thing, right? Girls do that?

And she listens, and she seems interested, and she says, “Show me.”

~

The bots have gone through and hung up all the clothes. I sort of expected them to be folded up and put in drawers, not on hooks in the wardrobe. I guess bots know how women’s clothes work better than I do. Which is to say: at all. There’s a lot I’ve never even tried on, I go straight for the sexy stuff when it’s special me time.

I sort thought the clothes and pick out a sun dress. It’s white and cotton, with little roses printed on it. I have Dr. Jordan on the monitor in the bunkhouse, and for no reason at all, I turn it away while I slip it over my head. Cloth on my skin feels weird, especially on my shoulders. It’s something I’ll have to get used to again.

The dress hugs my ribs, and is snug on my curves, while it floats over my hips and tickles my thighs. The mirror of dread is still on the wall, and I watch myself as I pick up the hem and swish it back and forth. I give a little twirl of my hips, for good measure.

“You twirled,” Dr. Jordan says, from behind me.

I actually squeal, and my fingertips touch my sternum reflexively.

“I can control the monitor,” Jordan says, and makes it swing back and forth.

I feel myself blush, partly from being caught changing, partly from some other emotion. For some reason, being the object of her scrutiny is making me nervous. And something else.

Wanted.

“You look good,” she says.

Then I find myself swinging a little on the balls of my feel for her, while I swish again. She tells me she wants to see the sandals. “I didn’t print any sandals,” I tell her.

“Eleven, you can’t wear a sun dress without sandals. Show me something else?”

I turn her around again, shrug the dress over my head, and pick up a simple pair of tight jeans. And a… “I don’t know how to wear this,” I tell Dr. Jordan. “The page wasn’t very descriptive.”

She turns herself around again, I don’t realize I’m not wearing a bra, or panties until it’s too late, and I feel my whole body flush. Dr. Jordan pretends not to notice, and my heart rate slowly comes down. It’s nothing she hasn’t seen before, Eleven.

Still I cross my arms, and Jordan carefully doesn’t appraise me. She just swings herself back around and talks to the wall. “Why did you print it if you don’t know what it is.”

I don’t know. “The model looked… ” I trail off before I can say sexy. That’s a red line right now. I still tell myself I’m not trying to look sexy, while I ogle my sexy self in the mirror until my clit is begging for it.

“It’s a halter top, hon. Tie the strap behind your neck.”

It’s crimson, and it’s close to my skin too. Now my breasts feel tightly confined. I don’t like that feeling as much as I want to. “It’s not very comfortable,” I say.

“You might get used to it. It looks good.” I feel like some lines are blurring here. That’s exciting. “Go ahead and take it off,” she nearly purrs.

I turn my back to her.. I look over the edge of my shoulder, through my eyelashes, and see Dr. Jordan on the is on edge of her seat. This might be why I do it really slow. Reach up, run my fingers over my shoulders, untie the top, pull it down.

“Try the jeans on?”

Oh crap, the jeans! “I forgot to put on panties!”

Dr. Jordan actually giggles when she shrugs.

I blush again, and pick the jeans off the floor. I haven’t put another top on, and the atmosphere is charged pretty hard. It’s like I’m getting dressed in a changing room, but a changing room where someone hot is watching me. We’re both aware that the social norms say this is an okay situation to be naked in. But I’m still naked, in front of someone.

Put the jeans on. I have to struggle to get them up to my waits, but the zipper works. I run my hands over my hips. The denim is tight, all the way down to my knees, where it flairs out. They feel less sexy, more everyday. That’s right. Wearing women’s jeans, I feel like I could wear them everyday. “They feel like jeans,” I tell her.

“Jeans do.”

I turn Dr. Jordan around again, to strip them off. This is incongruent with the way my tits are bare, and I’m not paying attention to that right now. Taking them off is difficult. It devolves into turning them inside out while I strip them down my legs. As I balance on one leg and try to shake the other loose from my pants I come to a realization: I’ve seen a dozen women do this. The reality of what’s happened becomes a little more real.

But now I have to put on the last thing, and it needs some panties.

Yeah, these ones feel just as good to put on as before.

Then the little black dress goes on over the top. This is tight, and takes a little bit of scootching to get into place. My thighs are skooshed together, and now I can feel myself getting a little wet. But once I’m arranged I look into the mirror and feel a thrill of shock. That woman is gorgeous. I totally want to be her right at this moment.

I turn Dr. Jordan around again, and pet my sides. I may rock my hips a little bit too.

“Let me see it with the shoes,” she says.

I have to find those, and find out suddenly that my old system for shoes doesn’t work with a dress on.

“Keep your knees together and squat instead of bending over,” Dr. Jordan tells me. “Don’t splay your legs and bend unless you want a lot of attention.” She watches me for a second longer, then, “Slip you feet into the shoes, don’t pick them up. I know it’s hard, it get easier with practice.”

After a little figuring I get the heels on, and this time I definitely rock my hips, as I bring my fingers over my hips, up my sides, over the line of my nipples and up to my shoulder.

I leave the dress on, and practice walking in the heels. It is not easy. Jordan follows me on a monitor, and we continue to talk. I’m getting used to the sound of my voice. It’s interesting, because even the vibrations in my throat feel different to me.

“No adam’s apple,” Dr. Jordan points out. And we talk for another hour or so, while my nipples get hard under the dress. We sign off so I can get back to my clitoris.

~

It might surprise you to know, that the Internet isn’t bad 90 light years into deep space. I made sure there was a quantum entanglement modem on board. On runs like this, I usually spend a lot of time chatting up women online. Cyber is cyber, even with a gulf of galaxies between you.

But I’ve stayed off of the chat servers for awhile.

I just realized that I can visit the lesbian servers without being banned on sight. They’re usually pretty aggressive with non-females trying to hone in. Turns out that watching women fuck each other is something every gender can get off on. But I’m in now.

Am I a lesbian?

It’s been preying on my mind for some time. I definitely fantasize about women, even if it’s myself more often than not. I have a bunch of bookmarks to porn sites, but it’s only in the past couple of days that I’ve started watching again. To be honest the amount of pleasure with a woman’s sex organs, and all of the thoughts around them, have made porn an unnecessary component of masturbation.

But two days ago I was on the net, and hit one of the streaming sites out of boredom. Sure, why not make the experience better? Without thinking about it, I just went to some lesbian porn, and while I was getting wet, and starting to role my clit in my fingers, I clicked on an old favorite.

It’s a human man and woman, and she’s my type. I like it because she scoots a buttpulg in her anus, and puts on nipple clamps that chain to a collar. Then she squats, pussy bare, to give some guy a blowjob.

I actually forget that I’m screwing myself for a moment, while my breathing gets much stronger. I don’t know what I thought when I was a man watching this, but I feel everything different now. Before, I think the turn on was that she was pleasuring herself, and him, because she needed it so bad. I never was much good at introspection though.

But I know what I’m feeling now.

I rewind to the beginning, as she spreads lube on the little blue plug. It’s not particularly intimidating, and now I find that relieving. She starts the lube over her anus with a finger, running it around in circles, and slips in just to her first knuckle. Then she runs the tip of the plug over her hole. She’s quicker this time, more eager to get it inside her. And when she starts forcing it into herself, she uses just the tips of two fingers to get it started, then eases it in with her palm.

She shows the camera the clamps, and picks up each nipple in thumb and forefinger to pinch them and apply. The chain goes to a collar around her neck, and she adjusts it so that her tits are getting pulled up, and sighs.

Some guy shows up in the frame, and she wastes a little time fingering her pussy, before she brushes her hair back and really gets to work blowing him.

What I’m feeling now, while I go back to pinching my own tits, and brushing my fingers over my clit, is that I want to be her. I want to do what she’s doing, and not just the plug and the clamps and everything… but… that.

There are far too many sexual preferences to discriminate against any one, though you still see some people put in the effort these days. While I knew I had lots of options I’ve always been comfortable with just some old fashioned hetro.

But now I’m watching the girl get sloppy, sucking dick. She licks his base to his frenum. She holds just the glans in her mouth and her cheeks pucker, and then she brings her lips slowly down, until she has the whole thing deep in her throat. And then she pops over her lips a bit and starts fucking him with her throat.

And while she’s doing that, a whole bunch of empathy is going on in my head, and I’m getting off on imagining that the dick is deep in my throat. That I’m the one feeling his head in my mouth, and tasting his sloppy pre-cum.

And now, I’m beginning to wonder if Eleven really wants to suck a dick.

I’m getting a welcome signal. Someone wants me to come visit them.

There’s a little HAM Digital receiver in the flight deck. I picked it up in a truck stop, with a wink and a nod, for $100 bucks, ten years ago. It’s about the size of a lunch box, with a four foot antenna cluttering up the deck. I’ve got a pretty heft load on the antenna, so it’s strong enough to pick up from inside the ship. There’s no jack for an antenna on the surface hull, and it would get melted into vapor on re-entry in any case.

No voice, just text, it’s little screen is blinking. I’ve run through someone’s signal, 198 light years into deep space.

“Come to Logan’s Fun,” says the message. Coordinates and a date. The date is 25 years, three months and five days ago. There’s also a picture of a little girl, captioned, “Kasey Logan, ‘Five, but I’m almost six.’” She has a missing tooth, mousy brown hair blue eyes, and she’s 31 now.

Why would I want a HAM radio? Coms are done with quantum entanglement, instant. Radio waves travel at the speed of light. Pretty useless for an intergalactic traveler.

But not for a smuggler.

They—we—call them dark stations. Deep space stations, off the grid and covered in stealth technology. Most of them are run by crazy anti-government Libertarians, who spend a lot of money to keep themselves out of the purview of the SOI. They have no net presence, don’t advertise, and—like the fight clubs of classic literature—no one talks about them. Not with people who don’t know about them already.

Twenty five light years away is a week’s trip. In another twenty five years their signal with hit the main shipping routes, and they’ll have to move. Unless I’m intercepting an old signal and they’ve moved already.

“Clearly,” I say aloud, (I’ve been talking to myself more, getting used to my voice), “I can’t spend the fuel.” I’m smuggling guns, there aren’t a lot of legit gas stations out here.

That’s not the reason. I have more than enough fuel, and illicit stations sell fuel too.

I always drop by the dark stations. I brought cash to barter with. And father expects at least one crate to go mysteriously missing on a run like this. The guys running these stations are nuts for the shit I’m selling. It’s so far off the records we don’t even talk about it, but when I make a run there’s an extra (off manifest) crate in the hold, and it sells for twice as much.

It sells for three times as much, but as long as we’re fudging the books, there’s no reason Eleven has to be straight too.

And you can buy anything on a dark station. Drugs? Sure, drugs that you can’t get anywhere else. Drugs that’ll take a week off your memory and a year off your life. Contraband? See: above re: illegal guns. There’s shot-on-sight level stealth tech Printing mods for stuff you could never find, even on corners of the deep web. Women? Don’t even get me started on the women. Dark stations cater to real weirdos. You can find women with holes, in their holes.

But with recent… developments? I pull the antenna and let it snap back, dejected. I can talk to Susan and Dr. Jordan, but I haven’t talked to a man yet.

I’m safe with women, at a distance, but now? The way my fantasies are lately, I’m not sure what I would do. Jump someones bones, or throw up in fear.

~

The most popular porn searches for women are: lesbian, threesome, anal, and orgy. I’ve been in some orgies, it’s not really a fantasy of mine. But I’m watching them more now. A lot more.

Bonobo monkeys are some of the closes to us, genetically and socially. And they fuck like a teenage fantasy. Assuming teens fantasize about humans who fuck like bonobo monkeys. Before missionary and monogamy, human women were into more “come one, come all” relationships. That’s what the moans are for, if you believe the sociologists. Women make noise to tell all the guys in the area that the shop is open for business.

Maybe that’s why I don’t moan. I’m trying to moan more though. I don’t know why.

I still don’t know how I feel about sucking dick, but for some reason, I know how I feel about sucking more than one. Good is how I feel about that. Alternating between one and another, hands an lips and hands. And riding and sucking. Yeah, I feel like I could totally take a couple of dicks.

I’m laying in bed, wearing the heels again. Sometimes I masturbate without them, sometimes I do it with heels and tights. Tonight it’s heels, and I’m sitting on a pillow on the bunk, straddling it, leaning back and using my favorite three fingers. My right hand holds the rail of the top bunk. I’m on the pillow, because now being on top is a loose fantasy.

The tighter fantasy is being on bottom. Wrapping my legs around someones head. When I do that, I can’t imagine getting plowed. Having my pussy filled with dick, as I lay on my back is way too far for me to go.

But riding? Being in control of some guys cock? Somehow that feels safe.

While I jack off (I have to find another term now, I guess), in my mind I’m riding a rod. In my head I can feel it. Bending over every couple of seconds, I brush my lips over the pillow, and imagine I’m feeling the skin around his dick. Then I lean back and clutch the tip of one of the heels and imagine I’m riding him cowboy.

I’ve experimented with fingers in my pussy. At first it was a 50/50 spit between pleasure and pain. Now it’s about 65/35. It’s best when I just rest the pad of my index finger against the entrance to my hole, and then let the rest of my finger run over my clit. The first time I did that I came within seconds.

I have to take a second to put a finger in my mouth. Now I’ve got two dicks, one to ride and one to suck. I’m sure it’s a terrible substitute, but I don’t have anything better right now.

Then my brain wants more, and I lay my chest on the bed, and stick my ass up into the air. My right hand is tearing up my clit, a finger almost in to the first knuckle. And then my left hand goes to the other hole.

It shocks me, to be honest. I’m not at all sure what I’m doing. And I don’t stick anything inside. But now I’ve got a fingernail running over the outside of my butthole. It tweaks all of the little ridges (turns out Gen-Bs have those too) and hangs on them occasionally.

That’s another guy out there. Another dick ready to fill me up. Oh god, I’m close and it’s gonna be big.

His head is making a little exploration of my butthole. I use the pad of my finger, feels more like a pecker.

Doing that I feel like a little barrier inside me has been broken, and oblivious to the pain, I jam my finger straight into my pussy.

I don’t move much at all, but in my head I’m almost knocked over. My imaginary guy is behind me now, I’m no longer on top. He’s fucking me doggy style like a… Don’t think about it Eleven. Just imagine him drilling you. I want that to be a real dick, and I want it pounding me so hard my head crushes the mattress until my neck aches.

And I come right then and there, with a finger as deep inside me as I can get it.

I kick the heels off, and fall asleep, still idly fingering the ring of my anus.

~

I’m brought out of a dream I don’t remember by the shriek of the fire alarm. Over the klaxon is a female voice calmly telling me that the med-bay is a fucking inferno right now.

I have to find the fire panel to get it under control. It’s nice that the fire panel is in the corridor next to the med-bay, because yes, it’s very on fire.

The hatch slammed shut when the panel found no life signs inside, but I have to authorize fire measures before it’ll stop all of the burning. It’s regulation on some of the older ships, I don’t know why.

I stab the button, and in less than a second there’s no more oxygen in the med-bay, and no more fire too.

Through the port I can see the gen tank is has blown to smithereens, blackened the wall and the ceiling, and covered the floor in little bits of razor sharp glass.

I lay my head against the bulkhead and feel the adrenaline drain out of my body. I want to cry. I blame that on my adrenal gland, and not my crazy thymus. My muscles are trembling, even my diaphragm as I take shaky breaths. I think a little bit is that I’ve never had an emergency with these muscles before.

I open the hatch and look at the damage. Dammit, I can’t go in there naked and barefoot.

I go to the bunk house, and print a nice solid pair of boots, and some comfy socks. I have to wait thirty minutes while they come in, and in the meantime I go to the con and start running emergency checks. This takes twenty five minutes to go over, while I wonder just how fucked I am. Obviously AAA doesn’t tow out here.

But I can’t think of anything that the med bay could have running through it. It’ not like there’s any hydraulic that goes through there. The electric didn’t short out anywhere, so that’s not a problem.

Then the computer generates the check sheet and I see that I’m motherfucked.

The fire has managed to hit some kind of chemical… thing… and that got in to the water filtration system. I don’t have any idea what it is, because all the sheet says is “compromised.”

That’s a big problem. If the system doesn’t know what it is, it can’t filter it out. And if it can’t filter it out, it shuts down for my safety. Now all the water I have left is what’s in the potable tank.

I put my head in my hands for a second feel myself start to cry, and then stop. Something inside me decides that crying isn’t worth it. I’m pretty sure I’ll cry later. Not now.

I run my hands through my hair for a bit. The last of the adrenaline is gone, and I’m feeling the part of the come down where you just want to get to work.

I go to put on the boots.

~

The work boots have printed. I slip the socks on and they feel okay on my feet. Then I stand and slip my feet into the boots, heels style. It’s a second before I realize I have to lace them, and then I sit on the bed, and bend at the waist. I feel like I’ve lost something, and that feels… something. Definitely not good. I would know if it felt good. I keep reminding my self that it doesn’t.

The camera in the bay is fried, but the data it sent to the brain isn’t. From the con, I watch the nurse-bot carefully screw with some of the tanks. Sabotage.

I step into the med-bay and hear the glass crunch under my boots. Every cannister is blown to ribbons, the nurse is shrapnel in the wall, there’s bits of blackened plastic everywhere. It looks like the liquid I was breathing all that time was flammable. Makes sense. It must have been mostly oxygen. From there some of the disposables and antiseptics caught fire and that spread all over the place.

I forgot about the drain in the floor. The med-bay was designed so you could mop up a lot of… fluids. From bodies. That’s where it got compromised. Who knows what’s in the sewer tank. Now I’m glad I won’t be drinking it.

There’s a closet with some work gloves, and I put them on. A trash can trundles in, and I put everything it can’t lift up inside it. Boots on, socks on, gloves on, the rest naked. I don’t have the energy for that to turn me on right now.

The trashcan has a sweeper, and I tell it to start picking up the glass.

I’m definitely not a mechanic, but enough mechanics make DIY videos on the net, and Bertha is old enough that there are a lot of videos. I figure out where the water tank is and how to get to it. Print some overalls, and prepare to get really dirty.

It takes the better part of two hours, while I remove pieces of corridor, then the pieces behind those pieces. Then the pieces behind those pieces. When I get to the tank I can see the little light up error panel with the helpful word “ERROR” on it, and a code. I look up on the net, and it tells me…jack shit. All the code means is the kind of diagnostic equipment I need. A DX-Series 7. There’s nothing like that on the manifest, but I go through the storage lockers anyway. There’s a bunch of cables, an old tablet, and a single ladies shoe (size 16 1/2).

Guess I’m going to the dark station.

“Yah need a carbon mod fer yer printer, but I dun’t think you’ll know how ta print one.”

First male I’ve talked to while I have breasts. He’s not attractive, thank god.

I’m on call with a Sector & Sector mechanic who knows nothing about me, or the mission, but is supposed to know a hell of a lot about this ship. Maybe he does, but I’m coming face to face with an attitude that should have died out last millennium.

“Look little lady, is the ship captain there, I think he’d better understand what I’m talking about.”

Right. “No, little man. you are talking to the captain. You have explained everything to the captain’s satisfaction, because the explanation was very simple. Simple enough that even a lady captain could understand it. Sector will pay your consulting fee. Don’t expect a tip.” I sign off before he can retort.

“You don’t see it much, but you still see it,” Susan was listening on the call.

My face is flaming. I can feel the heat of my heart through my chest. It doesn’t help that I’m terrified of what I have to do. Being talked down to doesn’t help.

Susan gives me a moment to compose myself before she says, “We can get you a tow, divert a Sector ship off one of the main routes. But it’s two weeks at least.”

Instead I tell her about the dark station. It’s the first time we’ve ever talked about them. I get ready to run down what a dark station is, and how I found it, when Susan pulls up a window and starts telling me about it.

“That’s Logan’s Fun, Sam Logan’s family runs it, unless someone has taken it over. We don’t have much on them, but I know they have a compressed hanger.”

“How big?”

“It doesn’t say. Bertha is a D-type, right? She should fit if you need to put a new tank in.”

“Crap. I didn’t ask Dick-Head-Todd if I had to remove the tank to flush it.”

“I think he would have wanted to talk to the—current owner—of a penis, in any case. He won’t be on the payroll much longer,” Susan is all business again, but I feel like the encounter with Todd has broken some kind of wall between us. “How far behind schedule will this put you?”

“I expected to go out of my way for a dark station.” There, we’re talking about it now. “But the set back really depends.”

“On?”

On how well I deal with being in public. “On what they have to print. If it’s a filter it might take a couple of days. It I have to remove the tank, I don’t know how long it’ll take.”

“I’ll make contact with the resistance. Three week window?

“It’s as good a guess as any.”

“Shouldn’t set us off too much.” She switches gears again, “We found your doctor.” For some reason, the way she says it, I feel like we should be talking over a carton of ice cream. “He was on a comet mining station, trying to buy a ride out of system with someone’s cargo. My guess is that he assumed without the tank we wouldn’t have any evidence to prosecute.”

“My guess is that he was wrong?”

“Your father chose an extreme definition of ‘prosecute.’ Do you want to know how?”

“As long as it was painful, I don’t really care.”

“Lets just say that if they find him, they won’t even be sure the body was humanoid.”

I feel like that should make me feel better. Instead it triggers a wealth of emotions. Helplessness for a start. Some shock from something that never would have shocked me before. I think about what Dr. Jordan said—keeps saying. That changing back is a remote option, at best. But what I’m mostly feeling is just sadness. Overwhelming sadness.

It must show on my face because Susan keeps her professional facade down, “It’s okay Eleven, we’re going to fix this.”

All I can do is nod.

“Call me when you can,” and she goes dark.

#

“I think you should go,” Dr. Jordan is eating a kale salad.

Do I have to like salad now? Salad is alright, but I’ve eaten it as a main course. Maybe I’ll try to like yogurt too.

“You have a year in that body, at least, Eleven. You’ll have to talk to someone eventually.”

“Why do you keep saying, ‘at least?’ Can’t I take it off like a stained shirt?” I have noodles. A lot of noodles. Plus of Logan’s Fun: I can eat some real food.

“Eleven, in order to put your brain into a new body, we had to put it to sleep with some drugs we don’t even entirely understand. Reverting back to a 1.0 is unheard of. I don’t know a single reputable doctor that would write off on it.”

I don’t say anything, just noodle up and think about delicious station food for a bit.

“Have your hands stopped shaking?” Dr. Jordan looks at the hand, holding the chopsticks, holding the noodles, up to my face. There’s just enough of a tremor that you can see the noodles shimy like jello.

“Yeah,” I tell her. I know she can’t see the noodles on the monitor, no one could.

“Eleven, I can see the noodles.”

I jam them in my mouth. I forgot what she could see with those Gen-B eyes. “I’m fine,” through the noodles. “I can handle the transition, no problem.”

“We’ll have to run some tests,” Dr. Jordan says it in the same tone your nanny would say, of course your daddy misses you, sweetie. Or maybe that was just my nanny. “Are you going to wear that sun dress. Have you printed some cute sandals?”

I look down at what I’m wearing, tank top and panties. Panties still feel less like underwear and more like sex, but most of the time I put that out of my mind. I think about crossing for a dark station full deviant sexual alien smugglers, and glower at Dr. Jordan.

Then a terrible realization strikes me, “Oh god,” I might have spit a little bit. “I have to deal with the wackos in hunter camo.”

“Hunter camo?”

“Like you wear in the woods? Not like the camo that they use in the forces. It’s all covered in trees. Deer can’t tell the fucking difference. Two thirds of the humans will be wearing it.”

“And they wear this on a space station?”

“They wear it all the time. You can buy a wedding dress made of the stuff. It’s like a uniform for these anti-government nut jobs.”

“Maybe you should try to blend in. I’ll be there are mods for a cute sun dress with trees on it.”

“Fuck you.” Oh shit, have I crossed a line?

Doctor Jordan just laughs, “I’m not going to risk a visit from the ethics board.”

She totally left that open. My fantasies intrude into my malaise without warning.

But the libertarian wackos stick in my mind. “I think I’ll just wear some coveralls.” Excuse: “Gotta look like I know how to flush a water tank.”

“You should smear some grease on your face to complete the image.”

Now that I know I can, I flip her off.

She smiles when she says, “Step out of your shell, it might make you happy.”

She might be right, and that’s terrifying.

#

Logan’s Fun is as modular as a space station can get. Pressurized shipping containers have been adapted, and locked together in a ring, sticking out like the teeth of a gear. There are seven rings stacked on top of each other, around a central core.

Each container is a little shop, or hotel, or brothel, paying rent to the Logan family. When “theyt dern gumment” comes to get them, the can disassemble the station in a week at most. An F-type hauler can carry between 25 and 50 containers, depending on the mass. They’ll just pack up and move.

I have to see all this from the wire frame that the scanner picks up, because the damn thing is painted black. Painting something black, in space, is pretty useless in a system. Out in deep space, where the closest illumination is 40 light years away? It’s very effective.

To the naked eye that is. Of course no one would be out here without a sensor array, so being difficult to see by eye is as useless as wearing hunter camo inside a place with big metal walls, and no trees.

On the plus side, they love to buy guns.

And drugs.

But in this case, guns.

They’ve known about Bertha since half a parsec away of course. They haven’t told me to fuck off, which is a pretty warm welcome from these people. I’ve been broadcasting a distress signal for a couple of days, over low band. Nut jobs they may be, but they’re not heartless.

“Flight control, this is Big Bertha requesting approach vectors.” I’m sitting in the flight seat in panties and tank top still. No thinking about what’s coming.

“Big Bertha this is Logan’s Fun, ya hear to buy or sell?”

“A little of both, and I need some repairs.”

“Cleared. We’re transmitting vectors, you’re landing in bay three.” Coms tells me.

I download them, punch them in, and keep my hands on the sticks (like regulation). I almost forget to turn the gravity off. If I have it on when I enter the station, the combination would break most of my bones. My butterfly is good up to 1.5 g. Two would mangle me like a garbage compactor.

I strap in, so I’ll stay in the seat with the I-Def off. Then find out I don’t like five point restraints while I’m wearing breasts. There is no way to get these things comfortable.

Five hangers on the bottom of the core, three on the top. Hanger 3 is the largest, and it’s got room for a couple of Berthas. She finds her way inside, and I feel my blood swish around. They’re using transitive circuit I-Def. It’s more even, and more cost effective for a large station. It’s still nothing like real gravity, but it’s more real than Big Bertha’s got. My heart spends a minute adapting, and then figures out how to pump my blood right.

Hanger management asks if I want umbilicals, rudely. When I answer him with my girl voice he gets a lot nicer. I explain what I need, and add that I have money. When you tell people you can pay for things in advance, they like to help you more.

“The bot will wave you in. Meet you at the hatch?” He asks.

“Hang on, I gotta put on pants,” I tell him, and I don’t know how to feel about the way his audible swallow makes me feel.

Nah, it feels pretty nice.

#

I’m in the bunk house staring at clothes, while Dr. Jordan sticks in my mind.

You’re going to meet a man for the first time, Eleven. You’re going to be cool. He doesn’t know you used to have testicles. He doesn’t know you have no experience with womanhood. All he knows is that you’re pretty. He’s just going to see you as a pretty girl.

I pick up the sun dress, on the hanger, and feel the cotton in my fingers. Look at the roses.

I’m not ready to be a pretty girl. I let my dress fall out of my hands and climb into the coveralls. Zip them up really high. Safe.

And on the way out the door, I start a cute pair of sandals printing.

#

Lock the bunk house. Lock down the hold. Lock down the flight systems, but leave the flight deck unlocked. They might need to get inside and… do something. Leave the head unlocked. That’s just being polite.

Then I’m out in the hanger and meeting Mitch, who appears to have his shit handled. He’s young, but grizzled. Dirty but doesn’t smell bad. Strong, but dumpy in his own yellow coveralls. He has a tool box on mags, because the thing is larger than my body, and weighs at least 200 pounds.

He has a rag stuffed in his back pocket, and I totally lied, because he smells like axle grease. Only that manly smell doesn’t smell bad at all.

I should be taller than him. Eleven the first was tall, I had good genes. Well… tall genes. When I step off the stairs and find that I only come up to his shoulder, I’m caught off balance.

We shake hands. I hold his hand longer than I should, because I can’t stop thinking about how his rough palm would feel on my nipple.

“Ma’am,” he says, “If you show me where the tank is, I can get to work.” Ma’am? What is he… oh. That feels uncomfortably nice.

I’m still holding his hand, and I drop it, and pull some hair out of my eyes.

I’m not flirting. There was hair in my eyes. “You need a DX-Series 7 to run the diagnostic, do you have that?”

“Ma’am? Series 9 is considered old.”

“So’s my ship,” I give Bertha a pat on the hull so she knows I meant it as a joke.

“Big BerthaI love her nose art.” He might be cool.

I show him up the stairs and through the corridor next to the mess. I kick a can full of bolts, so that he knows it’s there, then lean against the wall. My hair is in my eyes again. Stop touching it! “I had to take apart half the ship to get to the damn thing.”

Actually, I think the tank is behind a bulkhead because there shouldn’t be a reason* to get inside it. The ship has pipes for that. But I don’t want to have that conversation, so I shrug and say, “Whatcha gonna do?”

Mitch gets on his knees and puts his body through the hole, and looks at things a bit. Then he pops back out and grabs a bulky tablet that I assume is the DX, and goes back in. Then he pops out again and grabs some kind of wire thing, and calls to me in a I’m-inside-a-machine-and-want-you-to-be-able-to-hear-me volume, “What we do is run the diagnostic on the tank and see what’s in there.” He worms his way out, tablet in hand, wires sticking into the hole. “But of course, you knew that.”

I nod. Yeah, this is how you get treated by a professional.

“The we get a filter in the system and flush the tank through it. Easy fix. Unless..” He puts the tablet down and lays a wrist on his knee, “… unless you have something really solid in there. Then you need a new tank.”

“How much is that?”

“Well I don’t want to quote you before I know, but the filter is only gonna be a couple hundred, depending on the cartridge I need. A knew tank though?” Mitch rubs his fingers, signaling an assload of money. Mitch seems like a nice guy.

With rough palms.

“The scanner is gonna test some specific gravity crap. That’ll take about twelve hours. Then we gotta get you a new filter, that’s about a week to print. Flush it a couple of times, then get you full? That’s another day, I’d guess.”

I didn’t think it would be quick, but I wanted to just catch something to eat, unload some hot ordinance and be gone. I bite my bottom lip, a gesture that seems foreign to me, and see sympathy for a moment in Mitch’s eyes.

“If you’re sick of the bunk, D’neesha has a place in 109. There’s a hostel on the second level too. It’s bigger, but… ”

He’s right, I need something other than a bunk bed, if I’m trying to get away from my bunk bed.

“… a pretty girl like you, prolly doesn’t want to sleep in a hostel.” He finishes on a point I never thought of. Right. I’m pretty, small, and now a good molestation candidate. I’ve stayed at hostels in the worst places. Finding a naked, passed out, junkie on my bed was a high point.

He continues, “There’s two z-levels up above five, but I’ve never been up there.” He gestures between our two bodies. Then his eyes slip off my face, onto my genetically perfect breasts. It’s just a second, but getting checked out is a very weird feeling.

I can go into the z-levels now. I can eat things I’ve never eaten before. Meet people I never could have met. Suddenly I feel like a new person, and the feeling lasts longer than it has before, and I say to Mitch, “Okay. I’m gonna go change while you work here.”

The sandals have finished printing, they have little buckles. When I look at myself in the mirror, I can see that Dr. Jordan was right.

You can’t wear a sun dress without sandals.

I step out of the hanger, into the core, on the zero level, and there’s just ringed corridor with some personal elevators, and a bunch more freight lifts. D’Neesha’s is on level 2? I find the button, which is on a box, suspended from the ceiling, by a cable. The lift doesn’t close, just jerks to a start. I watch the innards of the tube scroll past, and look out on the first level for a moment.

Green. The place seems really green. It’s partly the fluorescent lights that sit in the ceiling. They’re old, and the elements are a little decayed. It’s partly the way the walls are painted green. Not really an ugly color. Just green.

The station’s central column is an open courtyard, stretching up to the fifth level. Large walkways ring the open space above the floor. I get off at 2 and see some of the other… patrons? Customers? Denizens?

In their respect Logan’s Fun is like any other inter-system outpost. Dozens of different clothes and hair, on dozens of different species. A dozen new sounds and smells a second. It’s overwhelming, like the first couple of seconds in a shopping mall. Then your brain adjusts and you just feel the tiny buzz of being in a market.

I step off the lift and walk toward the courtyard. I am very aware that I’m being looked at, and it takes a lot of focus to keep calm. I want to run. Back to my ship. Hide in the bunk house. Cry for a bit.

The sun dress swishes around my thighs. It’s not cold in here, and the sandals feel nice and airy.

When no one points at me and screams, or laughs, I’m almost ready to be calm again.

I can see, as I get closer, that the Logans are farming their own produce. The center is occupied by a vertical grow house. Suspended, and supported with little rails, is a green, leafy, wet, collection of vines and stalks, stretching from level two to the ceiling. It’s kept watered with clusters of sprayers, and it must be wildly inefficient.

But it smells amazing! After three months of recycled air and funk, I’d say that’s probably worth the expense. And the price-gouging on fresh strawberrys.

I walk to the railing, and ignore passersby for a moment, just staring at the plants. It smells like a green house, and over powers the smells of a space station with a hundred denizens in unwashed camo.

Yeah, they’re all around. It looks like a small, hick, forest, has decided to explore the stars.

I figure D’Neesha’s will have a sign, and I walk a circuit and do a little window shopping.

That’s a thing women do, right? I think I’ve been walking right. My hips are loose and I’m swinging my waist. You’re just a pretty girl Eleven. Doing girl stuff. You’re regular here. Just look at all the stuff.

And there is a lot of stuff to look at. Shops with bootleg everything: designer shoes, clothes, purses, and more shoes. There are fences who aren’t even pretending to be legit, selling stolen phones, TVs, watches, and one that just has a bunch of swords. (I’m assuming the swords are all stolen, because the shop is named “Stolen Swords.”) Persian rugs, high-end electronics, raw jewels.

A tattoo and piercing parlor appears to target the dangerous yakuza demographic. They must be talented, the art on the walls is very good. There are provinces in the Earth SOI where having one of those tattoos will get you arrested.

Of course those are the provinces where I do the most business.

There are restaurants and bars, that scale from “mildly creepy” to “appalling”. I get a look from a bouncer that makes me want to crawl in a hole and hide, and I actually clutch my dress when I hurry on.

The smell of fresh broth and meat from a Chinese place makes my jaw go weak, but I can’t stand a single noodle right now. Not what I’m looking for.

On the walkway, and positioned in a jagged array, are carts. They’re jumbled around so that you can’t walk in a straight line without running into one. They sell knickknacks and trinkets, not enough to afford rent on a shop. One is selling FCC non-compliant drones, which hover in the air despite the clearly labeled jammer in the middle of the cart. One is selling wood carvings made out of Ebony, smuggled out of Edo.

One is selling stuffed animals. They appear to be entirely innocuous stuffed animals. I guess if you’re going to a smuggler’s den, you might as well bring back a toy for the kids.

Still not what I’m looking for.

I finally find it, two thirds of the way around the circuit. A meat cart.

You could call it street-meat, only there’s no street here, and it’s arguably much worse than what you find on a packed corner in the city. The guys who run these get their stock off the boards, overseen by as few agencies as possible. Pretty much everything they sell is illegal somewhere. If you could be sure that what’s on the menu is what they’re actually selling.

You never have any idea what you’re eating, and it’s always delicious.

I think the guy behind the cart is from some of African province, he’s blacker than black. Wherever it is, from his accent, it’s not native English speaking. He has sausage, and some sausage, and some sauces that you put on sausage. He’s grilling them, and whistling, and he’s been selling, but there isn’t a line.

I ask what he’s got and he points to the meat. He tries to tell me what animal it is, but he doesn’t know enough English names. He tries to mime the animal, and all I get from his gestures is that the animal has big ears and a horn on it’s nose. I have no idea what that is, but he hasn’t been shot through the heart yet, so I’m reasonably sure it’s parasite free.

It’s perfect. I point to the biggest sausage and hand him three dollars when he holds up three fingers. Then he smashes it with a spatula for a second, and slides it into a little round bun.

There’s sprug sauce, and ketchup, and mayo jaga. I lather it up with chub sauce and take a bite. It tastes like rabbity venison, and smoke, and grease, and decadent self-punishment. It’s fantastic.

I try to savor it, but end up wolfing it down, big manly bites. I can’t wait to swallow something that isn’t noodles. While I eat I, drift over to the edge of the rail again to look around.

Dammit. D’Neesha’s is on the first level. I can see the sign below me.

#

The big, red, neon, sign, illuminates my dress and washes away the green light for a little bit. There’s a bunch of glass windows, selling…Selling women. I’m gonna kill Mitch.

But here’s the thing. The right kind of brothel will offer tons of action—besides the sex kind. Shows, gambling, games, music, dancing. And when nights are slow, they’ll sell you a bed. They figure you can’t listen to a building full of banging before you figure out how much room is in your budget.

If it’s the right kind of brothel. Sometimes they put a gun in your face if you’re there for longer than an hour.

I walk through the glass door and meet someone I’m pretty sure is D’Neesha. She’s the big kind of sexy, with impractical pink fingernails. Her Mohawk is longer than my first knuckle, but shorter than my finger. It’s died to match her manicure. She’s dressed as a madam, in a corset and petticoats, and she comes on to me immediately.

“Mmmmm-mm, look at you. How long you had that body for.”

“A couple of months.”

“I can tell, your eyes don’t dilate right. Those tits and that ass, though…” She lets out a low whistle, and then makes a kissy face. “We don’t have any butterflies, so I’ll start you off with a high percentage. Let’s go somewhere and talk about it, honey.”

Well. Mistaken for a working girl. This is a first. Get business like. But my voice sounds tinnier than I’m used to. “One of the hanger guys said you could rent me a room.”

“Honey, do you want a room, or do you want a room?” She has a cigarette in a holder, because of course she does. She takes a drag and blows the smoke from her nostrils. It’s surprisingly unattractive.

“I’d just like a place to sleep for a couple of days.” While trying to shake off the humiliation, I realize that I’ve been listening to someone get pounded through the curtain on the right. The real thing makes me suddenly feel a mixture of arousal and embarrassment. The embarrassment is itself kind of arousing, and I worry that I might be developing too many fetishes.

“Does this look like a hotel to you?”

“Sorry, Mitch said—”

“Mitch? With the rough palms?”

“Yeah,” Uh-oh, I might have gushed that.

“He’s a regular. I’ll putcha up, but I gotta charge you full price.”

Money is no object. I’ve budgeted a lot for this trip, and a stay over was part of the bill.

But what kind of a person would I be if I let her know that? “Is it cheaper than the hostel on two?”

“Honey, not getting groped in a co-ed shower by a guy who wears a camo thong is worth the price.”

“I’m sure there’s another brothel—”

“If you like Thai lady-boys, and loli-bots.”

Eww. “A hundred a day.”

“Two.” She went way too high too fast. She knows that room is worth 140.

“One ten.”

“One fifty.” See how fast she came down?

“One thirty five.” Since we both know I’m getting it for under what she wants, she’ll fight me for every penny. Best to give her something close enough that she’ll let it go.

D’Neesha smiles for a second like she’s won something. We both know she lost. “Fine, but you get a room-mate. I have a dancer with a spare room. Upper level, third on the left.”

The bitch was never going to give me my own room. Okay, now I’m not sure who won. Yet… the thought of sharing a room with a stripper excites me. This was a fantasy of mine, back when I had a penis.

I hand her enough for three nights, and turn the curtain aside.

“Go on back and get some ‘sleep’ baby,” are D’Neesha’s parting words.

#

Well, this is where the sex sounds are coming from. Good to know.

There’s a Salc woman on stage getting nailed. Her moans sound more cat than human, but they’re clearly sex noises, and I feel my vagina wet its lips.

Swallow.

Breathe.

You’re going to be listening to this for most of the next three days. Try not to masturbate the whole time.

She’s on her knees, bare tits bouncing back and forth. The human behind her is a well built specimen, that I’m trying not to think about. Only he’s hot and muscley. I appreciated muscles when I was a guy. I could see how people with them might seem attractive. Now?

Now his muscles can pick me up, and I can hold onto them. I don’t know what that will be like, but I know I want to try it out. He’s doing less work than she is, as she pounds her pussy into his dick.

I switch back to ‘man brain’ for a moment. That hasn’t happened in months. I want her to pound my dick. I want to look down and see it sliding in and out of her cunt. And visualizing that, something snaps back, hard. I want to see his dick.

I can’t ‘cause the angle is wrong. I stop walking and try to process all of my feelings, then give up and look at the crowd instead.

The clientele is varied in species and gender. And in sexual taste. The servers wander around wearing mostly nothing, drinks in hand, cash tipped into clothes. There are some lap dances, a lot of breasts, and a discrete blowjob in the corner.

I think there are some couples here to watch. There’s some patrons in street clothes getting snugly with each other. I see at least two—not at all surreptitious—hand jobs going on. I make my way to the bouncer.

He’s a Stonn. I can actually probably pronounce the real name now. I have to practice with my new vocal cords. I haven’t really experimented with that yet. He’s got an ear piece and an erection. He must have had a signal from D’Neesha on one of those, because he just pulls another curtain aside. He doesn’t take his eyes off the show.

I don’t think he’s very good at his job.

Behind the curtain is a long hallway full of big inviting doors. Up a tiny staircase is a more cramped hallway full of cheap wooden doors. Third of five on the left. I stand in front of the door and think about it for a long second. Then I decide to knock once and open it straight up.

The room is larger than I expected, with two full beds, each with an eight-inch-thick mattress. There’s a half naked dancer sitting at a vanity, doing her makeup. She’s got a little wand up to her eye and is running it across her eyelid. Somehow it’s making a rainbow pattern. It’s flattering on her, but looks more like a party trick than stripper makeup.

I’ve seen movies. I know this plot. New girl shows up and gets paired with a room mate, that room-mate is a down to earth soul, with an Alabama accent. Room-mate will show me the ropes, and they’ll be mates—er… BFFs—until the room-mate learns my secret. Then she’ll feel betrayed, and I’ll have to convince her that we have to work together to bring down the international spy-ring that killed my girlfriend. At the end of the movie we learn that we’ve been in love all along, and she sticks her tongue in my asshole.

You and I probably watch different movies.

This is not what happens.

“Hey, I’m Siri.” her voice is monotone and conveys the least amount of interest that she can muster and still talk. “Touch any of my stuff and I’ll stab you.” She looks at me through the mirror of the vanity, in a way that makes me believe it, then goes back to her makeup.

So I sit down on the bed, and then lie down on the deep foam mattress. Apparently we’re right above a very energetic worker. From the sounds of it, she’s actually getting most of the return for her effort.

Siri sighs, “She’s doing anal, again.”

I’m pretty sure if I were a natural female that wouldn’t get me as hot as it does. The dress is spread out on the bed, and I feel my pussy moisten a little bit more.

It’s nothing like having an erection. I feel hot still, and my genitals take up most of my concentration. I can’t feel anything getting wet, until my lips touch something. Then I get a little shock of renewed lust, and feel twisted, enjoying the sensation.

My roommate lights a cigarette and leans back in her chair. She opens up a laptop and starts watching makeup tutorials. They slowly bleed into my attention.

You have to get used to it at some point, Eleven. That’s Dr. Jordan’s voice in my mind. Her sexy convincing voice.

“Hey,” I ask Siri, “have you been here long?”

“Only a couple of months. When you work this circuit you have to move around a lot. Go where your regulars are.”

“Do… do you know where I can get—change my makeup.”

My roommate pauses the video, so she can brush her cheekbones with another wand.

“Paint, on level five. She has a pretty big selection, ‘cause she mostly caters to us. And all the other sex workers.”

I get up and leave without getting a return from my “bye.”

I stand for a long time in front of Paint. They must do a lot of business, they have a fancy sign that changes color and font. This is what you want. Go in there.

I don’t move.

Go in there, Eleven!

I move. Put my hand on the door handle. Open it. Step inside.

The smell in here is overwhelming. A hundred different kinds of perfume. There are vials on the wall. Lotions, soap, scrubby things, all in pastel.

I have entered the Temple of Woman.

Browse? My feet move to the counter instead. There’s a strikingly beautiful woman sitting behind it, doing her nails. She stands as soon as she sees me. her makeup is… elaborate. Maybe I should says “advanced.” I’ve never seen anything like it. Do you take classes to get like that?

I don’t say anything, just sit in a chair in front of the counter, and take deep breaths. Watch my face in the dozens of mirrors pilled in front of me.

“You just got your butterfly!” She says.

Deep breaths.

“Lets make you look nice, baby.”

Okay. “I… don’t really know anything about makeup.” Get up and leave now.

My ass stays sitting in the chair.

“Kind of a tomboy?”

You have no idea.

“It’s good you’re stepping out of your shell, hon. Why don’t you come back here, I’ll fix you right up. When I’m done, you won’t even recognize yourself.”

Fight the panic.

She motions me over to a barber’s chair off to the side of the displays. It looks like there’s an advanced chemistry set sitting next to it.

Her name tag says “Leshayah,” and she scares me to death. Way too nice. Way too pretty.

Leshayah opens up a refrigerator and starts pulling out bottles. She has a pipette and she starts something that looks like chemistry.

Then she sits me back in the chair, and says, “This is gonna be pretty cold,” and starts brushing stuff from a petri dish onto my face.

She misreads the alarm in my eyes (mostly) and starts explaining. “They’re just chromatophores, little color changing microbes. They sit on your face and eat dead skin and food. Their poop is oil that keeps you moisturized.” She brushes some more onto my face, over my cheek bones, and she’s right, it’s chilly. “They change color with electricity. Any color you want, I have.”

I swallow, and I think I nod too this time.

I slowly get comfortable over the next three hours. Mostly by keeping my eyes closed while she brushes a bacteria wash over my face.

There’s several layers to set up different colors, and they have to dry before the next can be applied. In the meantime Leshayah tells me all about what’s new in makeup. I didn’t know anything was new in makeup. I assumed you put colors on your face.

But no. There’s new colors and new techniques all the time. She tells me that the haut couture look involves “burning” where it looks like you’ve been made up with streaks of ash and charcoal over your face. She shows me pictures of the models while the fourth or fifth application dries. “I keep trying to get it right, but it always looks like I just stepped out of a burning building.” I don’t know what the difference is. These women all look like a propane tank exploded in their faces.

She tells me more about colors. She talks about highlighting. She talks about contouring. She talks about blending.

She finishes the last batch and while it dries she says, “Now, honey, you wanna do you’re lips and your eyelashes too? Butterfly lashes are nice, but they could be nicer.”

“What does that?”

“It’s just a haizor, like you use on your legs, and lets you change the color some. It’s more permanent, because your eyelashes are brittle and grow slower. It’ll give them a little extra curl, too.”

I hadn’t thought of this but, “I need a haizor too.”

“Ya’ growing some down, down there? I always leave a little. It’s softer now than it was on your old body. Feels like fluff. But bare is back in fashion again,” she shrugs. “If you want to get rid of it, for now, I say go for it.”

I haven’t noticed any pubic hair, I think I want to shave it anyway, but she mentioned my legs. Best cut that out before it starts. I’ll have to rip it out.

I think my eyes are more sensitive, because I have to fight my eyelids while she adjust the follicle thickness of my lashes. It’s nothing like the first time I shaved.

She pulls out a little thing that looks like a tiny pencil sharpener with a finger sized hole. It’s a nailbox. I’m freaked out only a little less by this.

Leshayah explains that we’re going to do teardrop, in red, to match my dress. She puts the end of the cap up to a rose on my dress, and then clicks a button and does my first nail. It matches the color exactly.

This is way to girly for me. I’m not in a safe place here. But I hold still while she does my nails, and look at the hands it’s taken months to get used to. It’s actually quite thrilling, in a way I don’t think I’ve felt before.

“So how do I use the electricity? To change it?”

“You can use an applicator,” here Leshayah picks up something that looks like a little face mask. She give a little sniff of disdain. “Or the brushes,” and she starts to tell me about all the different expensive brushes that she’s excited to sell me.

“How does the applicator work?”

“You just load a mod, put it up to your face, and it does all the work for you.”

“Can I load anything?”

“No, of course not, honey. To get a real look… ” And she stops, and looks me in the eye for a second, and I feel a little understood.

Not much, but a little.

“… They’ll do anything you’d like them to, sweetheart.”

We do my lips, which need a special application, to make sure the bacteria don’t fall outside the lines. I let Leshayah take a fine haizor to my eyebrows. She says she’s eyebrows should be sisters, not twins.

Then she hands me one of the masks, shows me how it fold up to the size of a glasses case. She puts it over my face and it makes a whirrrrr-click noise. I don’t feel any electricity, and my face feels no different. I avoid looking in the mirror.

You can do this. I look in the mirror.

I’ve spent the last three months trying to get used to my face, and I’ve gotten to the point where I’m not shocked when my old face doesn’t appear in the mirror. I recognize this face, but barely. It has class. It’s in control. It’s exotic. It is—I am…

“Sexy,” I say it aloud. Leshayah looks proud.

Leshayah shows me how to make the lipstick wand change color, and loads it with about ninety zillion shades of red. And then ninety zillion other colors. This time I feel it buzz, and try to pretend it’s chap stick, while I watch the sexy woman in the mirror put on the last of her makeup.

I think all this must show on my face, because Leshayah says, “See honey? Now you can do anything.”

She gives me a little spray bottle, and says it’ll last for a year. “One spritz, daily. Get your whole face, and don’t skip.”

I pay for it all, and give her a nice tip. Then I realize I don’t have anywhere to put all this makeup stuff, and I get a bag.

Then I go across the promenade and print my first purse. The Gucci mod fell of the back of a truck, somewhere. I don’t know anything about style, but it’s my first purse, it matches my sun dress, and I like it.

Oh no. There’s another bag on the rack that I want more. It does not match my sun dress.

In a decision far more girly than I have made before; more girly than getting makeup, or wearing panties, or putting my fingers in my pussy; I resolve to buy that purse, and then buy an outfit to match it.

#

Cropped jacket.

I have always liked a girl in a cropped jacket. I didn’t know what it was called until I pulled it up on the screen, but I want one. And a crop top. And jeans. And calf-high fuck-me-boots. With chunky heels and brown leather.

And the ensemble will match my purse.

It’s printing, and I’m waiting on the little padded bench, in a boutique on level 4. I have a moment of introspection, and realize that I’ve crossed my ankles and put my legs to one side, on the bench. For the moment I appear to have lost myself in a new gender. It’s kinda cool.

Then I get hit on, and it’s not cool at all.

He has a beard. He’s wearing hunter camo. He has a bandanna in colors that probably mean something to some gang, somewhere. He stinks, in a way I’ve never smelled before.

I am way out of his league.

“Hey,” he tells me, “that butterfly body really hides your flaws.”

For a moment I’m astonished that this piece of shit space hillbilly, would have the gumption to neg me. And then all of my confidence collapses. He has a hundred pounds and foot on me. This body is strong, and as a man I could probably have—blackened his eye before he broke my nose, three teeth and a rib. I am vulnerable in a way I’ve never felt before, and my body reacts by flushing and avoiding eye contact.

“Is it true that butterfly bodies don’t start out as virgins?”

Does he mean I don’t have a hymen? Why would I? What’s the point of that? I act as aloof as I know how. Dammit Eleven. You knew better than to come her without a piece! Yeah, but where would I put a gun? I only just got this purse.

He see his advantage and presses it. “Oh, your shy? Why don’t you let me help you out of your shell? We can go down to D’Neesha’s and—”

“There you are!” Someone calls from behind me.

I can’t help it, I flinch. I don’t want to see which one of his buddies has come to join in the harassment. A hand goes over my shoulder, and I feel sweat under my hairline. I’m going to break these fingers if it’s the last thing I do. “I was looking all over for you sweety, I thought we were going to meet on level two, next to the carpet shop. I know how you wanted a carpet for the bedroom.”

I think I’m being saved. Please don’t be creepy. Please don’t be creepy.

I turn to look, and rescind my finger-breaking life goal.

Tall. Muscley. Vac jacket for a bike. Hair swept forward. I don’t know if my adrenalin is hitting me harder, or winding down, but my heart rate definitely went up. Then I take his hand, and say, “I was going to meet you, honey. I must have lost track of time.” I try to make my voice sound confident, but it comes out dry and tiny.

Boyfriend guy puts his left hand on his hip and reaches out to shake Beardy’s hand, “How are ya? I’m Marcus. What are you two talking about?” His left hand brushes his jacket aside to show the Glock 90 kW peeking out of its shoulder holster.

Beardy gets the hint, fast, “You’re girlfriends a real bitch, dude. Good luck with that.” And he fucks off.

#

Marcus is in my league. He’s a real gentleman, and takes his hand off me the second Beardy is beyond line of sight. “On behalf of my gender, I’d like to apologize.”

I just stare at him. His body is close to perfect. I would have killed for his abs. His face is chiseled. Strong cheekbones. I’m not sure right now where I am on the hetro-homo scale, but at any point in my life he would be objectively attractive.

You should talk now, Eleven. “Yeah…” Say something that is more than one word. “I guess that’s what I get for… having breasts.”

God dammit.

But he laughs, almost genuinely, I’m sure of it. “Serves you right for not being a piece of meat.” He looks around at the boutique, like he’s never been in here. I don’t think he’s ever been in here. And he’s out of place enough that he really could be some hot chick’s boyfriend, waiting while she dithers in a changing room.

There’s a ding, and my clothes are done. I stand to get them, ankles trembling, suddenly not sure I can put them on at all, with my confidence shaken out of my body. Then Marcus says, “There’s always a chance he could come back to get aggressive. Especially if I’m not here. Do you want me to wait?”

Oh my god, was that a line?

But he’s right, and I’m in some kind of shock. It’s all I can do to nod at him, ducking into the changing room.

#

I break down just a little. Head in hands. Maybe a few tears. I’m confused, and I don’t know about why. I’ve got a phone. I can connect to the ship and ping Dr. Jordan.

She’d tell me to go out with him.

“Show off your new clothes,” she’d say, “and take him out to dinner to say thank you.”

Well if you know what she’d say, why not do it?

At first robotically I strip out of the dress. I look at myself in the mirror. I can be confident if I want to be.

I pick up the crop top, and then put it down. Problem. The dress had a bra in it. I have no bra for this top. Not that this body really needs a bra. I cup my breasts, and try not to feel weird about it. It doesn’t make me feel anything right now. I’m just a woman in a changing room, having an emotional crisis. After getting hit on, and crushing over guy who rescued me, I don’t know what gender I am right now.

Whatever it is, I’m sexy as hell. That thought gives me some purpose, and I start getting dressed.

Jeans on. They fit better than I expected at the waist and hips, but are tighter at the knee. The body scanner here is more precise than on the ship. They’re dark, stone washed, low cut, and make me look rugged, but stylish. And a little bit ready to fuck. They’re too short in the…ankle part. (Cuff maybe?) I think they’re supposed to be like that so you can see the boots more.

Crop top. It’s white, stretchy. Which is good, because I’m totally stretching it. Something either happened to the measurements, or it’s supposed to be like this. My breasts strain at the fabric and jack the hem up, further than I think it’s supposed to go. There’s big stretchy wrinkles from nipple to nipple. Nipples that you can definitely see thought the white cotton.

That puts into perspective that they’re pretty big. I’ve seen hookers with bigger, of course, that’s a trade thing. But they’re about the size of a dime, with areola the size of a quarter. I have to stop myself from measuring them through the fabric, realizing at the last second that making them larger and more prominent probably isn’t going to help me.

Maybe the ton of cleavage I’m showing will distract from that, I lie to myself.

Okay, lets try the jacket.

Fits really well across the shoulders. The sleeves might be the tinniest bit short. No, they must be made like that. I like the leather, it’s faded and stressed. There are buckles, old fashioned zippers, and eye holes. It’s exactly what I wanted. But I don’t know how to close it. I don’t think it’s supposed to be closed. When I test this theory I find that, existence of method or no, my chest isn’t going to let that happen.

I skooch the panels together and let them fall naturally. Okay. You mostly can’t see my nipples.

The boots printed out unlaced. I don’t know why they have so much laces, there’s a zipper on the side. The laces printed with them though, so I spend some time stringing them through.

They almost go up to my knee. Hug my calves tight. I stand up and give an experimental strut. The chunky heel is a little easier to walk in.

I cop a pose in the mirror. I can do this.

I fold up the dress really well, and it fits into the new purse. The old purse also fits in there. It’s not large and baggy, but I can fit a surprising amount inside. I sling it over my shoulder, and pose again. It’s perfect with the jeans and the jacket.

Hand on the door handle. Deep breath. Step through the door. No. Strut though the door. “I’m gonna wear these out,” I tell Marcus. It’s probably the boots that are making my hips move like that. I’m pretty sure I’m not doing it on my own.

Marcus looks up, and his eyes go wide. I like that look, so I put my hand on my waist and turn my hips for him. I don’t know what I want out of this situation, and that’s more than a little bit scary. Right now I’m feeling a mixture of power and submission. I’m powerful, because I can look sexy (for him), and submissive, because I’m making myself look sexy (for him).

I don’t even know this guy.

“You look nice,” he stands and brushes his hair back. Then he gives a little start.

“You’re new,” and he points to my belly.

Where my belly button used to be.

Well I mean, where it never was on this body.

Marcus lifts up his shirt to show off a tattoo, where his navel never was. He’s a butterfly. I hadn’t made the connection, but with a body as good as his, it makes sense. “We all get one after a year, when your skin can accept the ink.”

Right, I can get tattoos. I’m gonna get some tattoos.

No, wait, “I’m only two months old.” Hip, turn, breath a little harder when he reaches out to touch my elbow.

“Out this far? You’ve never been on level-z, have you?”

I shrug, and feel my hair over my shoulders, and flush a little bit, “No.”

“We have to get you some chobbish.”

#

He asked me out! Okay. That made it simpler. I’ve never asked anyone out before. Propositioned, yes. But never the civilized date-like kind.

That’s right. Guys are supposed to ask me out now.

Be cool. Act interested but not too interested. “Chobbish sounds grood.” I start out as “great,” and end with “good.” Real cool Eleven. Real cool.

“There’s a place upstairs I like. It’s as authentic as you can get out here.”

He waits for me to come with him and, because something in my mind is broken, I reach out to take his hand. Not the fingers interlaced kind, but the going on a date kind. He’s surprised, but he holds on to me for a second. Then I let him go in rush, when my psyche catches up to what I’m doing. He pretends not to notice my faux pas.

We get in the lift, and it cycles through an airlock and up two floors. Then I step out on my first z-level.

It’s darker on z–2, sort of. I’m aware simultaneously that there is less “normal” light, and more UV light. My eyes see fine, even though I know that they shouldn’t. But they adjust quickly to the light, and then I’m only aware that it’s darker, but still able to see fine. The air smells… different… in some way.

My heart is beating faster, either because of a small decrease in oxygen, or because Marcus has stepped off the lift and offered me his hand this time. And this time I take it like a lady, all straight elbow and fingers, and stalk off the lift, looking excellent. That’s good because I’m going to pieces inside.

“It’s this way,” he says.

#

You know how you walk into a mechanic’s, and you smell oil and grease and ground rubber, and your brain thinks, that’s a nice smell. And then you think I wish I could taste that smell. And your brain is all, You should not taste that smell. That smell will not taste like it smells, and will probably kill you.

Well chobbish tastes like the mechanic’s smells, but without the probable death. It looks like a mess of grass in maple syrup, and you eat it with things that are sort of tweezers and sort of tongs.

Marcus eats with me, in a rustic little suite, dressed up to look like a chob. Which is apparently the traditional place to eat chobbish. Makes sense. He watches me while I chew, and while I try to figure out what I’m tasting.

“The taste that tastes like nothing you’ve tasted before?” He tells me what I’m tasting, “Arsenic. Enough to kill a human and a half.”

“Arsenic doesn’t have a taste.”

“It does now.”

I mull this over for a bit while I munch more grass. “It seems like it would be an acquired taste, but I already like it.”

“I’ve heard other people say the same thing.”

God he looks good. “What do you do?”

“I find things, for money. What’s your thing?”

He’s a merc. “I make sure people don’t things, for money.” That’s pretty much all we need to know about our professions. And more than most would tell you in a place like this.

“How old are you?”

“Twelve. In this body.” He stretches out in the low seat, and his toe brushes my calf. I’ve never really been on a date I wasn’t paying for. Turns out that when a hooker plays footsie because you’re paying them, and a guy you have very conflicted feelings for does it; it’s totally different. I feel a real hitch in my chest, and accidentally splash a bit of sauce onto my cleavage. I feel myself flush.

Marcus reaches out, realizes what he’s doing, and grabs a napkin instead. It’s nice to see I’m not the only person a little flummoxed. I feel like changing the energy here. Feeling manic, I hold eye contact with Marcus, while I wipe up the little bit of sauce with my fingers. Then slowly lick them off. Marcus twists his hips in his seat, and I know that twist. He’s adjusting a 50% erection in his pants.

I did that. To him.

That’s the point where I decide to suck his dick in the alleyway.

#

We leave the chob and go out onto the promenade. We don’t really have a destination, so when I tug him into a little alcove, I’m not disturbing any plans. I grab his jacket, and have to throw my weight backwards to pull him out of casual view. Then something happens that’s never happened to me before. He bends down and kisses me, hard.

No, I’ve never kissed a guy before, but that’s not what I’m talking about. He took control. I gave the signal that I wanted something, and he took control of giving it to me. Something about that makes me melt, and I start to open my mouth as I kiss him.

I have to tilt my neck up, and that’s new. But just like in junior high, my body’s response is surprisingly instinctual. I run my hands up his chest and then cross them over his neck.

He’s… harder… than a girl. I’m not sure how to describe it better than that. There’s something about his lips, and his jaw and his tongue, that’s more firm than a womans. I’d be willing to bet they have more muscle in them.

He picks me up, just a tad, and I feel the loss of control again. It just makes me kiss him harder as he presses me against the wall and palms my left breast.

The first thought that runs through my head is that I would have preferred the right one.

The second thought is holy hell.

Of course if feels like another persons hand on your genitals, that hasn’t changed much. Except it’s totally changed everything. His fingers are harder than mine. The muscles is more densely packed. And when he sits my whole breast in the palm of my hand and squeezes just a little bit, I gasp in shock at the feeling. It’s like being thirteen again, and feeling someone touch your body intimately for the first time. The first time oxytocin hits your brain and changes everything in your life.

I just wrapped my leg around his. That short circuits my brain. I don’t know what the end game there was.

Then I blank for just a moment, and wonder why I can’t feel my penis when he tucks his thigh up under my pelvis. I pull away for a moment, suddenly very confused, and put my hands on his chest. “I… I’ve never done this before.”

“Do you want to stop?” He asks, and he grinds his leg into my groin.

I feel the soft pressure all over my clit, and manage to squeak, “No.” I can feel my pussy gushing out a mess down there and it feels ready for whatever is coming.

What is coming, Eleven. What did you plan to do?

And my fingers reach out and feel his cock through his pants. It’s scrunched up to side, in a way I know must be painful, and my vision twists a little bit as I stick my hand into his pants. Never done that from this side. I pop it in in up the the wrist with a little thup and I hold a cock for the first time in three months.

Again, it’s the same and different. I feel a reflection of my old feelings, but they’re ephemeral. It’s the same kind of dick feel I’ve felt for 46 years. Thin skin, over a spongy tube, slipping around as I pull it up and make him more comfortable. And harder. I get my wrist in between penis and pelvis, and stroke him at an angle I’ve never been able to reach before.

I want to feel what he’s doing to me. He’s kissing the side of my neck, and I thrill when he gets his hand under my shirt. He pinches a nipple with nothing between my skin and his, and I get tunnel vision. It’s wonderful, I know, but right now it all needs to go away so I can focus on him. On his pleasure.

So I let my legs go weak, which isn’t that hard; and slide my pussy down his leg. I rest on my heels for a second, and hit the snap to open his fly, and tug out his cock.

It turns out that, from this angle, all penises are intimidatingly large. From my own experiments with my fingers, and that pain, this thing would split me in two. I have no idea how I’m going to fit it into my mouth, but damn am I going to try.

I tease him a bit and jack his cock as a pregame. His head is so engorged it’s barely covered. While he puts his hands against the wall I rub the skin of his shaft, twisting my wrist just a little bit as I go up and down. Then I swallow my anticipation, and run my tongue from his base to his frenum.

His head is covered in sticky pre-cum, he’s been lubing up a storm. I take a deep breath, and practice what I’ve always loved. I put my lips against the tip of his foreskin, and push it off his head with lips and fingertips. The glans feels a little bit like smooth mushroom skin. There’s tension in the texture, and firmness, and it feels smooth. I can feel the pull on his frenum, and bring my head back to run my tongue over it. I get to the tip to find a big glob of leaking pre-ejaculate, and scoop my tongue to taste it.

I don’t know what I expected it to taste like. Like pussy, I guess. And it’s salty, sure, but more sticky and musky.

That reminds me. I open up my pants, and dial a fingertip around my clit while my left hand keeps up the business of guiding his rod into my mouth.

There’s a musk I can smell in the back of my throat as I push him in as far as comfortable (I don’t feel like showing off). There’s no other way to put it, guys simply taste more manly.

I’m distantly aware that Markus has one hand pressed into the wall of the alley. His other hand is over the back of my neck. I don’t want to find that distracting, so I find it annoying instead, and move it.

I go all in, and cup his testicles a little bit, the same way he palmed my breast. I hear his breathing get a little faster, and he flexes his cock in my mouth. That’s uncomfortable, and very flattering, so I toy with my tongue until he does it again.

Then I’m through screwing around. I suck my cheeks in against the sides of his tool, giving it a nice cool pouch, and start fucking him with my mouth. His skin slips around my lips as I’ve lubed him up, but I know I’m pulling it up and down. Knowing how good that’s making him feel, makes me feel great. I slip a finger inside myself. I’m pretending it’s a much smaller version of what I’ve got in my throat, and I finger bang myself in time to the blowjob.

I don’t like to gloat, but he comes in about thirty seconds, and with little jerks and spurts, semen fills my mouth.

#

I have to set the record straight here. People talk about how cum tastes, and they say “sweet” and “sticky” and “salty” but they don’t say out loud, what I now know.

I’ve eaten my boogers before. I don’t feel gross admitting that, because I was four or five, and there’s nothing more naively disgusting than a toddler. I remember the taste.

That’s what semen tastes like. A big glob of snot.

And, oh my god, I love it. It’s not like it was before, or ever. It gets me hotter than hot. It’s dirty and slutty, and tasting it is… womanly. As he ejaculates in my mouth, and fills my face with his cum, my fingers finish their job. I clutch his rod and rub the last of his cum out, while I lose my balance for a second, and feel my spine seize up with my own orgasm.

Swallow. That feels wonderfully decadent. I realize that there’s a little on my face, swipe, and lick it off my finger. I make sure to look Marcus in the eye while I do this. I’ve buried myself in the part.

I wish I could keep going, but the truth is that, that orgasm has left me exhausted. It was more intense than even the first one, and the come down is leaving me weak.

I stand and close my pants by myself, while Marcus tucks his tool away. Still feeling weak, I lean against the wall and make a “whew” noise.

Then Marcus pulls me close, kisses me, and makes a confession, “I have to leave in an hour. Do you want to get ice cream?”

#

Marcus seems to think I want to cuddle. I don’t recall cuddling with anyone who sucked my dick before.

We sit in an ice cream stand, where he plunked down beside me, and is cradling me in the crook of his arm. I feel small, but my body has taken over, and leaned itself into his hard chest.

Marcus bought the ice cream. He bought the chobbish too. I’m not concerned about that. He got my lips on his cock, so I think we’re even. The modern etiquette is to alternate paying for dates, but…

… but we’re going to split, and I don’t expect to ever see him again. Sure, we’ll exchange numbers, maybe social media details. He might send me a couple of texts before we each lose interest in replying. We both knew what this was.

In the meantime we have ice cream together. And, yes, cuddle.

I don’t know why the ice cream place is so cold. No, I know that, ice cream places are always cold. Because they have ice cream in them. But I don’t know why the cold is bothering me so much. My skin is goose bumping, and I’m really cognizant of the cold. My nipples have tightened up, and are very visible under the shirt. It’s annoying, but I’m sure it’s sexy.

Markus is warm, and I brush aside his jacket and squirm under it a little bit. I expect to run into his shoulder holster and a though occurs, “You’re left handed?” The Glock is on his right side.

Marcus laughs, “Look at what hand you’re eating with.”

My ice cream cone is in my left hand.

…

“So?”

“Were you right handed?”

“Yeah.” Were?

He puts his phone in front of me, and hands me a pen. “Sign your name with your right hand.”

I pick up the pen, and have a familier sense of feckless frustration just holding it. When I put it to the screen it’s worse. I struggle to sign my name as fast as I can, so I can give up.

“Now do it with your left hand.”

The pen sits in my hand like it was made for it. My signature is smooth and fluid, and just like normal. I don’t know what to do, so I just look at him.

“You were on your right side in the tank. Your spinal column made your dominant side the one that it could move more freely.” He holds my left hand in his for a moment, “Welcome to the club, Eleven.”

That’s the first time he’s said my name. Why does that give me a little thrill?

Then Marcus’s watch chirps and he checks it, “I gotta go.” He takes his arm away and gets up.

My ice cream cone is just the tip left, and I crunch it down as I stand. Marcus faces me, and wipes a bit of ice cream off my cheek. This carries me back to the taste of his semen in my mouth, and I stand on my tiptoes to kiss him impulsively. I can feel how damp my panties have gotten, and that makes me feel guilty and wonderful.

He kisses me back, and his lips are hard, and he tastes of chocolate chip. Then we go to the elevator. I get off at a random level, hug him, and let my fingers trail out of his hand as I walk away. I don’t look back, and I think I hear him sigh as he presses the button for the hangers.

So here we are. I've run out of space on the weights, and it's too close to the end of the second draft. This project is gonna hang up for a short while, and then be back in late December or early January.

A little before the third act starts on that one, there will be another hiatus. I'm actually doing that for your own good. Here's the plan as it goes right now. Right before the climax to the story is posted, 11th Sun is going to go dark here for about two months for the third time. That's because the book will have been published in it's final draft on Amazon, and you'll have to buy it there to get the last of the story.

But for big closet members it will be free!

There will be a blog here with the code for a free download. In return, it would be great if you'd leave an honest review on Amazon, expressing whatever you like there. Kudos are great and thank you very much for them, but Amazon's metric for where your book shows up on search results are all based on reviews.

Then after you can no longer get it for free there, I'm posting the conclusion here. It'll be the conclusion as written from the second draft, and quantifiably not as good, but the price of the ebook will be $.99, so you won't have to break the bank there.

Meantime I'll still be around here with an as yet unnamed project about a high school transition, just to fill the time.

Meet me back here in two months!

God, I need a shower.

More precisely I need a public shower. I know what the showers are like in a brothel, and I don’t feel like the sense of community would be helpful right now. I’m sure there are staff showers, and I’m also sure I don’t want to experience them.

I go across the promenade, to the sign that says simply, “Showers.” I smell water vapor and steam, and feel my sandals squeak over tile. There’s a teenager behind the counter who takes my money and hands me a towel. I head instinctively for the left when she clears her throat. I start, then go to the right, where the womans side is.

There are no stalls in here, again, I’m sure this was a fantasy. Right now all I want is some hot water though. It’s been a long day, and I need some time to process. I sit on a bench in front of the lockers, but one with a dollar coin, and strip. The locker has a laundry partition, which is good because these panties are just about ruined.

I pull off the boots, and put my sore feet on the tile. The cold feels good on them. I need to get some inserts. I’ve seen adds for that foam, that can take 200 pounds without compressing more than a millimeter. It’s got all kinds of uses, but the only one they advertise is for high heels.

I still have to stand on one leg to get the pants off, then hang the jacket and throw everything into the wash.

It’s hard not to look around at anyone, and harder still because there’s a lot of talk going on. In the men’s everyone is focused on themselves, in case speaking aloud causes a homosexual orgy to manifest.

Here there’s chatter. A woman sits down next to me, and asks how I am, while she takes off her camo bra. I give her the best non-committal shrug I can, because explaining how I am would take an hour and a half.

So she tells me that she’s here to get away from her husband and the kids, and I wonder what kind of person takes their kids to a dark station. As I stand, she sees I have no soap, asks if I need some, and adds “darling?”

“No, I don’t use it.”

“Skin too used to microbes?”

“Yeah, it’s new and I don’t want to ruin it.

Damn this feels good. The last shower I took was also the first shower I took. The rest of the time it’s just been microbe spray downs. I stank under the water and bend over to get my hair wet. Instead I almost drown, as my hair carries the water all over my face.

I sling it back, and someone gives a little “I’ve just been splashed” shriek. Look around you. How do women do this?

Apparently then step into the water face first and let it run down their hair. I try it. It seems more effective than the male method. I feel the water run down my hair like this, over the crack of my ass and think for awhile, while the steam builds up around me.

Well apparently blowjobs are nearly as satisfying from this end as they are from the other. It’s been an hour and I’m still feeling afterglow. I’m feeling something that might almost be guilt. It’s not the 17th century, there’s nothing wrong with being gay. It’s just not something I thought I was.

But I took a dick in my mouth, and loved it. I can suck cock like a champ. I got a man off in seconds, slurped up his cum, and experience the most intense orgasm I’ve ever had from it.

Have I betrayed myself?

I don’t think I have. I haven’t lost anything here, in fact I think I’ve gained something wonderful.

I shut the water off, find my towel, and try to work out the best method of drying it off.

Another woman sees me, “You can use my dryer when I’m done with it.”

Sure, if I can figure out how to use it.

I watch her run a large bulky comb through her hair, and see that it’s pulling out the water into big splashes as it hits the floor. In a minute her hair is shiny, smooth, and dry, and she hands it to me.

I start the comb my hair the way I always have, and she laughs at me as I immediately snarl it up, an inch from the top of my head.

“You must have been raised by your daddy. Sit down.”

She comes up behind me, naked as can be, pulls my hair down my back, and starts running the brush through it, starting near the tips. She gives a couple of strokes, moves up and gives a couple more. She tugs a little, but doesn’t snarl up this way. I find that I like the tugs a lot as I feel them in my scalp. It doesn’t feel so sexual now, just enjoyable, but I want to try it in bed. With someone this time.

When she gets to the top of my head I can’t feel my wet hair on my back anymore, and she gives it a last brush, and fluffs it all around. “There ya go, honey.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem,” and she starts to dress.

My clothes are done, I have them on. My boots hurt less as I pull them on and zip them, but in seconds they’re hurting more. I need insoles or I’ll never get through tomorrow.

Crap, I have to pee. Crap, I don’t want to pee in D’Neesha’s.

I sit in a stall, and wonder what the little bin on the side of the wall is for.

Oh for fucks sake. I go to press the bidet button and can’t find it. There’s a roll of paper instead. “What is this, the dark ages?” I ask myself, as I wad up a piece of thin paper and wipe like a cave woman.

Now I need to wash the hell out of my hands because, ick. Then it’s back to my bedroom at the whorehouse.

Purse on a peg. Jacket hung up on the post on the door, next to a mink coat. Boots on floor. Pants on floor. Shirt on floor. Panties on floor.

The bed has made itself, and the sheets are crisp. I climb under, naked, and I’m asleep in seconds.

I stir myself awake, and look around for a clock. They pulled the chip with my watch in it, so there are no little numbers on my wrist. I check anyway, like I’ve been doing for months.

There’s one on a table. I’ve been asleep for almost ten hours. Good for you, Eleven. A third of the day, just like they recommend. I sleep too much on the ship.

I lounge in the sheets for awhile. They’re very good quality. I think this is because this bed used to belong downstairs, and who wants to stay in a whorehouse with cheap sheets?

Then after a bit I swing my legs out of bed, and look down at my body for a bit. Still a woman’s body. Still breasts. Still vagina. Still sucked a dick in it. Legs look pretty good though. The balls of my feet ache from the boots still.

But I look great in the boots, so that’s not going to change until it gets unbearable. And when it does I’ll get some Dr. Sholles.

Speaking of. I need to get breakfast, I think about it for a second, then decide that for what I need to do, the sun dress is most appropriate.

Shopping.

No.

Selling. Yeah, that’s it.

#

I decide to breakfast on the z-level, and once I get up into the gloom, I find a cart selling some kind of meat pastry thing. I think it’s supposed to be for lunch eating, I can’t really understand the guy selling it (again, that’s how you know it’s a good meat cart).

On a station, no one really keeps a day schedule. Ships are arriving all the time with their own shift schedule and local time, and their passengers get off and don’t want to wait for the shops to open. So the shops just never close. There’s money to be made keeping staff on for thirty hours a day, so that’s what they do.

The pastry is small, and I try to ask the guy where I can get a cup of coffee. I have to mime drinking from a cup, and he nods, and points me down the promenade.

I don’t know what they sell in this shop, but it sure as hell, ain’t coffee. It reeks of something I’ve never smelled before, and don’t like, and I end up on level 4.

In a Waffle House.

Oh, sure. It’s called “House of Waffles,” which is different. On a sign in the Waffle House colors, in the Waffle House font. They have Waffle House menus, with all the dishes in the same places, and the same names. The same in every way, except on paper, where Waffle House would have to answer a whole lot of questions from the feds.

No, this is just some private establishment, owned by a freelancer. A freelancer who somehow comes up with Waffle House signature batter.

But they have coffee as well as waffles, and while the meat pie was good, it was small.

There are a bunch more camo guys in here, sitting and smoking cheap paper cigarettes. They stink like Beardy, and this stench is familiar, but I can’t place it at all.

A waitress drops off my plate, while some weird gang members wait for a table to open up. I eat quick, and when the waitress drops off the check I throw her tip on the table and go off to find a gun store.

#

I ride the elevator down to the hangers with some burly biker chicks. All four of them have Gen-B bodies, and very strange tattoos. They also stink. Leather and sour.

They strap on a bunch of Ex-V gear, and I wish them a great ride. I don’t know what there is to ride around out here, we’re in deep space. They’re probably negotiating a drug drop with someone. There’s some things you can’t even move on a dark station.

Mitch has made a mess inside my ship, but I don’t see him in the hanger. He probably has things to do, and once he knows what I need to filter, printing the equipment doesn’t take constant supervision.

I unlock the hold, and crack the show crate. Inside is ordinance, cases, and ammo. Everything I need to show people what I’ve got. The other crates just have a ton of weapons in them. I stock a briefcase, lock the hold again, and put on a bra.

On the way out of the hanger, I run into Mitch. He’s sitting in his office doing some kind of account things, and smoking a cigar.

I lean on the doorway, in a way that I can distantly think of as sexual in a woman, but would have felt natural as a guy. “So what was it?”

“Carbonized poly-sytrylene particles, mostly. Just some industrial gunk.” He turns away from his computer, looks at me, and runs a hand through his hair.

Huh. Guys do that too. I never noticed.

“It probably wouldn’t have even made you sick, but you know the system will shut you down ‘just in case.’”

I shrug my standard [Government. Whatchoo gonna do?] shrug.

“I got the part printing, you’re looking at six or seven thousand, after labor.”

I like the way he doesn’t give me an exact answer, in case he wants to see how high he can bill me. I just give him a little nod, say thank you, and give a little finger wave as I leave again.

I head off to the gun store that’s largest and closest, on level 3.

#

Wanna know how you sell some guns? You go into a gun store, and you ask them if they want to buy any guns. Yeah, it’s that simple.

Not at first of course. At first you have to talk to them, about guns, for one or two hours. You look at their guns for awhile, you tell them about other guns you’ve used, they tell you about the guns that they sell, you tell them about the guns you want to buy, they tell you about the stuff they’ve heard about how the government is gonna take away all their guns, you tell them you know, they tell you how the government is hiding mind control chemicals in your shampoo, and about the poison the corporations are hiding in your food, they tell you to watch a documentary, you change the subject back to guns, etc.

At least that’s the plan. It runs into a snag when I walk into the store and am immediately ignored by everyone around me. I can’t make eye contact with the man behind the counter, I can’t get the attention of any of the yahoos standing in circles and talking about ammo. No one will look at the pretty girl in the dress, with ordinance they would line up to suck my dick to own.

I go to the counter, and the clerk glances my way for a second, before turning back to his console. He thinks he has better things to do than talk to “som lil’ womin, thinks she know sommthin ‘bout guns.”

Does he think he’s the only gun seller on this can?

So I walk to the door, pivot in the entryway, and make sure he can see me give him both fingers. He makes a gesture that would get him shot in any other situation, and I turn on my heel and storm away.

#

Bob’s Gun’s is on level five. Bob’s Gun’s might normally be run by Bob, but right now it’s being run by Carolyn.

I ask.

Bob made the sign to Bob’s Gun’s. Bob does not see a problem with the grammar of Bob’s Gun’s. Carolyn laughs as she tells me this, and I decide I like Carolyn.

She makes eye contact with me as soon as I enter the store, dismisses some guys in camo, and leans over to rest her breasts on the counter. She’s matronly, rather than fat, has poorly died red hair, and a bandanna. Now that I’m noticing makeup, her makeup is really bad. She wears a leather vest and I can see the pockets are worn from carrying magazines.

We talk guns for a bit. I look as some high wattage hand guns, and ask her about IR laser sights. She opens a case, and we find one in a band that shows up to my naked eye. That’s really cool, a laser pip that no one else can see. We talk a little bit about the butterflies. I buy the sight.

The second thing I need more, but the sight was a good opener. The way I look, girl in a sun dress? Better to convince the proprietor I already know what I’m doing.

But I still get a little trembly when I ask, “Do you have something… discrete? Something that will go with…” I gesture to my—everything.”

Carolyn waggles her eyebrows at me, “I have just the thing.” We scoot down the counter to where the pieces get smaller. I don’t usually frequent this end of the counter in a gun shop, so I’m a little surprised at what I find.

Lady guns. For ladies.

She opens the case with an old fashioned key, and pulls out a little tray. On it there are dainty like 20–30 kW hand guns. Some of them have been coated with pink lacquer. Some of them have little swirls on them. One has little butterflies for irons.

Then Carolyn pulls out another tray, and these are heavier, 35–40, and they are sexy. Purple, with lacy fringes. If you could make lingerie that could kill someone at 20 yards, it would look like this.

The gun seller watches my face, while I peruse. I want to like the sexy ones, but…

There’s a little 24 snub on the left. Curved, fitted grip. Pearl inlay.

I pick it up and check the chamber before I sight it. Carolyn’s eyes give a little approval, and I know she knows I know my shit.

It fits in my small hand like it was made for it. I know it’s not, but it feels warm. It feels right. God help me, I let out a little squeal in delight, and change it to a cough as fast as I can.

“It’s called “The Mrs. Regan,” Carolyn tells me.

“I’m gonna need to try it out.” Don’t get giddy Eleven.

#

So Carolyn calls Bob down on a shop phone, and Bob is grumpy, and maybe a little stupid about things that aren’t guns, and Carolyn and I go to the test range while Bob watches the counter.

Carolyn is probably some gun loving freak job, but she’s responsible. We get eyes and ears, and I buy a couple of plastic targets and blast them. My hands still shake the barrel, and my triangle is six inches larger than normal. But Mrs. Regan fires like a dream. Soft kick, light weight, good machining. The magazine slides in and out like it was greased, and doesn’t make a sound when you tap it in. Even her spin up time make a more feminine buzz than I’m used to. I’m sold, the seller knows it, and we go back upstairs. Bob is grumpy at the other end of the counter, trying to explain to some bearded taint that, no, he will not mail them ammo. There’s a shouting match, the camo man storms out, and Bob pulls out an ashtray, sets it on the counter with a clink of glass on glass, and lights up a camel.

I lay my new toy on the glass and try not to do it trepidatious. I have to go even farther into this cave. I have a standard to uphold here, “I like it. But I need it custom.”

This gets an actual look of respect from her, “We’ve got a lot of equipment in the back.”

I smile. Carolyn pulls out a folding tablet, unfolds it, and I start going through all the modifications.

Needs night irons. Needs a new guard. That guard has a rose on it. Not practical Eleven. It’ll catch on shit. But my eyes stay on it.

I realize that I’m leaning on the counter, and my right leg is on it’s toe behind me, and it’s rocking around. I care less about that than I would have when I came into this shop. Something is slowly getting chipped away.

I come to a page that stops me dead. Enamel for that pearl grip. And there are roses. And my gun can match my dress. And for no earthly reason, that’s suddenly important to me.

Carolyn sees me stay on the page for a minute, and then helpfully taps the “like this” link on the summary. More pretty roses to go on my gun. After a few moments I put my finger on the one I want.

“That one?” She asks.

I bite my lip and smile while I nod at her.

She takes the gun, and then says, “I gotta go into the back, then I’ll come back with something for ya.”

Then she goes into the back, and comes back with something for me. It’s nailbox. She hooks it up to the tablet, then hides the screen from me as she goes through the options. “Okay, this is perfect. Give me your hand. Don’t look.”

I put my hand in hers.

“I said don’t look!”

I roll me eyes and turn my head, and feel her slip the little box over each nail.

“There.”

And I look at my nails, done in pearl with little roses on them. Now my nails match my dress, match my gun! I have no idea why this makes me so happy, but I hug her across the counter, and shake away the tears before she can see.

We’re prepared to settle down and wait for a bit. Carolyn turns to her husband, “Waddya think?” Then to me, “show him your nails, honey.”

I hold them up, and Bob give a grumpy little nod, like he has no idea why this would be important. An hour ago I was right there with you, Bob.

His wife pulls the ashtray over, lights up herself, and starts a fight, “She’s a pretty girl, Bob. She wants to blow someone’s fucking head off while she looks like a lady.”

Bob does not engage, “Sure she does. Makes sense.”

“Pay no attention to him hon,” She tells me. “The only class he had was before he dropped out of school.”

Alright. We have a report. Time to do what I came here to do. “What I really want is one of the Sector’s LM–5 Feather Dusters. Do you have those.”

#

Carolyn, who knows a pitch when she hears one, narrows her eyes. Then she walks over, locks the door of the shop, and puts up the lunch break sign. “Haven’t heard of it. Sector makes good stuff.”

I lean on the counter, “It’s small, only 30 kilowatts. But it folds up to the thickness of a phone, and wraps like a piece of cloth.”

“You mean you can wrap it up in a piece of cloth,” Carolyn leans back and puts her cigarette arm over the back of the chair. Bob leans in close but doesn’t say anything.

“No” I lean forward, “I mean the thing bends, like cloth.”

Carolyn drags on her cigarette and looks at the briefcase I’ve been carting around. She moves her teeth around her tongue, “What’s it fire?”

“Semi-auto only, at three per second.”

“Not a lot.”

Bob taps his finger on the counter, “Duddn’t have to be. Not if you can hide it inside your panties.”

Carolyn stands straight and goes into the back, and Bob waits for me to follow.

At the range, eyes on, and a pair of cans around each of our necks, I open the briefcase, and pull out what could honestly be a really thick wash rag. “Binds to any other piece of cloth, here,” I show them the bind strips. “Changes to any flat color you want,” I change it to the cream of my dress.

“Folds up in less than a second, if you practice.” I put my finger through the little ring in the corner, give it a shake, and it waves around like one of those plastic toy snakes, and ends up a little pop gun in my hand. I check the chamber and then it gets passed around.

Carolyn and Bob are very impressed. They spend some time folding it and unfolding it. Finally Bob says, “You can’t really do it wrong. It folds up every time. Like a butterfly knife, ya’ don’t need to practice with.”

He’s the easy sell. Carolyn’s a bit harder.

She holds out a hand, and I give her a magazine. Cans on, she fires twelve into the target, and then brings it in to check the spread. She sniffs, “Not that accurate.”

Bob says, “Duddn’t have to be. You can hide it in your bra.”

And Carolyn nods really slow, and I know I’ve got her.

“Sector sells them for twelve k, but with the permits it’s more like eighteen.” She’s about to ask how many I’m selling, “Fifty,” I say, before she asks, “thirty k each.”

Bob guffaws, but it’s a show, “Honey, I can’t move these for less than fifteen.”

“They don’t show up under x-ray, or spec scan. Only the newest sniffers can smell them.”

That changes all of his mind. “Twenty thousand, let me sell them for thirty.”

“Twenty two.” Eight thousand dollar profit for Bob, let him have it.

Bob just spits into his hand and sticks it out to me. I spit into my palm and smack it in to his.

Carolyn unfolds her gun and wraps it around the sleeve of her shirt. Deal struck, I don’t even ask for the piece back. She gets the show piece for free. That’s manners.

She doesn’t offer it back either. She’s made gun deals before.

The Bob’s Gun’s have to get a lot of escrow together, so in the meantime I have nothing to do, but nothing to do.

Get a bra Elven. Put on the sexy boots again.

I go back to the hanger, get into the bunk house, and pick up something with fringe. I don’t have anything in white, or cream. You’ll see the black through my white crop top, but it’s tiny so I decide that’s okay, and put it in my purse.

The filter is probably done by now. Lets check with Mitch.

Mitch is in his office, doing office stuff. This means smoking a cigar and pretending to read accounts. I walk in and lean on the door in a way that seems natural, and which I vaguely recognize might be misconstrued.

Rough hands.

“Hey, hows it coming?”

“Filter is printing. Eleven hours left.” He has his feet on the desk, and slides them off to talk to me. “I’m not doing anything for awhile. Wanna get some food?”

He has a look in his eye. Something about it really creeps me out. He’s getting really intense really sudden. Narrowed eyes. Open mouth. For some reason I feel like he’s slobbering at me. His rough hands suddenly hold much less interest to me. “I’ve actually just eaten.” Do I throw him a bone here? What’s the etiquette? “Maybe some other time?”

“Nah.”

What the hell does he mean “nah”?

“You want to do it now.”

I might narrow my eyes, I’m not sure. “I think I know what I want.”

He gets up then and starts to get much closer. I step back and run into the wall. He puts his palm on the wall next to my shoulder. I can smell his breath. It’s not pleasant.

“Just give me a chance. You’ll see I’m a nice guy.”

Yeah, I know what nice guys are like. “I think I have other things to do.” As a man I would have put a gun under his chin and spun it up for good measure. Now? I have to work with this man, and a show of force is not a good idea. I’m suddenly aware that what he wants he can take, if I can’t reach my gun in time. My piece is suddenly not so reassuring.

But he put his arm too high and I duck under it, and slip out the door. “Sorry, I’m very tired right now. We’ll have to do it later.

I hurry off, but not before I hear him say, “Bitch,” under his breath.

Somehow that insult is more meaningful, and more hurtful, now.

#

I rush back into my room at the brothel to get into something protective. The garter holster works okay in the jeans, and I get it into almost arms reach. With that done I sit on the bed and try to stop the shaking.

God I need a drink.

Mitch can’t go to the z levels. I end up on the z levels, and find a bar called… something in Strey. There’s no English translation, and I don’t have my contacts in. My old contacts don’t fit these eyes, and I don’t think anyone here has the equipment to measure them. Not many black market optometrists out there.

Oh there’s a sign on the door in English: Hard. Probably makes more sense on Mestra.

The inside looks like a saloon. Wooden tables, wooden bar. Big mirror behind the bottles. The furniture looks like it’s suffered from a couple of brawls, and the table closest to me definitely has knife scars in it. It’s even darker in here than it is outside, and all the lights are purple or blue. I take a seat at the bar, ask for something to calm my nerves and get a scotch. The bartender has good taste, a steady stock, and no well. You drink like you mean it here, or you don’t drink at all. There’s only one bottle of vodka on the wall, and it’s barely been touched.

In this light the bartender’s skin is glowing softly blue, and I realize a couple of minutes into my drink, that the blue I had always assumed Streya are, is actually a pale ultra violet. After drink two I tell her as much.

She laughs, “For six months I couldn’t understand what that weird color I was seeing was,” she says. “It wasn’t until I was driving somewhere and heard someone say “red light” that I realized that that was the new color. I’d never seen red before.” She looks down at her latex, form fitting, “better tips,” dress, “I like pink, now that I’ve seen it. But it… doesn’t go with my skin.”

I hand her more money and she hands me more scotch.

She runs her hands over antennae, “This was the hardest thing to get used to. Everything smelled different at first. My brain didn’t know what to make of it. Then the signals figured themselves out, and everything smelled the same again.” Her English is very good, almost no accent. Strey is a soft language, not really musical. I want to say it flows like water, but that’s kinda dumb.

Some other customers stop by the bar, and she serves them quickly, then comes back to where I am. She cleans things that aren’t there, with a rag, and we chat for awhile.

Scotch number two and I hand her a tip, that she tucks into the top of the dress. I notice that all of the other tips have gone into a nearby jar. I think I’m being flirted with, and I think I’m reciprocating. The alcohol has me pretty excited about that. I feel a lot of other emotions, but excitement is pretty high on the list.

I find out that her name is Lia when a regular calls her over. She spends some time talking to him, and I feel drunk jealous. In a fit of pique I tell her that I’m going to the bathroom.

“Oh I’ll go with you!”

I have seen this phenomena, and hadn’t considered that it applied to me now. We single file into the bar bathroom, which is like a bar bathroom, only cleaner. Girls get all the best stuff. On the way to the stalls Lia talks about her day. She talks about the regulars. She talks about frustrations. When we get into the stall and sit down, she’s still talking.

It’s making me uncomfortable, but I realize—drunkenly—that this is something I have to get used too. I don’t find that thought as depressing as I normally do.

She waits for me outside the stall, and I tell her that I got new makeup today. She “ooohs,” then, “Now is the perfect time to change it!”

“… I don’t really know what I want.”

“I’ll choose!”

I hand her the applicator, and she paws through the menu for a moment. Then she pulls up something more… daring, than what I’ve been wearing. Blue eyeshadow, deeper red on my cheeks. Before I can think about it she snaps it over my face.

Then she digs into her purse and pulls out some lipstick, “Hold still,” and she carefully runs it over my lips. I am definitely being flirted with, and find I’m really enjoying the experience.

I look in the mirror. It’s different, and I don’t know if it’s really, “me.” I’m ready to tell her as much, the words are on my lips, when I see her face. She’s staring at me with an expression I find hard to parse. I realize that she’s made me up in a way that she finds sexy, and the tension goes up a notch. I smile and nod, and then hike my boobs around. She’s arousing me, I want to arouse her. She looks at me like my action is natural, but I see her eyes dilate.

When we leave the bathroom I feel alcohol kind of confident, and the attention and the makeup are helping. When I sit at the bar I cross my legs, and find myself running my finger over the edge of the glass when she looks at me.

But after scotch number four, I start to get sloppy.

I have a few memories of the rest of the night, but that’s about when I blacked out. I broke a glass. I cried about something. Lia cut me off. She asked where I was staying, and I told her, and she asked someone to take me there, and they refused and she cussed them out because she couldn’t leave the bar. Then they got told to leave, and they got pissed about that. Then the other patron put his hand on his gun, and Lia had to hit him inna face with a bat.

I have a memory of being carried up the stairs on Lia’s shoulder, and introduced to her wife. Wife seemed excited, in Strey, and then disappointed by something. I get put to bed on her couch, with a blanket, bucket, and some kind of alien version of a teddy bear.

Then I pass out and it’s all black.

#

I wake up with a feeling I have felt before, a shot to the head hangover. I’m not face down in vomit, so that’s different. I don’t know where I am though, and that’s the same.

I look around at a very cozy home, under light that’s dim blue, like a hazy memory from last night. There’s a lot of wood in here, tables and chairs and stuff. Not prefab, but real wood. Some cut and varnished, some raw, like driftwood. Little bits of cloth hang off the walls and there are things with fringes and beads all over the place. I notice that a lot of the lights are made out of empty bottles. That makes me remember the bar, and bits of last night.

My liver has finished processing all of the alcohol, and woken me up so that I can be proud of the good job it did. I sit up on my elbows and then my hands. The hangover recedes faster than ever before. Moving doesn’t make me puke immediately, and that bucket is empty.

I’m really uncomfortable because I’ve found out what sleeping in a bra is like. It’s like having a glove on wrong, only it’s on your chest. It’s like sleeping with you shoes on, if your feet could squish half in and half out of your shoes, and do it in 360 directions.

Also, I slept with my shoes on and my feet feel gross.

I have to pull my top off, to get to the bra. I’ve decided it’s going away for now. Then I get tangled in my jacket, and then…

Some kind of cough/giggle from behind me. I turn to see Lia’s wife, Ci, leaning against the bedroom door. Her antennae are shorter than Lia’s, I think they’re trimmed. Her nose is pierced through the nostril, and she’s wearing something that looks ethnic and modern at the same time.

I give her the most wry smile I can muster, while I pull of the jacket. Moment of truth Eleven. Take off your shirt alone with a lesbian. But I don’t feel like anything can go wrong right now. I finally get my bra off and slump on the couch with my shirt back on. Ci giggles again, and leaves in a way that you do when you’re about to come back with something. I hope it will be coffee.

It is not coffee. And it comes in a cup that bends to my hand like a clay slinky. Ci sets it down on the coffee table, and sits next to me, close.

She smiles and nods, and says “Socka,” as she points to the mug with her pinky.

I have no idea if she speaks English.

So I say, in Uni, and she smiles and nods, unaware that I’ve used up one seventh of my Uni vocabulary. It consist the most important phrases in every language: yes, no, please, thank you, sorry, excuse me, and fuck you. I couldn’t print an interpreter, no foam cartridge, so I can’t do a speaker.

I drink the socka instead of thinking about that.

It tastes like fuzzy matcha. I don’t know where the fuzziness is from, it’s not carbonated, but it makes my mouth feel like I’m eating velvet. Several things relax deep inside my head and I decide it’s good.

Ci nudges me with her knee, looks expectant. I smile and make an “it’s good” face. She smiles back.

And then nothing. We just sit there like that for awhile. The socka makes it a little more comfortable, but it’s getting kind of weird.

Thank god Lia comes home. There’s a door noise from downstairs, and I hear her call up the stairs in Strey. Ci calls down to her, and Lia pads in. By the time she’s on the landing she’s peeling her dress over her head. Ci says more things while she has her clothes over her eyes, and she laughs and says through the dress, “I forgot you were here, Eleven.”

She has interesting panties on. They’re some kind of ethnic traditional, kind of like a loin cloth that covers everything. They’re also very small.

I am a guest in an intimate moment, and Lia makes it a little weirder by throwing her dress next to me and reaching down to give Ci a deep kiss. Then she touches my shoulder and asks, “Did you sleep okay?”

“Yeah, thanks. You didn’t have to do this.”

“Least I could do. You bought four hundred dollars worth of scotch last night.” She looks at me through the corner of her eye as she kisses Ci again, “I was just giving good customer service.”

Ah. Lia had ulterior motives. Do you actually want to stay here, Eleven? “I should probably check back at my ship, I’ve been asleep for awhile… ”

Lia shrugs, and asks Ci how long I’ve been asleep, and then tells me in English “Only about three hours.”

Ci asks her a question, and Lia says something in an “oh you!” tone of voice. Then they talk a little bit more, and I try to find something interesting to look at. Lia is still leaning on the couch, and Ci is idly rolling her wife’s nipple in thumb and forefinger. I tell myself I’m not going to get aroused. I’m lying.

Lia stands up, “My shahrene wants to know if you’ll stay for dinner.”

“Oh I couldn’t… ”

“She already made enough for three,” Lia takes Ci’s hand off her breast and holds her fingers, before she moves through to door to the kitchen, and calls to me, “We don’t eat with shoes on.”

#

I’m eating something that I don’t know what it is. I don’t even know what it’s called. When I ask, Lia rattles off what sounds like an entire sentence in Strey, I can’t even remember the first syllable. I think that whole thing is the name, because when I look completely lost, Ci rattles off the same sentence. While we eat Ci or Lia will occasionally say something about the dish, and every time they use the whole sentence again.

I think it starts with and L. It’s good, some kind of vegetable/meat hybrid. (The division between plant and animal on other planets is not the same taxonomy as on Earth.) I’m pretty sure my body can digest and get nutrients out of most of it. It would probably be rude to ask.

We’re eating with things that seem kind of like sporks, which is a relief because some alien utensils are downright weird. There’s just a big platter in the middle and we’re all picking from it. I go to spear something with my spork in my right hand, and Ci puts her hand on my wrist and gives me a look of good natured disgust. I get the hint, and use my left hand to eat only.

The table is small. It has a mag in the center, and we sit an a platform with our legs in a pit. Our feet are all touching and I think this is some kind of custom. Lia and Ci seem very used to footsie at dinner. That explains the shoes.

Ci seems like she’s waiting for us to talk, when Lia starts up, “What do you do, Eleven?”

“I’m in long haul shipping (for now). It’s a small personal business,” I lie. “How did you end up tending bar in a dive like this?”

“I like running my own business,” she lies.

We drop personal business rather than lie some more. That’s customary too.

Instead I ask about all the wooden furniture. Lia says that Mestra has fast growing forests, and wood is one of the largest exports. She gets her furniture wholesale for the bar.

“I’m sorry, I’ve been rude.” Lia gets up to find a bottle. Like any bartender, she has an extensive personal collection, and distinguished tastes. She gabs at Ci in Strey, who points at me, and clearly says that I should pick. I comment on a bottle of Crown on her third shelf, and she gives me a look like I don’t know what I’m doing.

I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never seen one off of Earth, and I haven’t been Earthside in eight years. My Father used to drink it with breakfast and I’ve always wondered.

This seems like a stupid time to experiment, “Can I just try it?” I ask.

Lia pours me a finger and throws some ice in, because even in her private kitchen, she has a bar’s stock of ice. She hands it to me, but doesn’t sit back down at the table.

I sip. Yeah. It tastes like abuse.

Lia looks at my face like she told me so. Ci talks at me and points with her pinky at the glass. I hand it to her and she ships, and makes an expression best described as ambivalent. Then she knocks it back like a champ.

Lia takes the bottle back and cranks the cap on. She puts it on the shelf and looks to me again. Ci cuts off her expression.

“She says you had your chance.”

“Which does she want?”

They back and forth real quick. Lia pulls something off the second shelf, then puts it back and says, “No, you can’t handle that.”

“I can handle anything you throw at me.”

Lia puts her hands on her hip but doesn’t take her eyes off the shelf. “I’m an intergalactic bar tender, Eleven. I know what will kill you. That bottle has enough amphetamine to blow up your heart with a shot.”

Ah.

“How do you feel about heroin?”

“Poorly.”

“Okay,” and Lia pulls something purple in a twisty bottle that bends over on itself, and pours it into weird glasses and serves. She sits back down.

It tastes like strawberries that taste like apples, and I swear it’s thinner than water. It slips into my mouth and falls down my throat without touching the sides. But the taste sticks in my mouth, and pairs well with… the L-sentence.

We eat some more. The platter is gone except for rinds and what might be ribs. Ci burps a lady-like burp.

We’ve talked about nothing much, but the atmosphere has gotten pretty intense. Every time I look at Ci she holds eye contact. For the past couple of minutes she’s been making a kind of low buzzy purring noise, and she gets her hands really close to mine.

Lia hasn’t put on a shirt, and as she refills our glasses, she runs her fingers over Ci’s legs. Now the touching seems different.

And then Ci looks at me and says in very bad English, “We going this, or what?”

#

Lia brushes the table aside and Ci starts to get real close to me. That drink is making the situation a little more personal than my first liaison.

Ci is thin, ultraviolet, glowing softly in the light. Her body is Gen-B. Breasts very firm, waist very small, hips very wide. Her antennae frame her face like dreadlocks, and her eyes are big and black.

Yeah, her mouth is kind of weird, but it has lips, teeth, and tongue, could be worse.

And she’s purring and getting very close, and Lia reaches out in our little pit, to rub her nipple through the fabric of her shirt, and cup her breast.

I sit very still, a little stunned, breathing heavy. It’s when I stop to gulp a little bit that Ci leaps forward and puts her lips over mine.

My response is to wrap my arms around her waist and slip my tongue into her mouth immediately. For a moment my hormones compete with the alcohol in my head, as Lia reaches out to stroke my hair. Oh god, pull it She gives it a little tug, and I want much more.

Ci moves her lips down the line of my jaw, they way I’ve done to any number of women. The way it’s never been done for me. I turn my head to make it easier, and feel the tug on my hair again.

Her tongue is more slippery than a human’s, as she runs it from the inside of my clavicle, all the way up to my neck. I didn’t know the inside of my clavicle was an erogenous zone, but I tremble when she licks it. I think my hands are clutching something, but I don’t know where my arms are, so I don’t know what that might be.

Lia has my head in her hand, and while Ci works her way to the center of my breast, she pulls my hair back, just enough not gently. She kisses me, and I’m helpless.

Then Ci runs her tongue over my nipple and I blackout for five seconds. It feels like a tongue on my nipple and somehow that’s connected directly to my spine, which arcs; and my pussy, which soaks my panties. I think the first lick made me back off of Lia, because her lips aren’t on mine anymore. I must have gasped pretty hard.

Now Ci pulls my tit into her mouth, and I’m present for every second of that sensation. My nipple pops over her teeth in a way that makes my toes spasm a little bit. I can feel my whole areola disappear into her mouth, and I visualize that, and it gets me so much hotter.

I look down to watch what she’s doing, and Lia takes the time to trail her fingers up my other breast.

Wait a second. When did I take my shirt off? Doesn’t matter.

Ci’s elbow touches my knee, while all I can think about is the sucking feeling over my tit, and I realize I’m pulled my legs up, feet almost level with my pelvis.

There’s a small lull, while Ci lets me catch my breath. I didn’t need to catch it, but it reminds me that I need to give back a little bit. And I touch a woman for the first time in three months.

I think we’re a little deep into this, and go straight for Ci’s pussy. I find it through her weird clothes. In a second I’ve figured out how to get into them, and I quickly realize I have no idea what I’m doing. She doesn’t really have lips, or a slit. I feel what might be concentric circles, and I feel them move around when my fingers touch them. Ci grimaces at me, then smiles from her place over my breast.

“I guess… ” I have to swallow a little bit, my mind is struggling to form a sentence, “You know more about me, than I know about you.”

I say this as Lia has cupped a hand over my quim through my pants. She knows how to find my clit like that, and she’s rolling it in circles, the way I love.

That’s another blackout for a second. I remember the first time a woman grabbed my dick. In middle school, during play time. The intensity and spontaneity feel the same, and for a moment I can’t believe it. I think my lips are swelling, and I can feel my wetness on my lips and on her finger tips.

It’s getting a little overwhelming for me, and I signal without words that we should trade roles just a little bit. After a quick little calculus I decide to focus on Lia, who seems to be a little more timid. That works on me a little more.

I nudge her over a little bit. This mean I have to twist my hips and close my legs. She gets the hint and leans on her side with her legs wide. Ci stops suckling, and lets me concentrate, while she rubs my shoulder and caresses my thighs. I wish I didn’t have pants on, but it’ll take too much energy to pull them off.

Lia has been nearly naked the whole night, while I’ve been thinking about what works under those panties. I barley touch them before Lia rips them off and tosses them aside in one smooth motion.

What am I looking at?

The skin there is more purple than violet. There are concentric ridges, little coils of muscle. Streya are classic male/female, and in case you couldn’t tell, they have homosexuals just like every race.

Lia spreads her legs and her cunny squashes and stretches a bit. She takes my hand gently and grabs my fingers with a little difficulty, and then runs their tips over the fringes of her ridges. As I do they shift and brush closer to my fingertips. Lia shudders and sighs as I get the hang of it. The more gently I brush, the more deeply she trembles.

Ci shifts off me and comes to her wife. She watches me, while biting and nibbling Lia’s tit, and occasionally brushing my leg. One she sees I’ve gained some competency, she sticks a finger straight into Lia’s pussy. She does it in a way that says she knows what Lia likes. Lia’s legs jump and twist, and she lets out gasp.

She gets more vocal. That buzzing purr intensifies, and she start letting out little gasping cries. Because of the way her rings respond, to me and to Ci, we manage to get a rhythm going. Lia clutches my hands and her face contorts as she orgasms.

Ci comes to kiss me as her wife pitches a fit around her fingers. And I feel Lia sigh against my cheek as she starts to come down.

As Lia puts herself back together a bit, Ci stands up and tugs on my pants to get me up, and she leads me to the bedroom as I start the process of pulling my jeans off.

The bed is a nest. It’s oval, and the center sinks in deeper than the sides. I know this because I turn to sit and pull my pants over my legs, and end up falling backward into the softness. Then I find out that the bed is shaped like it is because it’s actually full of big foam pieces, like a ball pit. Streya don’t have sheets or blankets, I guess. Each of the foam bits is a little warm fuzz, like a wool blanket that is not a wool blanket at all.

When I pitch over, Ci uses my momentum to pull my legs into the air and strip my pants off. My back contorts a little, while she bends my legs back, and pulls my panties over my feet. It’s the least sexy thing that’s happened so far, and I’m kind of glad because it brings me back to reality for a second.

For the few seconds that she’s working the fabric I love so much over my calves, I think about being a guy. I think about having a dick. I think about the hard body my brain used to call home, and what it would do with these two girls. How I would be in control. That I wanted to be in control.

And then Ci pulls my legs apart and gives a playful lick to the outside of my vulva. I feel my back melt a little bit, and then it goes away, and Ci has crawled over me onto the bed. With her legs on either side of my torso, she kisses me again, and again I submit. And then she tucks her feet under my armpits, and her knees around my ears, and tries to find my mouth with her pelvis.

I can smell her cunt. It smells a little like clove. I take a moment to breathe it in, and apparently I take too long, because Ci starts rocking her hips back and forth. So I stick my tongue out and try to mimic the motions Lia taught me with her hands. At first I guess I go too hard. Ci squirms a bit and backs her pussy off. Then I let my tongue go as light as it can on her rings. She starts letting out little purr/sighs, and her legs tremble. She likes my tongue beneath her hole, rather than above it, and I manage a setup where I work on her rings for a moment, and then stick my tongue into her vagina. It seems that, after a bit, a little harder on the rings is okay, and I find a situation where I have the flat of my tongue flexing over her box, while the tip runs back and forth over her rings in little sweeps.

I’ve forgotten about Lia for a bit, until I feel her nibble around the inside of my thighs. Then she runs her tongue up the side of one lip, missing my clit (on purpose, the bitch) and down the other side. She licks my perineum, which no one has ever done before, and runs her tongue, as lightly as possible, between my big lips.

I’m munching away at Ci’s pussy, and trying to remain aware of everything that’s happening. I get into a rhythm with my mouth and then Lia’s tongue flicks my clit and I loose it again. I didn’t really like it when my fingers did that. It’s much better this way. Lia taps at it like she’s flicking a pencil tip with her tongue. After only a few flicks it starts to be too hard, and gets a more tepid response. She catches wise, and starts to broaden her approach.

I’m still eating Ci out, and my jaw is getting a little tired. If Lia’s noises from before are any indication, Ci is really close. There’s more juices flowing out of her pussy, and she’s beginning to drop her weight a bit.

Lia lays the flat of her tongue over my clitoris, and runs it up and down, without ever moving completely off of it. I feel myself hit the first step to an orgasm, just as Ci begins to come on my face. When I hear her really get off, my first instinct is to stop, but I know this game. Her juices pour down over my lips, as I keep going until she falls forward onto her elbows, gasping and twitching.

Ci rolls of my face, and then turns to lick her fluids off my lips.

Now that my mouth isn’t occupied, Lia has me gasping pretty hard. When Ci puts her lips on mine, I find myself moaning into her mouth. I’m getting close, but it’s just out of reach. Then Lia reaches out with her lips, and gently tucks my whole clitty into her mouth. When she starts to give the littlest bit of suction, every muscle spasms. It feels like someone has reached into my pelvis and jerked my body forward a couple of inches. My orgasm contorts every muscle in my abdomen, and I do my best to slam my clit into her mouth as she sucks me off. She completes the move by putting her thumb over my entrance and rubbing the top of the doorway.

The orgasm last somewhere around five seconds and a jillion years. My vision tunnels, and my head swims. Lia continues to work on my clit as I come down, until it’s feeling a little raw and tender, like every, last, pleasurable sensation has been milked out of it.

There’s a lull at this point, and Lia climbs into the bed. We all have the feminine stamina to keep things going, but it’s clear that Lia would like to take a short nap. She curls into my side, and worms her way deep into the foam. Ci uses a wave of foam bits to cover my naked body, and hers, and then tucks her arm around my chest and kisses my neck and nuzzles herself to sleep.

I stare at their ceiling. There’s a painted pattern up there, to match the bed shape. I watch it in the blue light while I think about what I’ve done.

Something has broken deep inside me. I cry on the inside, laying in their arms, while I try to process what has happened. Something has happened inside my head and it’s devastating.

Sometimes a hooker would cry after sex. I tried to get offended, but the truth was, I never really cared that much. Not even enough to look down on them for it.

Now the emotional tole of the last two days, hell the last three months, is hitting me more deeply than I thought I could feel. These damn lesbians have mind-fucked me.

When I was very young I was convinced that I had been born a girl, and my parents has somehow attached a fake penis to me and were trying to pass me off as a boy.

I don’t know where that feeling went.

It certainly didn’t come up in school, where I found that the best kind of relationship was one based on money in the open, instead of hiding behind quid pro quo. I had never felt wrong about having a penis… I think.

And as I lay here in the arms of a swinging lesbian alien, and her wife, I realize that I have to get up. I don’t know why, but staying doesn’t seem like an option. It’s never been an option.

Ci makes a cooing noise when I disentangle myself from the two of them, and makes a halfhearted play for my fingertips. And then she rolls over into Lia’s arms and falls back asleep.

I gather my clothes in the near dark, zipping up the boots in a moment of deep confusion. Sneaking out is something I’m used to. Being the sneaker is not.

Hard is set up so that the front door to Lia’s apartment is in a recess next to the door of the bar. People can visit when the saloon is closed. I’m sure that’s nice. I pause with my hand on the simple wooden door. I don’t lock it as I wander out onto the promenade.

I was happy the way I was.

I was not happy the way I was.

Eleven was not a nice man. Certainly not a kind man. Definitely not the kind of man who would get invited into someone’s home for dinner. But was Eleven all of those things because he’d been born that way? Was Eleven a jerk, simply because he was a guy.

I don’t know the answer to that.

But I wasn’t born a guy this time around. What am I now?

I walk to the edge of the catwalk. The center of the z-level is not a plant. Why grow things the people can’t eat? The Logans have instead decorated with a sort of light tree thing. Old incandescent bulbs are stung in a chandelier shape.

I look out at the chains of lights, then sit down on the edge and swing my feet out. My tiny feet, in women’s boots.

I know, as I do it, that my hips are different, as I sit on them. My femurs are twisted in more than when I was a man, and my knees are out a tad more. I know that the way I do something, as simple as swinging my feet, is completely different as a woman than it is as a man.

I fucked a pair of strangers, and I had a more meaningful sexual experience than I’ve ever had before. I was wanted. For my looks, or because I was a woman, or because they’re not picky. Or maybe because somewhere along the way I became a different person.

As I wonder just what I am now, I come to terms with something. I’m not sure who I am right now, or who I might be in the future, but it can’t be Eleven anymore.

I become 11.

#

I come back to the door of the bar, not sure if it was locked behind me. It turns out that leaving wasn’t an option. Not for 11.

When I put my hand on the door knob it opens before I can turn it. Ci is there, naked and unashamed. And she hugs me.

I’m not sure why this hug is so meaningful, but I feel tears in my eyes as she breaks the embrace to kiss me tenderly. Then she pops her head back and leads me up the stairs.

I’ve been on the station nearly a week. It’s taking this long for Bob’s Gun’s to get their money together, and I’m beginning to think they’re jerking me around.

But that’s not why I’m staying.

I’ve been sleeping in that weird bed for three nights. Well we do a lot less than sleep. That is, very little sleep goes on in the bed. Sort of.

For three days I’ve slept in, while Lia goes off to work her ten hours. Hard is the kind of place that stay open at her convenience, and the regulars know when to come. The non-regulars find somewhere soft to drink.

Ci does some kind of freelance hacker stuff as far as I can understand. While she does that, I’ve been curling up on their couch, and being introspective. When I’m not doing that I surf the web on a laptop I brought up from the ship.

I’m not using any of my old social accounts. I’m not even visiting the same sites. I’m learning about different kinds of clothes, and every once in awhile I look over some pictures of makeup. On occasion I brush up against something about what women want in the bedroom, and my breath catches a little bit, and I pass the article over.

I didn’t mean to make myself at home here, but it’s happened. I don’t wear much clothes. I’m not worried about using any of their furniture (I use coasters). Their kitchen is filled with weird stuff, but they have some things I recognize. They like cheese and bread. They have a Mr. Coffee, and Ci likes to make little snacks all the time.

I’ll be making something in the kitchen, or lounging around, and she’ll pull off her headset and take a break, which means running her tongue up my spine. She does a thing where she cups my ass, which I’ve found out I love, and she tucks her hips close to mine when she fondles my breasts from behind.

I know what’s going on. I know they’ve had dozens of other side women. Lia keeps a scrapbook. She thinks she’s hidden it on the bookshelf where no one will look. Eleven wouldn’t have looked. Eleven wasn’t wild about books. 11 has found that she doesn’t know how she feels about books. But Lia has a collection of Austin that she keeps to help her “keep her English sharp.” 11 kind of likes Pride and Prejudice. But I don’t have any idea why Lia thinks this version of “English” is relevant to any place in this galaxy; much less behind a dive bar on the wrong edge of civilized space.

Despite knowing that I’m going to be in and out of their lives in a flash, I feel like some part of me belongs here.

At some point I put on my clothes again, and go out to buy an interpreter. It has it has the standard 60 languages on it. I wish there was some kind of illegal version to buy, but there isn’t. It’s thinner than a piece of cellophane, and sticks firm in the crook of my ear.

And I haven’t turned it on.

“Whatever is going on here, it’s going on independent of language,” I tell Dr. Jordan. Ci sits in her little computer nook, typing away. She’s not ignoring me, she’s simply not paying attention to me right now. I’m sitting in a deep cushioned wooden chair, and eating snacks, while Jordan has a salad. She pinged me on my laptop. I can reach Bertha’s local up here.

“I seems like something is working out for you,” she says.

“The shaking has almost stopped. I have occasional tremors. There’s a tic in my shoulder that annoys the hell out of me sometimes.” Dr. Jordan nods, because we’re not actually talking about that. “I tried to drink like before and just about killed myself. Like before. But the reason I had for doing that is gone now.”

“Your system hasn’t felt alcohol before. I told you that.”

“Did you? I feel like I would remember,” I’m joking. A little bit.

“Everyone told you that, 11. That’s why there was no booze on that ship. Your brain still has all it’s old synaptic responses to alcohol, and releases serotonin, but your body is metabolizing it in an entirely different way.”

Yeah, I could only sneak one bottle on. Thanks for that.

She puts a tomato in her mouth and swallows like a lady, instead of talking around it. “A little bit of alcohol is probably okay, maybe good (if a little early). But try to drink like you used to and you’ll end up in a coma.”

I flush a little bit. This might be with contrition, and it might be because Ci makes eye contact and runs her tongue over her teeth.

“Is she that good?” Dr. Jordan catches on fast.

“I… ” I don’t know. “I don’t know.” I break eye contact as seductively as I can. I feel it’s not much, but I’m working on making my face do sexy. “They are… overwhelming. In the softest way.”

“Sometimes we can be like that.”

“Have you… ?”

“I’m bi, 11. A few more women than men.”

Well I knew about 50% of that. Eleven would have had a shot with her too.

Why in hell does that make me jealous?

“What does that make me?” I ask her as much as myself.

“Do you need a label?”

Do I? “Yes. So I know whom I shall fuck.”

“I think those novels are having an effect on you.”

I play with my hair a little bit, and then don’t make eye contact when I tell her, “I gave my first blowjob.”

This immediately gets Jordan hot, I’m recognizing the signs now. She never loses composure though, “What did you think of that?”

“I liked it.” A lot. “There was a lot of power from being powerless. With his dick in my mouth I felt in control. But not in control like a man would feel.” I put the last of the snack thing in my mouth and swallow before I talk again. “Cum tastes nasty, in a way I love completely.”

“Would you want to do it again?”

I don’t say anything, just nod a bit, while my heart does little fluttery things. I’ve got that lady boner thing going on, just thinking about it.

Ci rustles her antennae a little bit, and shifts in her seat, twisting her hips to get her pussy a little flatter. I realize she can smell my arousal from across the room. That little minx, she’s been doing that this whole time. Then her arousal gets me more aroused, and before I can think I tell Jordan I’ve got to go.

#

I turn off the terminal, and start to think about the way Ci is going to taste in my mouth. I think about the way her nipples feel under my teeth. I imagine what her slippery tongue on the inside of my thighs will be like. My cunny runs a little juice over the sides, and I twist my hips and feel my clit rub its hood a bit.

Ci is breathing heavy now, I can see that she’s trying to focus on her work, and she thinks that means not touching herself.

She badly wants to touch herself.

And I feel empowered as I stand and brush my hair over my shoulders. I stalk over to her computer. She isn’t looking at me, but I stalk anyway. My hips sashay as I put one foot directly in front of the other. My breasts tug at my shoulders as they swing just a little bit. All this makes me feel a sense of seduction, as I brush my fingers over Ci’s cheek and down her shoulder. With a flexibility I’ve always felt I should have but have never had, I lift my heel up to my waist, and then extend my leg, and straddle her.

I shift my weight a little bit on her lap, and this arches my back and pushes my nipples up against her breasts. The sensation isn’t much more than skin on nipple, but what it represents in my mind drives me a little nuts, and I do it again.

I’m running my hands over my ribs, and cupping my breasts a bit, then I shift my hips again, and run my fingers through my hair.

Ci takes control, grabs my hair, and palms one breast while she sucks the other aggressively. I’m here to make her hot. I’m in control of making her in control.

I lean forward on her lap, and make a play at kissing her. Holding my mouth close to hers, blowing against her lips and mouth. When she darts forward I dart back and she switches the motion to suckle my neck. I use the momentum to take her hips for a ride.

Ci makes something between a growl and a purr. From her chair she picks me up by the waist and pushes me back on her desk.

My butt knocks her computer over, and she doesn’t pause. She’s too hungry for my pussy to care. Yes, get hot for me!

She tucks my knees up, and looks at me with a question. I break eye contact to run my hands through my hair and then clutch my nipples.

Ci dives straight in. Her slippery tongue wraps around my button, then twists around it in circles. Not something a human tongue can do. She must have been saving that move for a special occasion. I acctually scream and then start making a noise like “hoooo-oh” in the back of my throat.

My body in humming all over, none the least bit because I made her do this.

I move my hands to her head. Give her dreads a tug. This just makes her go faster and harder.

She’s tracing little pathways over my thighs with her fingernails as she goes, and I’m holding my orgasm off for as long as I can. Make her work for it. Make her please you!

Then she runs her thumb around the edges of my butthole, and brings it to rest in the center with a smidgen of pressure. I can’t hold off any longer then and I shriek as I cum.

#

It’s later. Sometime around what I feel as midnight. Lia rustles me awake as she climbs out of bed. I feel her sit on the edge for a second, and watch Ci and me sleep.

She goes off to the kitchen, and I wait a second before I follow her. She’s puttering around, making late night socka. I stand behind her, hands on her hips and kiss her neck.

She’s tense and I don’t know why. Trying to calm herself down.

“What is it?” I say.

She doesn’t answer, just pours two cups, and puts a splash of brandy in both. When she hands me one she finally speaks. “How long are you staying?”

Ah. “I’m… not sure. Maybe a couple more days. Do you need me out?”

She shakes her head no, sips, and takes in a deep breath, “I’ve never seen my shahene like this with anyone before. She genuinely cares for you.”

I take my own sip. The brandy really works in this. “And you?”

“I’ve cared for every one, Eleven. Strey love easily. But Ci? Most of them are in and out in a day. She’s never gotten attached before.”

“I have work to do. I can’t stay forever, Lia.”

She walks over to the couch, and we sit together and drink in silence for a moment. “Just don’t break her heart, Eleven.”

Finally Carolyn pings me, and I have to put on pants. They’ve got the money.

To Ci’s mind, I check my terminal, then get up and immediately start dressing. I don’t have any way of telling her where I’m going, or that I plan to come back.

Do I plan to come back? Eleven wouldn’t have come back. 11 will.

She doesn’t look up as I put my jeans on, or while I zip up my sexy boots. I have to adjust to the heels again, for just a moment, I throw on my jacket, and walk to her. She’s concentrating on her screen, as I pad over and run my arms down her shoulders. I give her nipples a little tweak (she hasn’t been in clothes for a while either, I think they were on the first day just for my benefit), and kiss her cheek.

Then I grab my purse off the couch and sling it over my shoulder as I head down the stairs.

The bar is doing brisk business and I can’t get Lia’s attention, so I head across the mall to the elevator, and run down to the hanger.

Big Bertha is where I left her, the mess in the corridor has been consolidated into a single set of tools. Mitch isn’t anywhere around.

I get in to the bay, turn on a bot, and have it pull my surplus crate. It follows me out of the little bay personal door, and I lock the ship back out as we go over to the freight elevator. No one gets on as I tap my fingertips on the crate and the lift stops on level five.

The bot scoots behind me on it’s mags, as we head over to Bob’s Gun’s. Carolyn as been expecting me, she’s leaning against the wall of her suite. She waves to me, then gestures into the little side alley, and the bot muscles its payload into the back entrance.

Bob is waiting for us at a little desk in the corner of the stock room. It looks like the stock room of a gun shop. There are a lot of guns around. Hanging from racks, and stacked orderly in brackets. There’s some ordinance back here that I know is very illegal, and I’m very not surprised.

Carolyn pops the crate and does a quick count. She isn’t trying to be rude, just a good business woman. I don’t mind at all. While she does that, Bob pulls some stuff up on his terminal. He swivels the screen to show me, and I see all the numbers line up.

“Just need your number,” He says.

I smile at him, and remember that he sees a sexy little woman smiling at him, when he smiles back. He has a glint in his eye that I don’t really like, but I put that thought aside as I plug my key into the terminal. 512 digit account number spills into the right field, and I tap the enter key with a little flourish of satisfaction.

He offers me a drug I’ve never used, and have no interest in, to complete the deal. Instead I dig in my purse and come up with a packet of cigars (from the promotional crate) and offer him one. He gives an expression that might be resignation, and might be regret, and I know that not getting fucked up was the right choice. In a situation in which I would normally feel camaraderie and control, I feel vulnerable.

Bob takes a cigar, and lops the tip off in a practiced slice from an unnecessarily large knife, then hands it to Carolyn, and does the same to another. I nip my tip with a little cigar cutter, and pull out a butane lighter. Bob holds out his hand immediately, and I remember who I am again.

A gentleman always lights a ladies cigar.

A plop a hip onto his desk, and we all smoke for a bit. There’s a splash of brandy.

“Are you staying up on the z-level?” Carolyn asks me.

“I… guess I am. I’m staying with some folks I met.”

“You can always find good people here,” She engages in a hint of regionalism. In my experience you can find good and bad people everywhere you go.

My cigar burns down as she tells me about what sets apart the people on dark stations from the other squares, and I finally can broach a subject that’s been bothering me. “Carolyn?” I gesture to the greater portion of the station, “what the hell is that smell?”

She smiles a little, “Never smelled it before, have ya?”

“No.”

“That’s BO, honey.” She sees my confounded expression, “Bodily odor. Armpit sweat.”

“Armpit sweat doesn’t smell.”

“Well no,” she gives me that, “if you get your JGT-5.”

Everyone gets their JGT-5. “Why would anyone not get the treatment?”

“The same reason Sam has to filter toilet paper through the leach field. Don’t want government control.”

Oh god.

“They started putting nanites in the JGT. The feds use them to keep track of you. You should watch…”

“Hey, I gotta run. My ship’s almost fixed.”

#

Nanites. The bogeymen of the paranoid, as well as the dumbest method of biological change you could imagine.

Sure they exist. Yes they are useful. No, to put them in a person is a stupid idea.

For a start, the quantity of nanites you would need to affect some kind of physical change is phenomenal. They are made of atoms. There are about 600 quadrillion atoms in a drop of water. Nanites have a very limited range and minimal movement systems. Even nanites that can replicate would take a century to populate a teardrop.

For a second, we have organic systems made of atoms. They’re called proteins. We make them to feed and adjust the behavior of cells, and it takes 60 years or more to affect any kind of meaningful change.

For a finish, DNA-Virals (like the JGT-5 ointment) use viruses with DNA instead of RNA to change cells. It’s far more effective, but still takes five applications to do anything to a site.

I got my JGT-5 like anyone, to make the pores of my armpits stop producing the enzymes that make them smell like garbage. A little cream over three months, and it works like a charm.

How do I know this? Sector & Sector has been trying to weaponize nanites for over a hundred years. So far, nothing.

#

So I book it out of there, a little freaked out by the paranoia.

But that paranoia has just made me a lot of money, so maybe it all works out.

I head back to Bertha, to check my personal accounts. There’s some things you don’t do in range of an intergalactic hacker.

In the hanger the bot is waiting for me, he found his own way home, and I load him up and go up to the flight deck.

Mitch is on his back as I go through the corridor, grunting. I watch, calmly furious, for a moment, until he makes a satisfied noise. “Can you give me a hand up?”

I don’t say anything. He gets the hint, and climbs to his feet. My body language is doing a good job of keeping some space between us. My hand next to Nancy’s holster is doing a better job.

“Go ahead and start that up. It’ll take about an hour and hopefully the message will clear and you’ll be on your way.”

I move past him and to go up the corridor. He almost doesn’t stand aside, until I make eye contact with him. He takes a step back against the wall.

I can hear him stand there for longer than a moment, then he leaves without saying anything. I shut the door to the flight deck and lean my ass against it. I lock the door to keep the panic out of my head.

Figure yourself out 11.

I start the filter going, and run the system through set up. The little loading bar starts going through the actions.

Then I check my escrow account. Bob is good on his word. All the money is in there. Ready to spend.

I know what I need to do.

#

I’ve thought about this for three days, and I’m not ready. But I need to part ways with my hosts—my lovers—with a gift, and I have one of the best on board. I do a bit of research to make sure it’s not poisonous to Streya. It’ll be fine.

I have a secret stash. It’s genuine. Very rare. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion.

And as I slip it into my purse I know I’m doing the right thing.

The plant that makes it can only survive on Earth, and then only within three degrees of the equator. It takes years to mature, and only produces fruit every 3–6 years. Fungus and plagues have nearly wiped it out a dozen times, and now you can only keep a couple of them on a field or risk loosing the entire crop.

You can synthesize it, of course, but the synthetics are widely poisonous to non-humans. It’s obscure, and very rare outside the human SOI. What I have in my purse is enough to wipe out the money I got from the guns, and then some.

I’m certain Ci and Lia have never had any.

On the lift up I start to cry. By the time it hits the z-levels I give up wiping tears away, and they just stream down my face. When the lift comes to a stop stand in an alcove nearby and take a long time to compose myself.

I stop in the promenade and end up in a socka cafe with my tablet, and a translator app. I spend a half hour drinking and memorizing what I’m going to say.

The socka is better than what Ci makes. I feel bad about thinking that.

Lia is closing up the bar when I come to the door. I see her finishing up the dishes through the window, and sneak in. She looks up and sees me and we make a connection.

She is adament, hands clenched, “You are not leaving here without saying goodbye to her.”

I’m a little hurt she thinks I would do that, then I remember that Eleven would have done that and I understand.

Lia puts the last glass away, comes to stand in front of me, and kisses my softly. She gives me a smile that’s equal parts encouragement and regret. She gives my butt a little squeeze, more comforting than arousing.

We head up the stairs in silence, and when we walk in Ci is sitting on the couch. She’s pretending to read a book, and she looks sad, and I start crying again.

Lia kisses my tears and gives me a little shove, and I go to sit next to Ci on the couch. She sighs and puts the book down, but doesn’t look at me.

Moment of truth. In halting and badly practiced Strey I say to her, < I have never felt so loved. >

She looks as shocked as I’ve ever seen, and shifts on the couch to give me a deep hug. After a few moments I gently push her off, and pull out the box. Curious, she watches as I open it, pull out a morsel, and pop it in to her mouth. Her eyes widen, enthralled, and her hand goes to her heart.
< It’s called ‘chocolate.’ >

Checks take about an hour, there’s only three pages to run through. I’m not taking off in an atmosphere, and the engine hasn’t been cool for too long. In fifteen minutes the drive is hot.

Solid fuel is fine. Water is fine. I went out and bought 25 lbs of food. Fresh vegetables and fruit (at an obscene markup), rice, bread, adventuresome pizza, beef, pork, rabbit, sausage, some whale, and gas station sushi. Gas station sushi is never a good idea, and for some reason I keep buying it. I throw out some noodles with a sense of vindication and relief.

I settle up with the maintenance crew while the seal checks are running, because seals take fifteen minutes all on its own, and makes a hell of a racket. Mitch is nowhere to be found, must be his day off.

We exchange from an escrow account, which is actually a Sector account. That’s on the books, but good luck finding it.

I should get a refund from D’Neesha, but I know I won’t see that money again. Requesting cash back at a brothel is a good idea, if you want your kidneys perforated.

I settle into the flight seat, get clearance from control, and I’m out through the hanger. Break into hyperspace with no fanfare. In a couple of days I’ll be back on course.

#

Then a get a ping I wasn’t expecting. I’ve been dreading it, but didn’t expect it.

My father is calling me. Private line.

I stare at the notification, breathing hard. Then I put it on a five minute hold and find something to do with my hair. If I were Eleven, I’d be putting on a jacket and tie. Probably not pants. In this case I settle for hair up, LBD on, makeup in nudes.

I sit down in front of the terminal, cross tuck my legs to the side in a way that feels natural now, and hit accept.

He’s alway older than I remember. He takes his retros, but they’re fighting a lifestyle of hedonistic drug use and rampant assholery. I don’t think all of the aging blockers, on every world, could make my father look like a pleasant person.

And he’s reading reports at his desk, a couple of lines on a mirror next to his wrist, while I wait patiently for him to pretend to notice me. It’s an old game. He loves to make me stew while he pretends to do something else.

“Boy. You look… good.” We’re off to a great start.

“Thanks father, so do you.”

“Don’t fucking lie Eleven. I look like shit. The latest divorce is playing hell with my blood pressure.” He also hasn’t shaved in a week. “Heard you assed off on a detour.”

“There was a technical issue. It’s fixed now.”

He grunts, unconvinced, “You’re costing me a fuckton of money out there.”

“Not as much as you might think.” And you know that.

“I’ve seen the numbers. Why don’t you use that pretty ass of yours to bring them down.” It’s not an 11 thing. Father has been suggesting I whore myself out for four decades. He brushes aside the drugs so that he can lay both his hands on the table. “No, I’m talking about that fucking body. Shitload of dough went in to that, and you manged to cock it straight up. Didn’t read up on the goddamn doctor. Didn’t fucking check the genetic profile. You would have seen it had two x chromes” Ah. I knew he’d find a way to make it my fault.

“He was your doctor, Father. I didn’t see a reason to look in to that.”

“Don’t give me your shit, Eleven, I’m up to fucking here with you.” He’s been ‘up to fucking here’ with me before, usually right before he broke some part of me. I’m not being trite, Eleven’s nose was broken a lot.

“Yes, Father.” Turns out 11 is a coward with her father too.

“We took care of the cunt doctor though. That one’s on the house.”

“So I hear.” I shift in my seat a little bit. He still makes me feel tiny and scared, even when he’s trying to be consoling. He’s consoling you with the fact that he had a man killed. That’s what he thinks of as support.

“Eleven,” he rubs a hand over his face, and drags his floppy skin around a bit, “We’ve got a lot of crap riding on this. The Chockan have a lot of capital to throw around. Those ladies are going to win, we’re going to insure the fuck out of that. When they do, we have a helluva prime position. We make the competition shit the floor and mop it up for years, while they gnaw on our scraps. Oh, the planet’ll never be a big player, but they got money to throw around. They’ll be a big market for all the shit we sell. T-shirts to fuck sticks, they’ll want everything the Earth SOI can offer them.”

At the end I feel like he’s asking a question and I don’t know what it could be.

“Can you finish the run?”

I feel the muscles in my face take a pause with shock. I never considered quitting to be an option. I never considered, that he would consider, quitting to be an option. After everything I’ve gone through the past four months, the prospect of turning around an going home is a huge relief.

And then I remember. Home to what? It’s a year or more until I’m back in my old body, even if we can find a doctor who will do it. I’ve been planet hopping for two decades, never putting down roots for longer than a year before a new job came up. Am I going “home” to night after night of drunken stupor and hookers?

“I need to audit the mother fuck out of our shipping department, and you know all the routes. There a position…”

I finally make sense of it: he feels sorry for me. All of the miserable things in my life and this is the one that moves his heart. After everything he’s done to me, this makes me angrier than anything else. “The run is fine.” I repress the impulse the gesture angrily at myself, “I’m fine. Being 11 is fine.” The trembling anger makes it into my voice, and I almost don’t care.

Embarrassment flashes as briefly as possible over his face, before he resumes domineering. “Fucking glad to hear it. After this run we have pile of jobs for you, so get your ass in gear. Get it done, Eleven.” And he’s out.

#

I take a quick shower to try to wash away the shame of that conversation. My hair isn’t wet enough to use the hair dryer I got at Paint, but I do anyway.

I just defended my… womanhood. I guess. He gave me an out and instead of taking it, I threw it back at him in disgust. That’s gonna take some therapy to figure out.

Time to give 11 a media presence. I sit down in the bunkhouse with a cup of tea and open up my laptop.

First up, close down old profiles.

There’s Eleven. Looking at my face—his face—brings a strange sense of melancholy. I recognize the pictures, I know it’s me, but it’s a person I’ll never see again.

Lock that.

Lock the contacts list, it’s all superficial in any case. A hundred faces met in a bar, half remembered, posting minion memes all over my profile.

There’s my messenger. Most of those I can move over. Do that.

There’s my hookup app. Good for finding the shittiest lays you can pay for. Just delete the whole thing. Make a new account? Not ready. 11 hasn’t needed any help so far.

I make a new profile, on a picture’s only site. Call it 11. Post a picture I took from one of the monitors. I’m naked, but you can only tell if you’re interested in looking.

Everyone will be interested in looking. I feel a little excited about that.

I add Marcus, because I have his details. That’s pretty much it. I’m one of those profiles with only a single contact. I add some more pictures and worry that I’m being vapid.

Within not even a second of the second picture posted I get a DM. It’s from an account that I neither recognize, nor is connected to anyone I know. I open the channel with perplexed curiosity.

The sender has carefully documented for me, every thing he wants to do to my ass. Most of it seems painful, if not downright impossible.

I decide not to answer. This does nothing to deter him. He adjust tactics slightly, and asks if I want to cyber.

I don’t. Nor do I answer.

He explains that he has a bunch of long range equipment. He goes on to tell me it’s specialized for my enjoyment.

That’s not the attractive offer he thinks it is. When I continue not to answer he calls me a fat bitch.

I block him.

During our “conversation” two new DMs have popped up. The words are different but the message is the same. “Hey, you look attractive to my penis, and this should be a reason for you to fuck it.” One of them has offered visual proof of how great his penis is. I look. He’s brave to show that to anyone.

In the time it takes me to block those two, four more have taken their place. One of them simply starts with “’Sup?” The other three are dick-pics.

I set my account to private. Only approved members will be able to message me. Then I go have some lunch.

I return to find 587 requests for approval.

I set my profile picture to a syphilis ridden vagina. I get thirty more requests.

I delete my profile.

It’s been another week on the run, I’m almost back on course, and I’m horny.

Really horny.

Really really horny.

How horny am I? I’m beginning to think seriously about toys.

Ci and Lia either didn’t have any or didn’t want to use them on me, and for that I’m thankful. I squirmed every time they tried to put something in my pussy, and after only one night they stopped trying.

That felt like going too far. I’m new to having a vagina, and someone else putting something inside it feels like… personal. I wanted to, god knows I would have given them anything. But it hurt. Inside, and deeper inside.

I use my own fingers, of course. I start with one and finish with two. Three hurts a little too much. It makes me feel full and…

Womanly.

I’m still not quite ready for that.

But I creep Marcus’s social media page every once in awhile, and feel his sticky dick in the back of my throat. And before I even think about it, I fantasize about having it buried in my cunny.

It’s late, I’ve been online too long, and I’m looking speculatively at mods for toys, and playing with my nipples; trying not to get too hot.

I’m not sure when I make the decision but at some point it becomes more than speculative, and I’m actively trying to decide what I want to print.

How adventurous am I?

The sites always start out with the innocuous stuff at the top of the page. The ones that could be “back massagers.” They don’t look sexy, and my vagina says no.* I’m more adventurous than that.*

I scroll down to the ones that look vaguely phallus shaped, and that makes my eyes dilate. And then the site gets to the more extreme stuff. Vibration, internal beads, clit stimulators. I’ve learned that with this new organ I don’t know what I’ll like until I try it. It seems like a waste to start out on level 10 if I hate level 1.

My breathing gets pretty heavy as I pull up the full page for a realistically veiny model. It makes me think back to the feel of a head in my mouth. I wonder if I can feel the shape of the head inside of me, or if that’s only for when it’s hitting my entrance.

For a moment I remember being a man, and feeling my glans slide past the walls of a vagina with a tiny inaudible popping feeling. Thinking about one sliding into me makes the skin around my nipples tighten so they feel like little rocks.

Nipple break. I grab my whole areola and yank on it in desperation.

How big do I want it? How big am I? I opt for average, go to hit print, then give myself 5% on length. And girth.

No. 8%.

I’m just about panting now, but I won’t touch my pussy, trying to prolong the whole thing.

While it prints I try to cool down by watching some porn that doesn’t interest me. Then I watch porn that does interest me, and the whole problem starts over.

So I go back to the pages and look at vibrators. That’s where they get really inovative with shapes. I have no idea what I’m doing. These all look arcane without any frame of reference. I eventually decide on something that looks like a guy would think a girl would like it. It’s a golf ball with rabbit ears, and has twenty different settings. Twenty setting seems like a good thing, right?

And then my first dildo is done cooling.

I pick it up in my hand and stare at it for a long time. It has a gummy texture that doesn’t fool my hand, and probably won’t fool my quim. What’s the problem? Your quim won’t know the difference.

I don’t have a ritual to go through, but I want the first time to be… something. Special, I guess. So I turn the lights low and put on soothing music. And then change that to the sound of a woman moaning, which I found in the depths of a play list.

Way to get into the mood. The sounds perk my interest just as much as when I was a man, no matter that I make them myself now.

I sit on the bed and lay a leg out to the side, while the other one drapes onto the floor, and start exploring.

I run it around my lips, exploring. The plastic drags a bit at first, but my juices quickly slick it up. It’s colder than my fingertips, I don’t know why that surprises me. But I was a little wrong, the plastic has some give that totally fools my clitoris as I bush past it. With a little imagination it could be skin. It makes me shudder, and I put hand to a tit as I run the tip of the phallus over my inner lips.

God it’s big. It pulls them apart like my fingers can’t, and that feels better than I would have believed. I’m slick as a gangster down there, and I feel the arches of my feet buckle as I put a little pit of pressure on it. My opening is getting pulled apart, but there’s no tension.

Then the head pops in, and it feels as great as I thought it would. A feeling like a click running through my pelvis and into the balls of my femurs. I do that more than a couple of times, and don’t notice that I have to pull out farther and farther. And then I don’t want to pull it out any more, because it’s filling me up. That is too distracting to pull out all the way anymore.

It’s about two inches deep, moving back and forth when I realize that I’m moaning in time with the woman on the stereo. My legs are spread wide now, and my right hand is palming a nipple, while the left pushes the dildo further and further into me.

When the tip hits my cervix I feel a jolt of pain, and back of a couple of inches. Wow that hurts. Takes a second to get my groove back as my eyes water.

I’ve got a finger on the base, holding it like a paintbrush. It bends and pulls as it comes out and thats great, brushing my clit as it pulls me open. When it goes in again it straightens out and I don’t know how I remember to breathe.

I escalate the pace, then bring it up again. I’m getting faster and faster, and someone is making a high pitched whine. Probably me, but who has time to check that stuff when they’re fucking themselves?

I’m not sure when my orgasm starts. I don’t really realize it’s been happening until my legs start shuddering, and then I’m with myself long enough to realize that I’m on my third or fourth climax.

I don’t know at what point I come down either. Slowly everything gets sore, and after one final, complete, orgasm, I pull the toy out. I lay languorous in the bed, losing track of time. My muscles are aching and relaxed at the same time.

I curl up on the bed and fall asleep so hard I drool.

#

That’s it. Tomorrow I go black. No communication in or out.

I’m crossing out of Earth SOI and into Anduin space on my way to Chinochkan. It’s just a thin strip, but the Anduin have strict laws about guns among their citizens and a prison system from the 12th century. Earth has a vested interest in keeping them friends, and a rigorous extradition treaty. It’s a mess of intergalactic diplomacy that makes it hard for the little guy who just wants to break their most stringent laws.

And they have buoys in place to scan for quantum, so no Internet. Bertha has the standard collection of smuggler jammers, but if they’re scanning broad beam it’ll just make her easier to find. Sector has a couple of customs agents on the take, and we know where the weak spots are on both sides.

I’m explaining a little of this to Dr. Jordan, as we talk for the last time in two weeks. I’ll be able to see her again in a bit, but…

We’re having chobbish together, which means I’m having memories of my first time eating it.

“You’re trying new things,” she tells me. “I think that’s a good thing. I think you’d enjoy a… ” she’s skirting the edge of medical integrity, “… nother kind of encounter as well.”

I lean forward a little bit, in the way that drove Ci nuts, “What kind of ‘encounter’ do you mean?” I purr it out.

Dr. Jordan just smiles and shrugs and can’t say anything because she has chobbish in her mouth.

I scoot my hips and try to taunt her a little bit, “I’m really looking forward to finally meeting you.”

“I am as well, 11.”

We sign off. I download everything I can to the local. Mods, programs, porn, a collection of novels that would have surprised me five months ago, and… some toys that look interesting. It turns out that penetration is a very satisfying experience.

I set the lights to 25%, that’s an old practice of mine. It makes me think of smugglers on the oceans, putting the lights out on their ships out at night.

Then I settle in for a long two weeks.

#

When I first stuck a finger in my quim and got off on it, there was the most meager ass play. And there’s been some more since. Usually I just touch my other hole when I’m feeling horny and weird.

And right now I’m feeling horny and weird, and I’m trying to decide on beads or plug.

I have experience, as a man with the beads, and an adventurous prostitute, and the issue is that a secondary angle is required for ease of use.

I’ve printed both in consideration. I pick up the plug in my hand. Round head, tapered, and then tapered the other direction and then a base. It’s hard metal, and I’m told by the site it’s shaped for a woman’s asshole. The dirty anticipation of having it in me is turning me on in a strange way.

New lingerie. And I’m feeling like a slut, so it’s slutty lingerie. It’s the first time I’ve really thought of myself like that since I’ve been 11, but if the shoe fits—”

—wear it.

So I’m in a bra that barely covers my nipples, heels, and a g-string, looking at myself in the mirror. 11’s body is still unfamiliar enough to keep turning me on. The thong in my crack is a whole new sensation, and one I could get used to. While I glance over my shoulder at the little strip of fabric, and turn a little bit for some side boob; I want to just cram that ass full.

I sit on my knees, toes on the floor, heel spikes in the air, and breathe softly as I put some lubricant on the plug. It’s high tech and doesn’t goo up my hands. It’s only slippery against a mucus membrane, otherwise it just absorbs into your skin. It warms a little past room temperature, but the first touch of the tip on my little button still feels cold.

Or maybe it’s just shocking, because as I feel it run over my hole my shoulders give little shivers. We all learned in sex-ed that the clitoris is a complicated system of nerves, external and internal. And internal it makes up the g-spot and then wraps around the vagina and anus.

But this feels nothing like touching my clit. The psychology is getting intense, and I can’t wait to get it all the way inside, but I know I have to go slow.

I give a little push and feel the tip slide past. I clench involuntarily, and it pops out again. More pressure and I feel something totally foreign. It’s like a hole has dropped open beneath my belly and a part of me might fall out. At the same time a fist is hitting me in the stomach. It’s nothing like my cunny, nothing is supposed to be going in there and my body knows it. That sends a little thrill through me, and while my asshole spasms in confusion I pop a little more in and move it in and out. It’s like there’s a membrane in there that shouldn’t be touched, and every time I touch it, it cries out for more.

I’m feeling a sharp pain and a dull throb of pleasure at the same time.

Lube or not, I feel the friction, and my wrists weaken a little bit with the feeling. I let out a sound that might be a growl of pleasure and keep plunging for awhile, getting deeper. Then a big push that carries me over a little peak of pleasure and my asshole closes over the taper and wraps around the base.

There’s a little satisfaction when I tuck the thong back into my but, and feel the band snap tight against the base of the plug.

I feel a distracting tickle from the end of it, and this feeling quickly goes away when I put a delicate little finger on the hood of my clit and give it an experimental roll. The combination of front and back feels incredible and I very quickly drive myself over the edge. It’s a jerky, intense, dirty, orgasm; and I want more.

#

I have a fantasy man.

He’s not Marcus. Taller, broader shoulders, nice calves, intense blue eyes. Better hung.

He’s standing in front of me, and making eye contact, hands on his hips, while I play with something in my butt hole and rub me pussy for him.

Time for toy number two.

It feels weird that something like this exists, but it’s a dildo specifically for sucking. I think someone out there understands me, or understands women, or whatever.

I pretend it’s my dream man, and practice on his shaft, licking the bottom, and tucking it under my teeth, and grinding my fingers back and forth on the plug. Sometimes I tug it out past the bulge and slip it back in again. Sometimes I pull just to feel the tension, and before it pops out I slam it in hard. I cum again, this time without touching my pussy. All from my ass.

The psychology of Fantasy Man’s dick in my throat isn’t hurting anything.

The plug is stimulating in and of itself, but I’m on the edge of a huge climax, and I know it won’t be enough on it’s own. I scoot around on my knees and plant my cheeks around the bunk post. Head on the ground, I’m holding the dong with one hand, have three fingers rolling my clit, and I start twerking back against the post. Slowly at first, quicker as I start to rise, and then I’m beating the plug into my asshole, desperately sucking the fake cock.

From a philosophical standpoint, I think every orgasm, aside from the distinguishable few that stick in your memory, is the best one you’ve ever had. I know this one will stick in my memory. I feel so dirty and so slutty, and until I can do all this for real, it’ll be one of the strongest climaxes I’ve ever had.

When it hits I cry out, dildo in my throat, and go to town on the thing. The orgasm lasts until I almost can’t stand it anymore, and has the slowest die down I’ve ever experienced.

Just as I’m starting to hit the end of the climax, I hit the button on the dildo, and feel it blast into the back of my throat. I let out a deep sigh. Regret that it isn’t real cum dribbling down my lips, as I swallow.

#

What follows is nearly a week of debaucherous self pleasure until my libido settles down a bit. Then I only engage when I’m bored.

Chapter 18 - Waiting

I continue to exercise, four hours a day. The I-def gravity isn’t as destructive as no gravity, but it’s not great. And I’m bored.

I try to sleep less, and get down to the recommended third of a day. I think the planet is a 25 hour day, and like smart people (smarter than the Babylonians, anyway) they use metric time. Thank god they’re base 10 or that would really be hell.

I read. I was never much for reading before. Maybe because I never found the right books? I end up in some 21st century popular fiction, and I don’t understand why vampires and bondage turn women on. Well I can understand the vampires. But the bondage? What’s written here seems abusive and inaccurate. The character keeps writing about her “inner goddess.” I don’t know what I’m supposed to picture there, so I go with the Venus of Willendorf.

It’s not pretty.

I read up some on Chinochkan. Crushing atmosphere, hot as hell, red/orange sky. The people are red to pink, tall and reedy, with high brows. I could get in to one or two of them, objectively. Their culture has changed a lot since interstellar, and the new look is a mixture of everything from Qi to Earth to Salk. They love Earth media too. I’m almost a celebrity, and I haven’t even got off the boat.

Makeup and piercings were pretty much unknown on the planet until interstellar contact, and they’ve adopted with abandon.

The Chokan don’t have a large army, or many colonies, but they do have praxite. It’s a gem, integral to faster quantum storage, and absolutely beautiful. You can’t mine it anywhere there hasn’t been carbon life for at least 7 billion years, and then only when plants have evolved that produce hemophyll.

This means the value of the dollar against the hoke is pretty low. Bad for me trying to buy stuff on planet, good for Sector trying to sell them stuff.

And Susan was very right. Human women embody a weird mixture of their ideals of beauty. We’re small, like the a-males. We have breasts like their b-males. We have hair, more of which is considered a sign of virility. And we have two holes to fuck.

The Chokhan excrete liquid waste through something that’s similar to a ureathra. No one wants to get fucked there. Well I’m actually sure there are some pain freaks who love it, but I don’t plan to interact with many of them.

Of course sex on Chinochkan is a three part affair. The women have two genitalia, a vagina and a gynuss. Procreation means getting double plowed, which seems frankly alluring. In my case however this means that two women get to fuck the human girl. Tri-sexuality is the norm for women. Sequestered by the males, they don’t have a lot of options when they’re looking for comfort.

When not procreating the A and B males just have sex with each other. Two of them get married, save up for a woman, knock her up until they get bored with that, and pay for her to get retire on a meager pension. Girls get their own continent though, so that’s kind of nice?

As a man I would be pretty much a non-entity. As a woman I’m a prize. It’ll be nice to be the center of attention, but I have a feeling it’s going to make things harder to get done.

#

I’m petting myself when I start to feel the little bristles of pubic hair. Then I have to hunt up a haizor and fix that.

Butterfly bodies have follicles all over, just like humans, and just like humans most of them are too fine to see, or even feel. The haizor shrinks my folicles from thick hair, back down to invisible.

Of course this means that the stuble has to be torn down to make room for finer real estate. Leshayah already did my legs and armpits, and that was unpleasant. Stripping my vagina of hair is much less pleasant. Lets just say it’s something I’d like to never ever do again. But I’m meticulous through the pain, and scour the whole zone. I’ve found that cunnilingus is wonderful, and I’d like to make it easier on anyone who wants to give me some.

I’m considerate like that.

Oh, yeah. And there’s some blood too. You’re welcome for that image. Try and get that out of your head.

In the end I’m completely bare, like when I was new born. I go bottomless for a day while my crotch deals with the trauma.

#

I unpack some of my toys, and go into the hold for a little target practice. This sets off the alarm, and I have to hunt all over to turn it off.

My hands have stopped shaking completely. My triangle at 10 yards is a tight three inches with open irons. At thirty it’s up to six inches with a handgun, and two with a carbine. That makes me feel good inside. I’m a dainty little lady that can give you an extra nostril if I feel like it.

I try out the Feather Duster for a bit. Carolyn was right, it’s Derringer inaccurate.

But… not to knock the Derringer.

When I was seven a squirrel got in to out summer mansion. It couldn’t find it’s way out and started tearing all over the curtains. Nanny disappeared for a second and came back with an antique, percussion cartridge Derringer. She didn’t even draw a bead on the little guy. Just, pop, and there were squirrel brains all over the window. Then she left without a word, came back, and started cleaning the glass.

Never saw that Derringer again. Wasn’t even in her stuff when she died.

Chapter 19 - Dozen

I’m across.

I flip the modem back on, and start checking email. Susan needs me to call her, hopefully nothing on the ground has changed. If there’s been a truce called I’m gonna look like an idiot.

Marcus has messaged me. I decide not to look at it.

The lights are back on full, I’m about to talk to Jordan and catch up, when something pops up on the screen. It’s a blocked contact, but the sender has helpfully provided Ci’s picture.

I didn’t tell her any of my contact information. I didn’t tell her who I worked for, or even the name of my ship. I don’t know how she found me, and my chest gives a little thrill. I open it and see her message.

I go debt. Chocolate is almost come away.

Or to put it another way: I’m in your debt. The chocolate is almost gone.

Strey has three verbs. “Go”, “come,” and “fuck”. They used to have two, we gave them “fuck.” Go English.

Inside are passcodes to my father’s personal computer.

#

I was never much of a hacker. Sector has a whole cyber espionage division at my disposal. Or at least at Susan’s disposal. Ci has included instructions, nice of her, but they’re in Strey. I have a page translator, but see: above Re: verbs. Through the broken English I figure out I need to download a lot of illegal shit. I get on the deep web and have to search for an hour to find what I need. Curiosity, and the opportunity for extortion keep me going.

There’s code injection, and some FTP, and some acronyms I don’t understand. I’m probably making very detectable mistakes. But one of the programs is routing my IP through five severs across the galaxy. I got in and disabled their key-logger a long time ago.

After two hours of that crap, I have access to my father’s email.

There’s a lot of stuff I already knew, or suspected. Nightmare off shore bank accounts. Three affairs on his current wife. Hard evidence of a lot of war crimes. Those get the hell downloaded out of them.

Then I stumble on something I never suspected there was to suspect.

I have a little sister.

I’m a bastard, of course, and my mother was under the age of consent. (If this surprises you, you haven’t been paying attention.) I don’t even know her full name. I was raised reluctantly—and by a nanny exclusively.

But whoever this girl is, great care has been taken to hide her identity, and a most details in the correspondence are conspicuously missing. Where she is, questions about her mother, her bra size, that kind of stuff. But I find enough to run searches online. I pull up her social profile with no difficulty.

She is 22, grew up off Earth, did very well in school, has lots of friends, and no boyfriend. Or really any social life. Or social life as I understand the concept. She isn’t asking everyone what she did every morning, so we live in separate worlds.

She just got a job in one of our branch companies. A branch of a branch of a branch, actually. Form the letters, she’s close with my—our—father. But she doesn’t know who he is or what he does.

After a ton of searching, I’m sure none of my other siblings know about her. They’ve never mentioned her in 20 years of correspondence. That’s smart. My birth threw the family into chaos, and almost unseated my father as CEO.

And now I really have something on my dad. All the emails get saved onto a personal thumb drive, and as soon as I get a chip, it’s going on that. I feel a little bad about that. Not for stealing his email, but for stealing hers. I tell myself it’s what I have to do.

I pull up her social account again. As I look at the picture of a very pretty girl, with blond hair and blue eyes, wearing pig tails and a plaid shirt; I whisper, “Hello, Dawn.”

But in my mind I’ve already named her.

Dozen.

#

A week later I’m into Chokhan space and ready for the last leg of the run. I want off this boat pretty bad by now. Anywhere I can feel real gravity, and breath air that hasn’t been filtered a hundred million times.

I have a steak dinner ready, and it’s time for a very special moment. Bertha is going to exit hyperspace.

Big Bertha has a consumer drive, so it’ll take about 15 minutes for the reactor to warm up and make the drop. I make an action set, and punch the whole thing through auto. 10 feet a second is the floor for safety when you leap back to realspace. I’d set it lower, but I’d rather not spread bits of ship over a half parsec. I feel the gs as the I-Def strains to keep me from turning into a pancake. Once we’re down to jogging speed, I jump out of the hot seat, and book it for the hold.

I dance in front of the hold door, waiting for it to put some air back inside, then run for the stern. Bertha has a 150 foot hold, and I find a space among the crates where I can see all the way to the front. Sit down, guess the time at around three minutes.

I’ve never read Flatland but I went to kindergarten, and we did the thing where you make a box out of a T of construction paper. Turning a two dimensional object into a three dimensional object. That’s how you have to think about the drop from four dimensions (hyperspace) to three dimensions (realspace). It’s like slowly laying a piece of paper down against the table.

The drive has been down pitch for five minutes, but otherwise the drop is imperceptible. The only indication comes when the far wall of the hold suddenly ceases to exist. It’s still there of course, the ship still has integrity, it just isn’t in the same dimension I am. The field of invisibility slowly makes it’s way toward me, at 10 feet a second, while there’s nothing; no glass, no space suit, no atmosphere, nothing between me and the stars.

I’m facing an arm of the milky way, looking at dust and solar systems in perfect clarity. They don’t twinkle with the haze of air, or distort through refraction. They’re just there, blue and orange and beautiful. I could reach out, a thousand light years, and burn my hands on them.

And between it all is the more emptiness than the human brain can handle.

It’s wrong, of course, but I like to think of the void as a physical thing. It’s the kind of nothing that cradles me and the ship, and keeps us safe. It’s out all around me, ready right now to kill me in seconds. But in a nice comforting way. It is stunningly beautiful.

I take in all that wonder, and then the part of my ship that had my body in it pulls into realspace. I snap back into the dimension with a closed hull in it, and the stars are gone. I always mean to take the time to watch my body disappear for a split second, and I never do.

For an instant the whirling light of hyperspace, behind me, fills the hold with colors we don’t have names for. Then it’s all gone. The moment is over.

I go off to have a steak dinner. And yes, salad.

#
I’m out of Anduin space, but there are elements of the Chinochkan SOI that might ask questions about why I’m coming to their planet with enough weapons to win a war. I’m on the edge of the system (nowhere near a planet, of course), so I point Bertha in the right direction, and shut down the reactor. Bertha doesn’t have the tech to hide herself, and it’s cheaper just to turn it off than pay out millions for that kind of shielding. The peripherals can stay on of course. A 1,000 kilowatt generator doesn’t exactly leave a signature, compared to the 600 gigawatt reactor.

It’ll take a week to make the three AU in and it’s time to acclimatize. Low nitrogen, thirty percent oxygen, equal parts CO2 and methane, all at three times the pressure of Earth atmosphere. Enough to liberate my old eyes from their sockets and squish my larva lungs.

After a couple of hours the pressure starts giving me a headache, which is probably normal. The increased oxygen isn’t giving me a high yet, but over the next couple of days I’ll have a lot of energy and think really well. Of course I’ll be breathing enough oxygen to kill a—yadda yadda yadda. The gravity is just .97 G so I’m feeling a little bouncier, but I’m hardly leaping off the walls. After a day I notice that the reduced nitrogen is changing the way the air smells. It goes from “like air” to “not like air,” which is the best description I can give you. Nitrogen makes up 70% of Earth’s atmosphere, you have literally never not smelled it.

Chinochkan is the fourth planet, but it’s deeper inside the Goldilocks zone than Earth is. This means injections to deal with the increase in radiation. They make my mouth really dry, but otherwise I don’t notice.

There’s the ort cloud, and then seven gas giants to go pass, though I won’t be getting close to any. Chinoch 1 is steadily being torn apart by the gravity of the sun, in a way that would be cool to go see. Two asteroid belts. Or one big belt with a hole where a planet is forming in the middle of it. That’ll only take another 500 million years.

Asteroid belts are not the cluster fucks you may have been lead to believe. There are millions of miles between each rock. I have a huge bet riding on my getting within a 100 miles of an asteroid, by chance alone. 3,720:1 my ass.

I’m looking forward to the cross cultural experience. Actually I’m just looking forward to the food. They’ll cook me the local dishes and try to buy me clothes. I’ll be asked to try things out, like a new and exotic toy. The locals treat you like a guest of honor when you bring them things that kill easily and in large quantities.

#
I’ve had this in my brain for a month now, and I finally get to do it.

My camera is set up to pick up only my face, firmly above the collar bone. I’m worried I’ll move so I make it track my eyes. I wear a shirt, just to be safe. No pants though, that would spoil it.

I call up Susan, so we can discuss the landing site, and who I’m meeting with. The details are, frankly, boring, but I want the face to face for this. She answers from her office in Morocco, it looks like it’s three in the afternoon and the sun is bright.

“Hello, 11. How’s your trip been?” Professional and discreet as always. I think she has a nosy secretary.

“Good,” I tell her. “Out of the black, obviously.” She isn’t making eye contact as the plug fits into my asshole.

“No problems with bugs?” You didn’t run in to customs?

“Nothing even got close,” She looks up and then focuses on another window on the screen, as my anus closes around the stem, and I have to stifle a deep breath.

“You’re meeting with… Tinockt(?) in ‘Mect’(?). It’s the largest port on the southern continent of… ” her professionalism wavers a moment, and she laughs “… I’m not sure. The southern continent, I guess. The women have a few advocates. Tinockt is one.”

“Hmmm” I agree, one hand reaching around my leg from behind to push the plug in little circles.

She continues, “As some of the women try to rebel by wearing clothes, or going out without a man, they run the risk of being beaten to death for civil disobedience.”

I finger finds it’s way into me, up to the second knuckle, “Well we aren’t in the ‘civil’ disobedience market.”

“Very true.”

I swirl the knuckle around a little, and get the crook of my finger over my clit.

“We’ve cleared you to enter the atmosphere over…” she drones on. It’s all going to be on reports anyway.

I slip a second finger in, and then give up on that for the moment.

The rabbit is completely silent, but I can feel the vibrations in the back of my hand when I turn it on. Susan drones on while I run it low, and start playing with settings.

“… so approach vector might be difficult.”

“Well Bertha handles like a brick on the end of a fishing rod.” The rabbit ears go on either side of my clit, and I start thrumming and trembling. The buttplug rolls faster under my fingertips.

“… other ships were available…” I’m breathing really heavy now, it’s close. I find a setting I love and my legs jerk reflexively. Alternating, three fast and three slow.

I gulp, “I like Big Bertha, for all her faults.”

“I think next run—”

My head snaps back, and the monitor darts up to hold my face in frame. I feel my eyes roll and don’t care.

“Are you okay?”

“Just fine,” I tell her, as I come back to Earth. “Still some neurological effects. Nothing to worry about.”

“Okay. I’m sending over the information.” Susan signs off and I get ready for round two.

Big Bertha hits the atmosphere like a ton of bricks. That’s not my fault, I’m a good pilot, but the atmosphere control isn’t broadcasting in a format Bertha can recognize, so I had to guess. The guess took an hour to make, but flight control had me cooling my heels for six while they got their shit together. My credentials are forged, so that doesn’t help. I’ve seen three gorgeous sunrises to make up for it.

I must be a good guesser because I don’t bounce off the atmosphere and die.

At this point I’ve been relieved to feel real gravity, but my hair is a goddamn mess. I care about that now. Inertia gravity has a much longer range in tidal force. For the past six months my head has experience less gravity than my feet. There’s more blood in my head and less in my feet, and my heart takes a little break.

My flight plan is crap. I enter deep in the southern hemisphere, and the jet stream is going in the wrong direction. I have to get under while I’m still hitting the breaks. Can’t do five miles a second in this atmosphere.

I cool it to 500 knots, and the the auto pilot can take over for the five hours to Mekt.

I stumble a bit getting out of the flight seat, and plod on my way, on unsteady feet, down to the bunkhouse to put some clothes on.

What the hell do I wear?

I spend a long time in the mirror, trying to decide what to do. Do I want the attention a female human is going to get? Or do I want to dress like a man? What does a girl gun runner wear, on a planet that loves her?

I end up in a daisy dukes and a tied flannel shirt over purple push-up bra. Rocking that cleavage hard. That means I gotta go with purple panties too. No, purple thong!

The sun will be hell, I need the sunglasses. Still no contacts, but I’m printing lenses that can read the local language. And a bandanna, the humidity I’ve acclimated to is making my hair frizz like hell.

Speaking of: Brush you’re hair 11. Oh, brushing hair in real gravity is a treat!

I’m worried, for the first time, about unwanted attention. But I’ve dressed for attention. It’s conflicting, but I feel like that’s a normal thing to feel. I strap a heavy piece onto a shoulder holster. Sometimes a 120 kW Beretta is a girl’s best friend.

And damn these boots look good.

I’ve downloaded a bunch of new makeup mods, and decide to go with something a little daring. Purple eyeshadow, and burgundy liner and lipstick. You won’t see my eyes through the glasses, but I feel…

I feel hot.

By the time the sunglasses are done printing I have clearance to land, and I put her down gentle like at the city municipal. Local time: 4:00 PM, about seven hours till sunset.

Personal time: 8:00 PM. I take some pills for that and hope like hell they work.

#

Outside the heat is a slap to the face, and the humidity is like a wet sock crammed down my throat. It’s at least 115 out here; the shorts were a really good idea. I step into the sun, and watch my skin put on a California tan in under 30 seconds. I’m back in the ship for a minute while I rustle up some SPF 200, and I’m still wiping down my skin when the customs officer shows up.

Customs takes 2,000 dollars to “pass” inspection, around 300% inflation. The customs agent doesn’t make a lot of eye contact, because he’s making more tit contact. Again it makes me feel powerful. I might cop a pose or two for him. Weight on one hip, hand on the neck in the heat. I peak over the sunglasses for a second, and then thank god for them. The sun here is heinous crimson and jams into the backs of my eyeballs.

I sign his clip board, and ask about transportation to the inner city. Train runs every 15 minutes, okay.

Inside the terminal it’s only a little cooler. My passport clears security. The agent is a little surprised to see a physical copy, and has to dig up a rubber stamp.

I’m getting a lot of stares in the airport, and I put an extra swing in my hips as my boots hit the tile. Look straight ahead 11. Pretend you don’t notice being noticed. I notice a lot of notices while I lean against the rail, sexy-like. Feels good.

I find a kiosk, buy a travel credit bracelet, and load it up with 500 of the local Hoke.That costs a lot more than $500.

When the train comes all the guys stand aside for me to get on. That feels nice, but I’m beginning to get a bit uncomfortable. A knuckle brushes my ass as the crowd files onto the train. I generously put this up to the close quarters, but it makes my spine jump a little bit.

I shuffle into the center, but this isn’t the first stop and the seats are packed. Stand and hold the cord, until a man clears his throat, makes eye contact, and offers me his seat. That’s… never happened to me once in 46 years. I nod and smile at him, and make thank you gestures. He doesn’t have an interpreter I’m sure, so I sit, grateful from the heat. I start to man-spread, realize what a bad idea that is, and put one knee on top of the other.

The guy is standing really close to me.

Like, really close.

He’s carrying a laptop over his shoulder, and pretending that the weight is making him lean into my personal space. The train shakes a bit, like trains do, and he adjusts his weight until he’s pretty deep into my bubble. I’m feeling a little adrenaline, to flavor my nervousness. He’s an bmale, and he’s not slender. Sitting down I come up to his navel. I’m thinking of what Susan said, that they’re not afraid to use force, and it occurs to me that there are no women on this train.

Still, I get ready to use some of that adrenaline.

This time the train doesn’t shake, but he fakes a stumble into me, grabs the pole, and swings a hand onto my boob. The shock strikes me harder than his palm, though I find out that getting hit in the breast really hurts. Then he gives a little squeeze, not even pretending. Time for decisive action.

I make a practiced draw, smooth and fast, and jam the barrel of the Beretta into his sternum. It looks pretty uncomfortable.

He gets my body language and takes a step back. I don’t remember standing, but I’m on my feet, keeping the gun in contact. There’s a nice big circle around us, so I have plenty of room to swing around him, and back him in to my seat.

He smirks then. And I flick my finger onto the trigger, because I know what he’s saying with that smirk, and it makes me blind with rage.

He’s lost. He knows he lost. He’s not in command. I am. I’m the one with the gun.

But the smirk says “You’re adorable. You think you can win… whatever this is. You think that you can be in control. But you can’t. You’ve already lost.

“Because you’re a woman.”

So I shoot his laptop.

Three round burst.* Br-rr-rrh.* The car smells like ozone, burnt plastic, and blown capacitors. Smirking guy is in shock, and the atmosphere of the train has changed. I blow smoke off the barrel tip, and look around the car. Flip the sunglasses down. Make eye contact with everyone.

Then the train comes to a stop, and I decide it’s in my best interests to leave now. I tuck the rod back into it’s holster and blow Smirk a kiss as I step through the doors.

#

Of course now I’m stuck on the wrong platform, and I’m going to be on time for my meeting. Never be on time for a smuggler meetup. Being on time shows you might care, and you do not want to seem like you care about anything. Show up early or late and it shows that you don’t give a fuck about their time table.

I manage to make sense of the train schedule on the board. That’s no mean feat, even when it’s in a language you understand. The next train isn’t coming for another half hour.

There’s a vending machine in the shade, along with an amale in cowboy chaps, and a ten gallon hat, and a naked girl with a chain around her neck. She is very pregnant.

I’m an intergalactic traveler, and I’ve seen the worst of the galaxy. Slavery is not new to me. It’s not illegal everywhere.

But my Earth values don’t jive with it, and I feel culture shock every time. Still, I avoid eye contact with both of them, just go over to the machine and try and find a Coca-Cola. Please tell me they have Coke in this heat.

They have Coca-Cola. The red and white icon is in Enochtic, but it’s still flowy little cursive lines.

I fumble with the bracelet, trying to figure out what would be intuitive to an alien. Before I can get that far, the amale steps in, scans his chip, and gestures that I go ahead and select. I choose the Coke button with the little green leaf next to the logo. The bottle thumps down, and he picks it up, opens it, and offers it to me.

After Smirk, I’m very wary, but I take the bottle, and swig. It’s glorious, and the cocaine takes the edge off of my heat headache.

He says, < Pretty thing, you must not be used to the heat. > and then, in terrible English, “Welcome to Chinochkan.” The k is a whistle from the back of his throat.

“Thank you.”

He tips his hat to me, and moves off, giving a savage yank on the chain as he goes. The girl makes eye contact as she ducks her head in the sun. I have no idea what to do.

So I wait for the train, hold the ice cold bottle to my neck, and practice my throat whistle.

I’m in the sun waiting for the train for about 15 minutes before the 5.0 show up. I see them from the top of the stairs. They aren’t wearing a uniform I recognize, but their body language says “cop” in every dialect. I make a quick calculus and decide that a night in the cells might make me conspicuous to the authorities, and decide to be somewhere else.

The area is a nice and egalitarian, there are stairs and platforms and walkways everywhere. Lots of places for the only human in a hundred miles to stay out of view.

Now I’m in trouble. All the street signs are in Enoctic. While my glasses can translate, they can’t help me pronounce. Not that it would help, they use some kind of alpha-numeric system and I don’t know my letters here.

I end up in a McDonald’s, stealing the Wi-Fi. (I’m not interested in the local perspective on the meaning of a hamburger. My exploritory spirit has its limits.) I get a cab app, and order something upscale. I wasn’t planning on arriving where they could see me, but if I have to I might as well do it in style.

A limo pulls up at the block in five minutes, and the chauffeur does a double take with his eyes, and pitches a tent immediately. It’s hard to pretend I don’t notice. He’s dressed like chauffeurs dress, hat and coat and slacks. But he’s not wearing a shirt, and has a broad tie that barely reaches his stomach. It has a fish on it. Like, an Earth fish. No idea why.

He wants to show off his English, so he keeps the divider down and yammers away about all the TV shows he watches. All of his favorite shows have been off the air for a long time. Nearly a century in one case. I smile and nod and fake it from what I heard Nanny’s friends say about those shows.

I can’t find the divider button and I’m really trying.

He asks if I want to hear their local English music. I’m more terrified than intrigued, but I figure putting up with his shit justifies a small tip. He got to talk to a human. He’ll be getting free drinks for weeks.

When he switches the music on, it’s an unholy hell. Mostly it’s metal, but there’s an EDM beat, and a saxophone. When the rap solo comes up, he starts singing along, but he doesn’t have any rhythm, and his vocabulary isn’t large enough.

When the drive finally ends, he asks for $150. Playing dumb, I pull out a dollar roll, and hand him a 50 dollar bill first. He nods and tucks it away. He doesn’t know his English numbers and this is the wrong situation for a lesson.

He gets out to open my door. Servos can open my door, but he wants to see my legs get out of this car. I can see the patio of the cafe where I’m making contact, and make the decision to give him a little show. Turn from the hips. Stretch my legs out. Reach out for his hand.

The group on the patio is a little spell bound, and I eat that up.

Then limo driver takes his time to go away, watching my ass swing into the coffee shop.

#

I wait, politely in line (while people stare) and order a latte by pointing. The amale behind the counter drops the cup a couple of times, flustered. I gesture outside, get a quizzical look and walk away. He expects me to wait at the counter, like the group of patrons that are waiting at the counter, but I’m claiming cultural ignorance/privilege. I’m a pretty human girl, serve me my coffee.

I sit at a tiny table on one of those wire chairs, and look gorgeous and aloof. The barista comes over in a few minutes with my coffee. He’s given me a cookie on a plate as well. I won’t eat it until I can ask someone what’s in it. You would not believe some of the stuff aliens sweeten their food with. Animal semen isn’t even the most disgusting thing.

The amale isn’t sure what human ettiquette is here and settles for a palms up bow. I give him a charming smile like he did that right. He flushes and scurries back to the counter, where other (non-human) patrons will not be getting the same level of service.

Oh! I forgot to pay, like a silly human tourist. My goodness, what must they think of me!

In the shade of the building the temperature is merely oppressive. The dense atmosphere doesn’t really dissipate any of the sun’s heat. I’m glad he understood that I wanted hot coffee. It makes your body cool itself faster. Fact.

On the other end of the patio is a group of delinquent teens. Each is waiting for one of the others to muster up the courage to come and flirt with me. They’re obnoxious. And adorable.

The interpreter can’t lock on any one of them while the others are talking, but I get snippets:

< … must be a super model… >

< … she’s probably here for a movie… >

< … look at that hair… >

< Talk to her. >

< No, you talk to her! >

Then the interpreter picks up an older married couple behind me, and their conversation gives me a dark little smile.

< Look at her, wearing clothes, it’s disgusting. >

< She’s probably some rich couple’s plaything. >

< You know they eat children, right? >

Intergalactic problem, folks. Human brains are programmed to recognize distinguishing human features. Throw an alien at them, and they drop the ball. Sure you can tell fat faces from thin ones, and big noses from small. But put two fat nosed guys next to each other and you’ll have a hell of a time trying to remember which one is Gary. With a lot of practice you can start telling the aliens you hang around with apart. Until then, you mostly go on hair style or eye color. Failing that, you hope someone around you says their name.

I’m the only human here, so Tinoct isn’t going to have that problem.

So I sit and watch everyone coming into the cafe from the sidewalk, and wonder and sip my coffee.

Then a bmale comes up and offers me a cigarette and I’ve made contact.

#

It’s a disgusting Marlbro red 100, and I consider just turning it down. That probably would be bad manners, so I take it and shudder as I put it in my mouth. Tinoct is tall, muscular, trim, and has a perky pair of B-cup breasts in some kind of bikini top. They do not turn me on at all. He’s wearing something that I might call a sarong, except I wouldn’t. On his head he has a New Tokyo Mecha’s baseball cap.

He has a woman with him. Naked. Collar and chain.

Tinoct is a real gentleman, and lights a ladies cigarette for her. Then he fastens the woman’s chain to her left nipple, sits across from me, and lights up.

I’ve seen pictures, but this is the first female alien penis I’ve seen up close. It’s close to human. Has a glans, and ridges like a trunk. I find it… let’s go with intriguing. My nipples choose the moment to tighten up, and I find myself touching my hair again.

Lets have a fun experiment. I’m in a thong, the daisy dukes are so high cut their parallel to me perenium. From any angle it’s hard to see I’m wearing underpants at all. I touch my hair again when I make eye contact with the woman, let her see me check her out, and then cross and uncross my legs.

One of the teenagers faints.

I watch her chub up, just a tad. She has the grace to look embarrassed, but we don’t break eye contact.

Tinoct coughs discreetly. Just like a man to get jealous when he’s not the center of attention. Surprisingly that thought doesn’t surprise me.

There’s a moment while neither of us wants to identify themselves first, then he says, “Tinoct.”

“11.”

“I was not expecting a woman,” His accent is heavy, but his English is pretty good.

“I wasn’t either.”

I expect this to confuse him more than it does. That’s disappointing. Instead he gives a shrug. The woman looks to him, and he gives her a gesture that she is allowed to sit. On her knees. On the ground.

Having decided to identify as her gender for awhile, this pisses me off. Tinoct manages to pick up my alien expression, “She is at great risk going out without me. And without the proper decorum we might give ourselves away. But we wanted you to meet one of the leaders of the resistance on our first contact. This is Chinta.”

I smile and nod, “11, pleased to meet you.”

She smiles and nods and says, “Thank you.” And that’s it.

Tinoct leans forward, “You know we monitor the police scanner. Right now they’re looking for a human female who shot at a man on the K-line from the port.” Tinoct make pointed eye contact with the gun on my right tit, “You wouldn’t happen to have seen anything like while you were coming here, would you.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t see any other human females on the train. I know I would have remembered. Regardless, how long does it usually take the police to get distracted from felony menacing?”

“We actually have a distraction happening in… ” He checks his watch and sighs, “Some time around now. It’s not a particular schedule that I’m aware of—”

There’s a boom from downtown. Seconds later it’s followed by two more.

“I appears the constabulary is going to be occupied with other things for a little bit. Resouces will be spent elsewhere than on finding some harmless little assaulteress. Who is certainly not you. In the meantime lets find somewhere else to stay before we arrange the drop. We’ll have to wait for them to start taking bribes at the ports again.”

Right. One act of terrorism, and security workers remember they’re supposed to be doing their jobs.

#

We walk down the street, away from the explosions. Tinoct is carrying Chinta’s chain. He does it in a way that makes him look domineering, but he’s slowed his pace so that she has a lot of slack. I decide that Tinoct might be one of those good guys you hear about on the TV. I’ve never met one before.

I’m walking next to him at a stroll, and the balls of my feet are starting to hurt again. I try to stop the whole hip thing, and find that the boots are kind of making it happen. Stupid incredibly cool boots that I love.

“I’m used to more discreet operations. Ones that don’t have terrorist attacks during the first meeting. It kinda draws attention, in a way I’m not great with.”

“I’m afraid there was nothing I could do to prevent it. The cells don’t communicate much with each other. I knew that something was happening, and the general location and time, so my people could avoid it.”

“That seems stupid risky.”

“We’re no amatures to civil unrest here, 11. Our history has had war, occupation, and insurrection. We’ve learned from the past. We have three cells, Sabotage, Assassination, and you just met Terrorism. The government can crack down on terrorism, but then they lose resources to stop assassination and sabotage. The difference in structure means that any time they focus on one, they have to unlearn everything they know about the other. Chinta leads Sabotage, and has one contact in the second level of the other two cells. We all have our own propaganda and vandalism to keep things good. The women have done all the organizing or what would be the point?”

Chinta pipes up, voice low, “We have to do this on our own 11.”

Tinoct stops on a corner and lights up another cig. “Battery and rape are a deeply ingrained part of our culture. There’s very little you can’t do to a woman on the street, and almost nothing you can’t do to her in your home. Imagine how inventive the police are with torture.”

Chinta fingers her chain while we start off again, “Every time woman goes out without man she’s putting her life at risk. And every life at risk means whole cell is at risk. What one doesn’t know, one can’t reveal.”

We head up a flight of stairs, and I see a downscale, chain hotel, on the street ahead. This is the part of the city, that’s in the good part of the city, but is also the bad part of the city.

At the entrance to the hotel, Chinta holds the door open for us. The desk worker gives us a dirty leer, masked with a veneer of disinterested professionalism. He is going to tell every co-worker about the sexual deviants on the third floor now. So much for discretion.

< Tinoct, > he says, < Hello Chinta. Persevere. >

< Persevere, > she answers.

Ah. Much for discretion.

< We’re moving some people through the city, so you don’t get a room with three beds. >

Great. I don’t mind refugees on principle, but most of the time they are thoughts are occupied with the way they’ve lost their homes and everything they once thought was important. It’s kind of a downer.

< As long as your bribes are good, we can be safe for awhile. >

We get keys, and directions to the room. Once the door is closed, Chinta closes on me fast and sticks her tongue in my throat.

This makes sense, I think to myself. Whatever is happening here makes sense. She pins my wrists against the wall at shoulder height. Why not let her…

But my surprise keeps me from kissing her back immediately.

She pulls back. “I’m so sorry! I was just… it felt like… ” She’s blushing a pretty blue color.

I don’t feel like going from make out mode to embarrassment, so I stretch out my neck for another kiss. Chinta makes a little growl, and slams back into me.

Her tongue is broader than a humans, and maybe a little shorter. Flat tip. But it has groups of soft ridges and I can’t help but speculate about the way they’ll feel on my button. Her mouth tastes like… like that tea that they say has “notes of chocolate.” That tea never tastes like chocolate.

She slides my wrists up the wall, over my head, and I tilt my chin away from her mouth, wanting it lower. We must have similar sexy zones, because she gets my hint and runs that tongue over my neck. I can’t help but give little shivers.

Then she’s back on my mouth and I can feel her naked cock between my thighs.

She isn’t hard. Am I doing something wrong?

I am, sort of. She releases my wrists to cradle my head and pulls my mouth to her neck. “Bite,” she shudders and moans.

I lick her as a pre-game, and she whines this time, “Biiiiiite?”

And I go to give her a little nip, but she holds me in, so I sink my teeth into her shoulder.

Her dick springs to life gets caught on the hem of my pants and peaks its head inside. It’s my turn to moan. I wrap one of my calves around hers, and try to pull her closer.

The shorts have been pushing my lips around all day, and now I can feel her gynuss directly in between them. Every time she moves her hips the tip almost gets to the right place. My breasts want to get in on the action, but I can’t move my hands.

Then Chinta pulls away again, “We probably have much to talk about… ”

“We have a couple of days,” I say it in a whisper, barely a breath.

She growls again, unties me shirt and pulls my shorts down. When she gets to the thong she runs her tongue up the strip in the middle and I can’t get out of my clothes fast enough. Boots still on, she throws me onto the bed.

It’s not really a bodily throw. In fact, I help a lot.

I end up twisted around a bit. I’m facing her, and I’m more interested in giving than getting. She takes one step closer and I wrap my lips around her dick and start sucking.

Look Ma, no hands.

The skin is smooth and pebbly. It moves over the hardness in the same way though, as I slip the head into my mouth and run my lips down her shaft. The head is definitely different, with a ridge that runs a quarter of the length down the underside.Kind of like the ace of spades. She loves the suction as I pucker my lips to pull her deeper, and makes a moan. I move my head back and forth for a bit, and reach between the bed to clutch my breasts.

Chinta starts breathing in, in little shudders. She arcs her back, and sticks her rod further into my mouth. “Fingers,” is all she can say.

On the bed like this I can’t get my fingers around her shaft. She reaches down and pulls me up by my chin for a kiss. I don’t know if the taste of her cock on my breath is getting her off, but it jacks my arousal up several notches.

I step off the bed and get onto me knees so I can really get to work, and give her dick a couple of quick strokes before it goes back in my mouth and I resume sucking her off. From this position I can really bob my head and I start working it.

She runs her fingers through my hair, and I hit on something great and she gasps. Then Chinta says again, “Fingers.” I let her pop out of my mouth with a little gluh sound, and wrap my fingers around her shaft. I start giving her a hand job, starting delicate… “Mouth and fingers,” she corrects herself.

I don’t have enough room to… oh!

I pull her glans into my mouth and swirl my tongue underneath it, while I run my fingers up the inside of her thighs. She bucks, staggers, and her dick jumps in my mouth when I run my nails over her lips. “Inside, please.”

I slip my middle finger in, and she sucks me up to the last knuckle. Man she is tight. Her pussy is gripping me hard.

I work her with my fingers and start getting inventive. With her cock in my mouth I run my tongue around that ridge. She starts letting out little startled shrieks and I know she’s close.

I’m not sure what a Chockan orgasm looks like, but I have a pretty good guess it’s what she’s doing now. Her body shudders, and (in an unpleasant surprise) her tool suddenly puffs up around my lips, then does its best to suck up my tongue!

I gasp in surprise and ruin the run the moment spitting her out.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay, just kind of shocking.”

“I should have prepared you, but you didn’t give me a chance.” She leans down to kiss me, “Those lips, and that tongue…”

Then she pushes me back onto the bed and turns to Tinoct, who has been petting his pussy and watching, <Don’t you want in on this?>

#

I look over at Tinoct and think I might have hit my weird limit getting ready to fuck him.

You’re thinking about this wrong 11. You’re thinking in human genders. They don’t apply to them. Tinoct doesn’t look like a man. Hell, he could be a muscular swimsuit model. “He” has tits. “He” has a pussy. For now “he” is a woman.

A switch flips in my head. I look at the girl across the room and say, “Come here and get some honey.”

That makes Chinta a guy then, and I’m hitting maximum arousal watching Tinoct strip, and come over, while I clutch my breasts. She gets close enough and I run my tongue over her nipples.

Chinta shoulders me aside and then he pushes the other woman onto the bed. Then he spreads Tinoct’s legs in the air while he straddles his face. I skootch over to get my mouth on some alien pussy, while Tinoct leans her head back to take Chinta’s dick down her throat.

She has huge lips, and they cling together. She’s wet as hell, and I don’t take my time. I just find her clitoris, which curves nearly around the hole, and go to work on it. There’s a lot of tongue flicking involved. Chinta spreads Tinoct’s legs open wider, and puts his head down near mine. “Lay tongue flat, and work in circles—” then he gasps and really groans, as Tinoct switches from hole to pole.

Tinocts fluid is more bitter, and there’s that rich taste again. I have to get my jaws really wide, in a way that I know is going to tire me out, and then lay it against the whole clit, and whole hole, and smear it around.

Yeah, my jaw is getting tired. I try to make up for it by tugging on my own clit with my knuckles. When I really need to take a break I lean back onto my haunches and spread my lips so that Chinta can watch me. He stares, enthralled as I dip a finger into myself. When I get to two he licks his lips. Tinoct must have gone back to her rod because when I lick my fingers he groans and starts fucking Tinoct’s face in anticipation.

I feel bad for leaving Tinoct, and lean forward again, to try sticking some things inside her. I don’t take my fingers out of my pussy when I lean back in, and start stroking her clit with my free hand. I trace arcs from one side to another, and then spread her open with two fingers and slip the middle inside. She’s looser, I guess that gynuss needs some space. Then she gives a clench and it’s like she does exercises.

I make the decision then and there to show Chinta what a real pussy is like, as soon as I get this girl off with my fist.

Always wanted to try this one… I lean back again and show Chinta that I can put four fingers in my mouth. Chokan hands are wide, Tinoct is in for a treat. Hand lubed up, I put all my fingers together like I’m picking up a paper clip and push in. At the knuckle base there’s some resistance, and Tinoct has got the hand that isn’t stroking Chinta, down to spread her lips wider. Then her pussy slips over my thumb and I’ve got my whole fist inside her.

I don’t want to hurt her, so I go slow. Her cunt spasms as I go, I nearly wish I had a dick to feel that with. She’s letting out cries into Chinta’s pussy and I lean in again to give her clit little flicks with my tongue.

Tinoct comes hard, and I feel her pussy flood down my hand and over my wrist. She lets out a yell into Chinta’s muff, and Chinta shakes with her own climax.

I slip my hand out again, and Chinta takes my wrist and starts cleaning my hand with her tongue.

#

Chinta may be a man right now, but he has a woman’s stamina. He grabs my arms and pulls me to my feet. I’m feeling a lot of things about getting that thing inside me. Apprehension and anticipation at the same time.

He kisses me hard as he pulls me up, and then stands a sits me down on the bed while he pinches a nipple between each finger. I start to lean back and he says, “No, like this,” as he turns my shoulders.

I breath heavier and switch to me knees. When he pinches my nipples again, from behind, I find my self arching my back in a classic, “presentation” pose. I want—I need that thing inside me.

Tinoct doesn’t feel like being left out on the act of getting me off. She squirms underneath me, and I put my hands on the bed, and spread my fingers, ready to feel that ridged tongue. When it hits my clit it’s everything I was hoping for and my elbows almost collapse.

Then it goes away, and I groan. I know that Tinoct is running her lips over Chinta’s glans, but dammit, what about me?

“Please?” I might be begging a little bit.

Tongue returns and some lips are added. She sucks in little bits over my vulva.

“Please?” I moan/beg this time.

Then I feel the wetness move aside, and hold my breath when Chinta touches his dick to my lips. It sends chills up my spine, I want it so bad. A real cock, to really fill me up.

“Gentle,” I whisper. He obliges, running his head up and down my lips, and feeling my pussy slobber all over him. The head is really big from this angle.

Turns out, I’m a liar. Skin is very different from the plastic of my dildo.

There’s the pop. His head gets inside, and I’m about to climax, when I feel another, smaller one, from his skin. It’s bunching up as it moves inside me. I almost climax again, and then there’s another bump, and I cum out of shock. I have to have the whole thing now. He’s made me cum and he isn’t even all the way inside. I jam my ass back, in desperation, and take all of him in one go.

Chinta pulls back and I move with him. He gets the hint and we just stay like that for a moment. His dick is so thick I can feel the spread all the way from my thighs to my ankles. He’s so deep it feels like the head of his dick is behind my lungs.

Acclimatized, I beg, “More.”

Chinta begins pounding me in earnest, and moments later Tinocts tongue is back on my clitoris. I can’t hold my self up any longer, and I collapse and lay my head on her chest and I start shrieking and moaning uncontrollably. I worm my back around, and feel her give it her all.

I climax again, much harder. This time the come down doesn’t drop off as much. In fact, I orgasm only to feel myself on the edge of another orgasm. He gives only a few more fucks before I cum again, and this time I keep going and I don’t come down. I slam back in to him, fucking myself on his cock, and the multiple-orgasm lasts somewhere between a minute and my entire life.

Chinta breaths deep, and I feel his cock swell up. I give a shriek, because it’s happening during an orgasm fall off, and it jacks me right back up to the top. My multiple orgasm peaks a last time, and I start a long, languorous come down. He works me until he’s sure I’m finished, gradually getting flaccid inside me. He slips out with a feeling that dissapointing and uncomfortable, and I sigh.

I flip over onto my back, and try to regain some of my limbs. “I can’t handle any more.”

I doze off for around two hours. After the day I’ve had, and the sex I’ve had, I deserve it. I’ve literally been fucked comatose.

When I come to I manage to take stock of the room. I was paying attention to other things earlier.

The decor…

I would describe it as a cross between Persian paisley, and art deco. These concepts mesh poorly, both in my brain and in reality. The colors are a little garish. Okay, they’re a lot garish. The the subtle red of the lights brings my headache back, after the sex made it go away. There’s some wooden prefab furniture, in threes. Three chairs, a desk long enough for three, etc.

The biggest difference is the fire pit in the middle of the room.

Well it seems like a fire pit.

It’s sunk into the floor, and there’s a bench around the outside with chair backs you can move around. In the center is a facing TV.

Praxite is integral in facing holo-technology. I don’t know how it works, or even it anyone knows how it works. Facing holos always look the same, no matter what angle you view them at. It doesn’t matter how many people are watching, or where. From any side, and straight above and below, they always show the same image, to everyone.

We, as people, have built our societies around stories. They are a way to teach each other about what society finds important. Back in… some kind of years ago… they invented a nickelodeon, you looked into it, and cranked a handle and saw a shitty movie, usually about thirty seconds long. Some French guy watched people in America use it, and noticed that the first thing they all did was grab their friend and tell them that they needed to see the shitty movie too. So the French guy went to his sons and said, “If you can find a way to let everyone see a movie at the same time, it’s a license to print money. And the cinema was born.

But there’s a common element among the people of the galaxy, that they started telling their stories around a camp fire. So some Salc inventor put together a perfect solution. A television that you could watch, while looking at the people around you. You can talk to them face to face about what your watching. See their expression, and their body language. Really experience the story together.

They are phenomenally expensive. But the Chokhan have praxite to throw around out here, so this dirt bag hotel has a $40,000 television sitting in the middle of the floor.

Tinoct is watching, while Chinta does something on a tablet. Their genders have switched back in my mind. I’m not sure what feeling I feel about that. It isn’t regret or guilt, so I decide I don’t mind.

Chinta has a shirt on, and is a boxer-briefs kind of girl. The neck of the shirt is all stretched out and falling off her shoulders. If she wasn’t all red, with almost no hair, you’d swear she was just a human girl relaxing in frumpy wear.“I thought women couldn’t wear clothes.”

“Not if she is pregnant. This is sign that if you rape her you answer to owner’s. Otherwise she…”

Ah. “Congratulations?”

“I’m not carrying, 11. It is very useful fiction.”

“Thanks for letting me sleep. How are we arranging this drop?”

“We are waiting for phone call. There is lot of waiting. Life in resistance movement is exciting, when not boring to tears.”

Tinoct switches to the news and Chinta sits forward. My interpreter starts doing it’s job into my ear. The anchors are covering the attack downtown. Exhaustively. There hasn’t been any new information for hours. Things blew up. Number of people died. Police are there.

I just summed up in three sentences what took them five minutes to say. Then they say it again. And again. They bring in guests and make a panel. The panel speculates wildly against the tiny amount of information they have. They’re all wrong about everything, and they’ll be on TV tomorrow to explain how what they said was actually right in some way.

Now there are two pundits on. One makes extremely offensive comments, the other tries to stay calm.

The anchors tell us to keep watching because they might have something new to tell us at any moment. Really. Any moment now.

Turns out the news is the same in every language.

Tinoct switches the channel, and there’s a new pundit interviewing a woman, who was the calm on on the previous show. She’s in high demand. Chinta sits forward to watch.

Her name is Cloah, and she is telling the interviewer that the women need to be peaceful with their protests. That nothing can be solved with violence.

I remember the history of humans, and (against my better judgment) say that she has a point.

“I agree,” Chinta says.

“I seem to remember you being involved in a violent resistance cell. That’s why I’m here.”

“Cloah is part of resistance, 11.”

That doesn’t make any sense. I wait for her to explain.

“In a way,” she explains. “She was one of organizers at beginning. We communicate with her much as possible. Almost not at all.”

My confusion must show on my face, and with the facing TV she can see that. Great technology. She mutes the television, and looks at me. “There are many women who are uncomfortable with violence, but desperate for change. When they can they go out to march, and be peaceful. Our job to show men the alternative to peaceful protest.

“We don’t schedule any…” she trails off and looks to Tinoct.

“Militant,” he supplies for her.

They argue over the translation before Chinta concedes, “‘Militant’ actions around her protests. We keep women from being harmed.” She takes a cigarette from Tinoct, and lights it. “Men can listen to Cloah or they can listen to us. We would rather they listen to Cloah, and we try to make her voice the loudest.”

“This morning’s militancy was pretty loud.”

She doesn’t get my joke. Must not translate right. Tinoct laughs at him, and when Chinta looks at him he gives her a never mind gesture. He takes over, “You see 11, once you ask the question ‘why do the women not protest peacefully?’ You have already conceded that they have cause to protest. What reason do you have then to deny them their rights? Right now we have several pro-suffrage members in the legislature, and a party that is considering making it a part of their platform.”

Right. Chinochkan politics. I skipped over most of it, because civics is boring as hell.

“We are fighting for equal rights under the law. After that will be the right to vote.”

“In my lifetime,” Chinta says, “I may see Cloah run for office.”

Cloah’s interview is over, so Chinta switches to cartoons. She finds Project A-ko on the feed and settles down to watch. What the hell, we’ve got some time.

Project A-ko is about a cute little girl, A-ko, and her friend B-ko. C-ko is there too, and C-ko wants to be friends with A-ko because she’s so cute. B-ko is an obstacle, so she does the only logical thing. She builds a giant mech with laser guided rockets, and tries to blow up B-ko.

Then the aliens show up, it’s a classic story.

But the aliens are a weird mix of male and female, and coupled with the Chokhan ideal of beauty, it’s easy to see why a two movie series from the 19th century is so popular. Maybe it’s the 20th century. Whenever Anime was invented anyway.

Those two movies have been translated into every language on Chinochkan. The merchandise makes billions of dollars a year, and it’s reference everywhere from TV commercials or official government documents. There have been three spin off series based on the movies, a prequel, two sequels and a live-action movie.

In the live-action they all wear human face. I think I’m supposed to find that offensive, but I don’t really care. From what I understand, their impression of human society is weirder than the high standard of weird, set by the Japanese. It doesn’t really translate back into human very well.

Chinta watches enthralled, and occasionally moves her lips to the lines. “We see all this on television,” She says. “All things that human woman have, and our women wonder, ‘why cannot we have this here?’”

I don’t have any real response to that, so I just watch men, in bikinis, fight a war, with their robots, in space.

#

Tinoct makes a couple of phone calls on a burner phone, switching out the drive chip after every call. He puts the chips in the microwave when he’s done with them. They make pretty sparks, and he has to open the window to get rid of the burning plastic smell.

I’m getting hungry. I had a coffee, and a cookie, and that’s been it since I got off the ship. “Can we order a pizza or something?”

As I ask a bell rings from outside, deep and kind of cheerful. It’s loud enough to carry across the whole city.

“It is now time to eat,” Chinta says. She gestures to my clothes. I was looking forward to naked pizza, so I slink back into my underwear with a little disgust.

Wait. I have to take the boots off first. How the hell did I manage to get all this stuff off?

Tinoct is dressed and looking at his phone, “My place is across the street, if you need me.” And he’s out the door.

“Are we going somewhere I need to wear shoes?” Underwear and shorts on, my feet need a break from the leather.

“No, you and I are going down to lobby.”

“Not across the street with Tinoct?”

“The unmarried eat together, by gender.” She stands and I stand, and she grabs a lunch box or something as she heads out the door.

There’s a little hall off the lobby, with a big fancy door. “Why didn’t Tinoct eat here?”

“He has friends in area.”

So you eat with friends. Okay.

“We will be watched. It’s okay for you and I to come and go, but don’t talk to anyone naked unless they talk to you first.”

“Gotcha.”

Chinta nods to the amale on the other side of the door. I decide to think of him as the warden, instead of the maître d’.

There are fire pits inside, with benches, just like the TV in the room. Only with actual fire in them. Gas fire, sure, but fire. There are little hoses suspended from the ceiling, and big read valves on them, and their function is pretty easy to figure out. It seems like a modern approach to a deeply ingrained tradition.

The males sit, sequestered, between the door and the rear of the hall. There are several steps down, and then we can get to the part where the women eat. The other two genders have two pits apiece. The women have one. It’s not cramped, but it seems cramped.

Chinta steps down into the pit, and introduces me in Enoctic. I step down after her and am grateful I’m barefoot, because that’s no a maneuverer I want to make in heels. Notes for next time.

The women smile and nod at me, and Chinta adds that I have an interpreter, < So she can hear everything you say about her. > She says it with a laugh, but there’s a hint of danger in her voice. “Don’t make fun of my human, assholes.”

I go to the fire and find a big cauldron full of… duckweed stew?

“It’s yuca,” Chinta says, as she hands me a trencher. I try not to read into the name too much. Same name, but not the yuca I’m familiar with.

She spoons a big laddleful for me and then hands some kind of eating implement. It’s a spoon, or like a flat shovel, but with a hook like a seam ripper running parallel to the front edge. It looks like I’m going to stab my cheek open with it.

She shows me how to use it. Yuca is brittle, but sticky. You pick up a bunch with the spoon, and then snap it all off with a twist of the seam ripper.

I find out I’m very bad at it.

We go to sit, and some women scoot aside for us. One woman does not scoot at all. We end up with a space to one side of her, and space too the other. The girl gives us a look like she’s going to sit next to me, one way or the other. Chinta looks to me, but I shrug and sit down next to someone who really wants to talk to me.

< I am Sacti, > she tells me. She’s young, and has a lot of hair.

I point to my chest in the universal for “my name is:” “11.”

She nods, < How do you like it here? >

“The sun is giving me a bit of a headache, but the people are nice,” any time you have to talk trash about a culture/city/planet/tradition, always follow up with, “but the people are nice.”

Chinta translates this from her other side, and Sacti seems very pleased. < Are you here on business? >

“No it’s a personal trip. I made some friends here online, and wanted to check it out.”

< Oh! How did you meet them? >

“Guildmates at first. Then we started to cyber a lot.”

At this Chinta leans over to me, “What is ‘cyber?’”

“Cyber sex. Like sexting, but with adapters.”

Chinta gives me a look that says, “One way or another, you’ll pay for this.” Then she starts trying to explain human long-range sex with gizmos.

Sacti looks… I guess I’d go with “enthralled” hearing about human sexual deviancy. I take some time to try to eat with this stupid spoon. I end up with a huge helping, don’t know how to get rid of it, and just jam it in my mouth. It tastes like chicken noodle soup, with peas. That spoonful that has a pea in it, and you bite it and it explodes and you taste it along with the chicken. It’s like that all over.

Sacti notices my faux pas and giggles, < How do you like yuca? >

“It’s pretty good. Tastes like chicken,” I listen to Chinta say ‘chicken’ a couple of times, as she explains what that is.

< It’s made from Haac throats. They have very long necks. >

I smile like this is useful information.

She gabs on, asking questions, and getting polite answers until, < Is it true you eat babies? >

“Very true. I could use some baby right now.”

Chinta edits this down to one word, < No, > while she stares daggers at me.

I stick my tongue out at her, and then give her a wink. I don’t know what winking means here, but she must know what it means to me, because she flips me off.

Sacti continues to gush, the first time she’s ever talked to a real human, and she has to ask me everything she’s always wanted to. Chinta keeps editing me, I think, but there’s probably a lot that doesn’t translate right.

Some people start leaving, and a few more show up, and then Sacti gets kind of personal.

< Do you have two holes? >

Hmmmmmmmmm. Well, why not?

“Yes, but one of them is not really for sex.”

< But you can still… fuck, > here she uses the English word, < into it?. >

“Yes. A few women actually prefer it.”

Sacti leans back, and exaggerates panting. I think if she was human, she’d mime fanning herself. < So you can have sex with two women? >

“Well… not two human women.”

< Oh? Oh! Right! > She’s about 30% to noon from the conversation. < So, both your males have a penis? >

The interpreter in my ear actually has some difficulty with this, and I think it’s because she’s used a pronoun for two other, different, pronouns. I get the point though.

< They only have the one kind of male, > Chinta says to her. The interpreter doesn’t have any problem with Chinta’s words, so I guess it a context thing.

Sacti is a little confused, < Then how do the have sex? >

< Just two people. They way you and an amale do. >

Sacti kind of sorts this out in her head, < Do they ever have sex like normal? With three? >

I interject, “Oh yes. Some of us make a point to.”

< So you can have sex with two amales? In your two holes? >

“Yes.”

Chubby is at 50% now and she’s getting a little blue flush. < Have you? >

“Not personally.”

< Would you want to? >

“I think we should just stay friends.”

This seems to have a Chokhan equivalent, because Chinta translates it very quickly. Sacti laughs, the way you do when you’ve been casually rebuffed. Genuinely, with just a little bit of hurt.

By this time I’ve managed to eat only half my trencher, and I start shoveling food in and giving Sacti one word answers. Then someone calls from outside. She jumps and I see a tinge of fear in her eyes.

She stands, < I must go. >

“Good bye Sacti.” I wait a moment, and lean in to her as I say, < Persevere. > I’m glad I’ve been practicing my throat whistle.

She looks a little shocked, but she nods and turns to go. Then she turns back and gives me a quick, but deep hug. And then she’s gone, and I get to finish my food.

Things are getting weird in my head, and I start to think that my nap wasn’t nearly long enough. I check my phone and find that, minus nap, I’ve been up for around 26 hours. I tell Chinta as much.

“Can you find your way back to the room? I have some things to do here.” She pats the lunch box.

I don’t know what she means, but she seems to think I know what she means. “Yeah, I just don’t remember the number.”

Chinta says, in Enoctic, < 217. >

“Oh. I don’t know how to read your numbers.”

She laughs and takes my phone, and draws the numbers I need with her fingers. As I stand to go she starts talking with the other woman. She opens the lunch box and pulls out a syringe. I’m crashing so hard right now I’m not even sure if I’m dreaming it.

I don’t think I’ll have a memory of the time I spend in a haze trying to find the room, and when I do I pull my bra off under my shirt, and then literally crawl into the bed and pass right out.

#
I sleep for a cool 13 hours. I hear Chinta and Tinoct come and go, and this is a little unprofessional, but I need my sleep right now. It’s not like anything is happening here right now.

I wake at 10:70 PM the next day, can’t figure out the shift from 12 hour to metric in my head, and figure the sun has been up for over half the day so far.

Chinta is working at the desk on a laptop when I wake up, “Dinner rings in thirty minutes,” she tells me.

I still can’t convert it. “Is that a long time, or a short time?”

“It’s just enough time for you to get dressed,” and she points to the new clothes she bought me.

It’s some kind of mixture between a sarong and a loincloth. It ties on one side underneath the ribs. On a Chokan, they have a bone it hangs off of, and I don’t. Chinta laughs as we try and work it out. I dig in my purse and find a clear role of tape. Apparently I’m the kind of girl that keeps duct tape in her purse. I don’t mind that, much.

The top covers both breasts, somewhat, but there’s no bra, and no support underneath. Chinta hangs it off my nipples and adjusts it, and sends me to look in the mirror.

I look like an Indian Princess. Then she has me put on the traditional shoes, and I look like an Indian princess in geta.

Chinta gushes and gives me a kiss, while the bell rings and we go down for… some meal. Let’s call it lunch.

Lunch is some kind of bread, filled with some kind of protean rich vegetable, served with ketchup. The plants here have hemopyll, a cross between blood and sap. I’m going to give up trying to describe it.

The other women are talking about knitting. They have knitting almost everywhere there is fiber. Pull string through loop with stick. Pretty easy to invent.

I resolve that, woman or no, knitting bores me to tears and I will not be doing any of it.

As we leave two women come up to Chinta to ask her something. She shoos me away. Special revolution business, I guess.

Tinoct is already back, and has a map on the table. He looks pleased, “Our people have gotten inside the civilian satellite network.” He shows me the view of what must be the women’s continent. All over the land there is a watermark that says… I don’t know what it says, I don’t have my glasses on.

“It says “Come join us,’” He tells me. “Until the shut us out again.”

“Then what?”

He shrugs, “We hack it again.”

Chinta comes in then and is excited about the map, and they tell me their plans. Obviously we can’t unload 500 crates without cover from the satellites. They want to bring Bertha down in the rain forest that covers the north of the continent. The biggest area they can clear is only 300 feet across. I’d probably crush a couple of trees landing her.

That isn’t the problem. “There isn’t a lot of level ground in a rain forest,” I explain. “Where there is it’s usually loosely packed mud. Big Bertha weighs 200 tons empty. She’ll sink in to the ground like a rock in a pond.”

They look disappointed. Meticulous planners they may be, but they haven’t done much smuggling.

There are no shady space ports in that area, and the jungle is to poorly developed to have a parking lot my ship won’t turn into gravel. I’m relived. I’ve made a drop in the jungle, when I was selling to the Contras on Hyal. It’s was home to 7 gazillion species of biting insects. The couldn’t derive any sustenance from my blood, but that didn’t strop them from trying!

Tinoct picks up a phone and starts arguing into it, as I pull out my laptop, and start running searches. “What is ‘Wikket’?” I ask, as it comes up on the top of every page.

“Festival in southern desert,” Chinta says. “It’s been going on for couple hundred years. People come from all over to hang out, share artwork, and get high in desert.”

“So there will be a lot of ships there?”

“Also lot of people,” She points out. “People who will get curious about what we are doing.”

“But no government? I know how these things work. Festivals don’t get held in a place the police like to show up.”

“No,” She leans back in her chair and stretches a bit.

“Our other option,” Tinoct says, “is to land in the mountains. Some of the shadows are deep enough to interfere with satellite.”

“How long will it take to unload?” Chinta asks me.

“With cranes and heavy equipment? About twelve hours.”

“What about without… one of those… crane.”

“Around two days, as long at there are trucks standing by right there.”

“Not something we could do in one night?”

“No.”

“If we go to the mountains,” Tinoct says. “We’ll have to get the trucks through the passes. That’s not going to be slow.”

“Alright,” Chinta sighs and tugs at her shirt a bit. “We will go to Wikket.”

Dinner is yucca again. I’m feeling things about seeing Sacti, but she isn’t there. I’m worried, but this is a hotel so I put it out of my mind.

This time Chinta comes back to the room with me. I smell the sex in the room, which leads me to the thought that I desperately want a shower. I shed my cultural costume with a little bit of no idea what I’m doing.

Chinta immediately fastens onto one of my nipples, and murmurs, “I’ve been waiting so long to get you out of that,” as I cradle her head. We end up tangled in bed together.

Now I really need a shower, and get out of bed and go to the bathroom. In this case it’s an actual bath room, not a “bathroom.” I mean that it has a bath, but not a toilet. That’s in a separate little closet. (It’s not galactic standard either, that’s caused some problems.) It’s also a bath room because it does not have a shower.

I’m going to have a bath. An actual bath. I know it’s bad for my microbiome, but I’ve been taking microbial showers for six months. A little bit of soap won’t hurt too much. Whatever, I need this.

Only… “How do I turn this on?” I call, perplexed.

Chinta comes in and shows me that there’s a lever to pull, instead of an old fashioned keypad. Or I guess the lever is old fashioned. I think it’s classy and antiquated at the same time. For a shit hotel it sure has a nice bathroom, but most of them do.

The water flows out of a wide slot on one side, and starts sloshing around in the tub. I’m naked, or I’d get nakeder, because that looks so nice. “What do I press to close the drain?”

“Close?”

“So the water will stay in the tub.”

“Water does not stay in tub. It goes out there,” She points to another slot, lower than the first, but six inches from the bottom of the tub.

“Can I get more water than that? To fill it up?”

“It does not fill. Water stays running.”

Seems like a waste, but I’m too used to a 500 gallon water allowance. I figure out how to dial the temperature up, and when it starts to really steam I step into the tub. I feel, as I always do, like there’s something more I have to take off. Chinta already got me as naked as she could, I remind myself. I lay my neck into the water, and it courses over my whole body. There’s a drain on the floor, or I’d turn the bath room into a pond.

Chinta gives a nod of satisfaction, then leaves.

A moment later she comes back with a chair, and sits down to talk. Right. That’s how women do things. What the hell are we going to talk about? “Tell me about growing up here.”

She tells me about growing up here. As a girl she was ditched by her fathers and sent to live with her grandmother, who was already getting a pension. Of course she had negotiated it as high as she could, knowing that she’d be the one to raise Chinta, but it still wasn’t enough. To supplement, her grandma worked in a sweatshop, assembling components for praxite televisions. Which meant that Chinta worked there as well. No one had the money to pay for childcare.

It gets worse. There are laws here against child labor. What that means in practice is the children who are forced (by convenient circumstances) to work anyway, don’t get paid for it. Chinta got meals at the workshop, which was good, because her grandmother couldn’t afford to feed her.

In the village outside the factory, where she lived, there were no schools. Educating girls is punishable with a death sentence. The women who set up the underground education system were literally putting their lives at risk to teach. For some time the government had been trying to keep women from accessing the Internet. When Chinta was 9 they gave up on that, swarmed under the number of illegal devices being smuggled onto the continent. It was the first real win for women’s rights, and it set up the revolution Chinta was leading now. With Internet, the education network could teach girls from inside their homes, without have to set up gathering places.

I’ve been really listening to her, which feels like a first. I guess when you are a woman, you kind of have to pay attention to what they say when they talk. This feels like the first time I’ve had a women’s conversation.

My wiring is playing hell.

Read an article on the ship, while I was reading things. When men talk they like to do things. Work on a car. Play a video game. Watch TV. I get that.

Women like to sit down and talk. While they just… look at each other.

My brain can’t do this, but I don’t want to break the mood, “You know what?” I think back to all the sex pill commercials I’ve seen with women in bathtubs. “I think I’m supposed to have a glass of wine with my bath.”

Chinta smiles, leaves the room, and a couple of minutes later comes back with a bottle and two wine glasses. “It’s human vintage,” she looks a little shy, “I bought it for special occasion.”

I lay my hand on hers, “This feels special enough to get drunk for.”

She works the cork out, pours and hands me a glass. My prunny fingers squish against it, and I sip. It tastes like garbage, so it’s probably a fine vintage. A dollar jug of wine is the best stuff you can get. People know they can charge you $300 for a glass of complete crap, as long as it comes from somewhere famous.

Despite this, I could totally get used to it.

Chinta watched videos of lectures while she worked, and did her homework at night. She read the Chokhan classics. She says their names, like everyone knows them. I don’t know them, but whatever. Then she read in Salc and Anduin, and Earth, and a dozen others. She learned English and Conc. She learned Trig and Kaluza theory. As she lists these things, it’s hard not to feel intimidated. But her English isn’t perfect, so I’ve got one up on her.

I sit up in the tub and find the “soap,” a handful of white, grainy powder. It’s not really soap, not in the human definition, anyway. It’s just a local root that absorbs grease, instead of dissolving it. Then it’s brown and disgusting and you rinse it off, and try not to imagine you’re hands are covered in shit.

“Is there shampoo?” I don’t use shampoo in a microbe shower, and I know it’s bad for my hair. But I want to feel my scalp get clean, dammit.

“What is that?”

“Special soap for my hair.”

Chinta runs into a cultural wall, “Why put soap in your hair?”

“My hair gets greasy if I don’t.”

She looks perplexed by this. I don’t think any Chokhan has enough hair to worry about that. Instead she picks up the bottle of and pours out a handful. “I will wash your hair.”

“I will wash your hair.”

Oh. Okay. “Just run the… soap” There’s a chokhan word for it that I don’t remember, but you wash with it, so it’s soap. “… through it, from front to back,” I turn in the tub and lean against the side. Chinta kneels, and starts working the soap into my hair. “Rub my scalp.”

She pauses, and then touches my shoulders.

“No,” I laugh, “The scalp is the skin under my hair.”

She laughs as well, and starts massaging my head.

Chinta’s mother was retired when she was seven, after having five children. One of them was another girl, who had died shortly after being born. Her mother had nothing to remember the baby by. No pictures, no grave, no ashes. I ask about the umbilical cord, but Chokhan don’t have one of those. I don’t ask anymore questions, because I’m not interested enough to get a zenobiology lesson. I’d rather listen to her story.

Her mother had been badly abused by Chinta’s… the Chokhan word doesn’t really translate. Fathers, sort of. She’d been beaten, and lashed. They do this thing here where they beat your wrists with a knotted rope until your carpels break and you can’t move your hands. So her mom couldn’t work in the factory. She stuck around for a couple of years, and when Chinta was 10 she wandered off into the forest to die. Apparently this is a traditional suicide for women.

Now everything is prunes, and I need to get out of the bath. Chinta stands aside while I get out. While I’m toweling myself off she hops in the tub. That would be pretty gross in an Earth bath.

She soaks for a it before she turns too, “Wash my hair now.”

I find some of the soap stuff. Her hair is thick, like string, but it’s kind of oily too. So I rub the stuff in and it browns up. I rub her scalp a bit, and I guess that feels okay ‘cause she lets out a groan.

Chinta saw started learning about the suffrage movement on other worlds. Earth, and Hanloa, and others. She became a teacher on the Internet for other girls. She started watching politics. She approached other women and started putting together a front.

Tinoct clears his throat from the doorway, I don’t know how long he’s been here. “There are police in the lobby. I think the proprietors would like us to leave through the back.

#

Rule on the ground, be ready to pack.

Rule of femininity, it takes way too long to pack.

I’m jamming stuff into my purse and trying to get my boots on. I never had this much stuff when I was a guy, did I? Of course I did. I just had actual pockets to put it in.

I’m still assembled in the two minutes it takes my suitcase to pack itself. Tinoct scouts the door, and we take off through a laundry room and down a fire escape. In the back alley is a waiting autocar, and we pile in and face each other while Tinoct says, < Airport. >

The car vrrrrrrms off.

“Sorry,” Tinoct says.

“Not the first time I’ve been sold out.”

“If the police ask questions Malek has to answer, or risk a search. We’d prefer he stays above the law or we can’t use him anymore.”

I still call it selling out, but whatever.

“We have a contact at the port who is willing to look the other way for…” He looks embarrassed, “Some time with ‘the human girl.’”

Bring it on.

#

Chinta is naked again, the sun is blistering again, and I’m soaking up the attention in the airport again. The bath really helped me get some self esteem together, and I’m ready to sexify it all up.

I file a fake flight plan at the desk, and the bmale behind it decides to be rude to mask his arousal. I should probably get used to that. I don’t have a photo ID for this face, and I do my best to explain that while he interrupts me. Eventually I get enough words in. Then he takes my picture, and glowers while I smile for the camera. Whoever authorizes the plan, in thirty minutes, is going to see my description on the all points, and then we’re all fucked.

He throws a tablet at me, and I sign the plan “Hugh Jorgan,” safe in the knowledge that no one here will get it. Some jokes transcend the fifth grade.

He yanks it back, saves it, and points me to the pilots lounge.

The flight plan is going to get sent to an operator to clear, and with the terrorism thing going, on everything is on lockdown. We go to the pilots lounge to meet the guy who’s going to fix that for us. I just hope I don’t have to suck dick to get off the ground.

Maybe I don’t know that. Maybe I’m feeling excited by it. Maybe that feeling worries me a little.

The lounge is appropriated in a very human style, intergalactic travelers have all come to expect the same interior design. There’s a z-level upstairs, and if I was alone I’d check it out. Comakh is sitting at the bar, and he waves me over to him the second I come through the door. Tinoct and Chinta go to sit in one of the couches. She gets on her knees when he gives the signal, and I find that still pisses me off.

Comakj young, I think. He’s amale, and slender, and has more hair than is normal, blond and shoulder length. He’s wearing a button down shirt, badge with his face on it, and weirdly fitting trousers.

I sidle up to the bar and sit, and order a bee—no a… a raspberry martini. I don’t know where they got the raspberry’s out here, but raspberry is my favorite. Martini is not my favorite, I’m just trying to cope with booze in a woman’s body. Especially when there’s someone to try and make appearances for.

Comakh reaches out to pay before the bartender turns away to find the liquor.

“Thank you,” I purr out for him, “that’s very sweet.”

Glass in front of me. Fast service. I take a sip and find out it’s not terrible, but it’s not anything I’ll drink again.

I drink, he drinks. He tells me about his job. He tells me about his car. He tells me about school. He mentions women’s rights, and he’s a little pro. “… Of course there have to be exceptions.”

Okay, fuck his guy. And I need him so I might. And I’m going to enjoy it, but I don’t care if he does.

I touch his arm, and touch my hair. I casually bump his leg with mine.

He asks what I do, and I say that I fly. He isn’t interested, of course. He wants an excuse to tell me about how important his job is. And he does.

His job is not very important, and he doesn’t really sell it.

“I do have a teensy problem,” I say, “I’m worried my flight plan isn’t going to pass. I’ve had some financial trouble.”

He pulls out a tablet, “Let me see if I can take care of that for you.”

He doesn’t run my picture though the image database, just hits a button and we’re clear.

Sucker.

#

“Now that I’ve done something for you, maybe you could do something for me?”

Dammit, I knew it.

“There’s a problem in my office and it could use a…” he brushes my hand, “… human perspective.”

“I think I can lend my talents.” How can I be excited with contempt. That doesn’t make any sense. The guy has the power to shut everything down, and if he does the look over my ship and I’m very arrested. So when he stands, I take his hand up, and follow him through a “Staff Only” door.

On the other side is a service hallway, and he quickly ducks into a side door, and leads me down into a boiler room. They probably aren’t boilers, I don’t know what they do, but it’s hot as a boiler room in here. “No one comes in here unless there’s a problem.”

“Is it the kind of problem you need help with?”

And he turns and starts to say something but just… stands there. Oh that’s so cute, he’s shy. My opinion turns around a little. Time to take some initiative. “I have a little problem too,” I say, and take a practice stalk toward him.

He starts to say something stupid, and I put a finger to his lips. I don’t think it’s a common gesture here, but he gets the body language.

I run my fingers down the lines of his shirt, and then down around his pants. Then I un-tuck his shirt and run my palms over his chest. My nipples are hardening, and the short jeans are feeling a little damp. When I unbuckle his pants he trembles a bit, and I use the opportunity to press my breasts into his chest. I give him a soft kiss, as I unzip, and dip my hands inside to take control.

He makes the same gesture that Tinoct uses to let Chinta sit, and I slap his hand, “Don’t think your going to get away with that with me.” I grab his cock in my fist, and give it a couple of strokes, “That’s not how you treat a lady.”

With something between a sigh and a whine, he nods.

“Good. Now I’ve got a little problem for you to help me with.” I give the trousers a tug and free his cock. “Oh,” there’s shock and longing in my voice, “I know just what I’m going to do with you.” It looks like it’s all sensitive skin, like a glans. His foreskin has lubed him up a lot, which just sweetens the deal.

Because here’s the thing: his dick is short, bulbous, and tapers in and then out again. Just like my butt plug.

I kneel, on my own terms. Just like last time the boots make it tough, and squatting feels just the right kind of dirty. I untie my shirt, and bra, and pinch a nipple. Gotta get him nice* and slick.*

He’s musky, and smells like supple skin. I put my lips to the time, and swish and flick with my tongue. He gasps, and then groans when I push his foreskin all the way down with my lips. His balls are huge, and I palm them, as I slurp up and down his dick.

While I go I unbutton my pants, and my mind is in overdrive imagining what’s coming. When I can’t hold back the anticipation any longer, I stand up, and lean onto some of the pipes on the wall and arch my back. The dukes can’t slide down very far when I splay my legs, but I don’t need them down too low. The thong is nuisance, I pull it to the side. I hear Comakh panting when he sees my little virgin asshole. I look over my shoulder and say, “Go slow.”

That was a mistake. I feel the tip of his penis on my button, he moves it around, but doesn’t go inside. I make a moan of frustration. I want that thing inside of me. I brace and bump back into the tip of his cock. Then harder. And he finally gets the point, and I feel my anus get spread open.

It’s nothing like the toy. The toy was ridged and metal. Toys and real life are stunningly different, and the chips all come down on real life. It’s incredible. The spreading hurts a bit, like stretching your mouth too wide, and there’s a pinch deep inside my guts. Whatever that pinch is, it bridges the gap between pleasure and pain, and hurts so good. When he pulls out it goes away, and I just want it back.

He isn’t in all the way yet, and going slow isn’t helping, but I’m moaning with just this little bit.

I’ve got my hands wrapped around the pipes, gripping them in lost ecstasy. I manage to say, “Harder,” through the little gasps that are coming out of my throat.

He starts to stroke deeper, and more urgently. When he goes out, I breath a little sigh, and when he pushes back in I let out a gasp. Then there’s a final push, and I feel my hole close over the base of his dick.

He pulls out to push back in, and I feel that tapered base pop out again. The pain when he does that makes my whole core tingle in pleasure. I’m getting fucked in the ass, by a stranger, in a dirty boiler room. I couldn’t be more turned on.

I get a wonderful surprise, as he starts thrusting in and out. His testicles (each the size of a golf ball) slam into my pussy from behind. The first time I feel a jump, and cry out in pleasure. It happens again on the next thrust and is enough to bring me straight to the edge. Time three, four, and five, I’m already orgasming, as his balls knock against my pussy, while he’s deep in my ass.

He’s still got some fight in him, and I clutch the pipes and start pounding back into him. I clench and unclench and feel my anus wrap around him and suck him in.

He’s not in control. I’m the one getting him off. His dick might be in me, but I’m the one whose going to make it spurt. Something about that should make me feel dirty. Instead I feel a sense of power.

I’m getting near again, I can feel my calves shake. I feel him ejaculate inside me. It’s a first, after Chinta’s weird dick. I feel flooded and warm, and even though it’s all inside the gooey feeling in my anus makes me feel decadant. Like ice cream on your wrist.

I’m close but I’m not there yet. He gasps as he pulses, bends over my back, and lays his arms on the pipes next to my hands. He tries to pull out but I’m not about to let that happen. I grab his forearms, hold him still, and jam my butt back on to his tool. A few moments later, when I cum, the satisfaction that I made him get me off, is almost as good as the orgasm.

He pulls out with a little tickle, and I can feel a little of his jism run over my perineum. Then I pull up my pants, clear my throat, say, “Glad I could help,” and find my own way out.

“This is Big Bertha,” I tell the aliens, “And she is a beautiful lady.”

We get inside and I give a small tour. There are jump seats outside the flight deck and I show them how to strap in. Urban and sophisticated Tinoct has never flown before, and an ancient freight hauler, loosely bolted together, is a great way to have a first experience. Then I tell them to hang out in the rec room while I run checks. I’ve had to turn off everything at the port, but we aren’t leaving gravity so it’ll only take an hour.

When the last check greens I get on the intercom. “Drop your socks and grab your cocks, it’s time to rock folks.” They don’t take their time getting up here, and Tinocts hands shake while he buckles in.

Bertha makes some noises I know, and the others find scary. Then the turbines are hot and we’re climbing.

Flight Control gets me into the air, and up at cruising altitude. The guys English is good enough he might be human. I guess Chinochkan gets enough human traffic, that they’ve adopted our systems. Everywhere in the Earth SOI flight control is in English. Doesn’t matter what province or people, it’s always English. Apparently that goes back to the invention of passenger flight, and it’s becoming galactic standard. I’ve had to use and interpreter once, in the 8 million hours I’ve flown, and that was because I was landing in a Korean prefecture, and it was easier to understand the controller’s Korean, than his English. That city also had a huge Hispanic population, and the accents had kind of merged into one. I’ll let you imagine a Spanish/Korean accent speaking English, because your imagination can’t be as bad as it was.

Once everyone is free to move, I get Tinoct onto the deck, and he helps me find a driver for their weather format, and then I’m able to plot a course. I could follow the flight plan I filed, but my flight plan is a complete fraud. It lists a landing at a private airport on the wrong continent, in the wrong hemisphere, that doesn’t exist.

I have a jet stream this time, and once in our land speed climbs to over mach 1. Land speed and airspeed are not the same thing, and Bertha doesn’t have the minerals to show off like that in atmosphere. Our airspeed is barely 500, but just for fun, I tell the others that we’ve broken the sound barrier.

Our ETA is six hours from now, and we have to down time to get creative—but everyone is pretty much fucked out by now.

The cool of the ship environment is a welcome relief, and predictably, Chinta complains about the cold. I tell her to put on clothes. She does that and complains again. I turn the heat up to 90 degrees and tell her it’s not going higher. She finds a blanket and cuddles up on the couch. “There is problem 11. If we fly cargo ship to art festival, people will wonder.”

“I think when the trucks show up they’ll start asking questions anyway.”

“I’m not in business of being conspicuous, 11.”

“What do you suggest?”

“We need to fit in. We’ll have to print some new clothes,” she tells me.

Something inside me is thrilled now with the prospect of playing dress up. I let them into my room, apologize for the mess that isn’t there, and we spend some time going through the printer.

How do you fit in at a crazy-person art-festival? You wear whatever the fuck you want actually. What is whatever the fuck I want to wear?

I voice my concern. Chinta is ecstatic, “I will choose!” Then she starts running over mods, and I get worried. There’s punk, and goth punk, and steam punk, and grease punk. There’s rave, and hippy, and hipster. She finds some anime cosplay, a Klingon uniform, some circus clothing. I’m getting cold feet until she starts landing on some Rennaisance and then I’m… is it bad I’m intrigued? There is a lot of sexy cleavage in there.

“You should do this one,” she says.

“No,” my instinctual response is to resist the first offer anyone makes me.

“Please? It’ll look great on you.” It turns out Chokan bambi eyes actually work.

I agree, way too fast, “All right. Print the corset.”

#

“I have never understood what this does,” Chinta is holding a pair of panties up, and turning them around.

“It’s underwear,” I tell her.

“I know this, what does it do?”

“You wear it under your clothes.”

She puts them on, “I don’t like this.”

“You have to put your gynuss inside.”

“I really don’t like this.”

“Well with what you’re wearing, you need them.”

Chinta is dressed as a magical girl. She has frills and lace and crinoline petticoats, and a giant cock hanging beneath them. It kind of ruins the image. I try to explain this and don’t get very far.

“I will do it, because you say so.”

Now it’s my turn to ask questions, “How do I fit in to this?” I’m holding something the screen says is a “demi corset” and I can’t make myself look like the picture.

“You have to fluff,” Tinoct tells me. He’s been watching our dress up play with amused disinterest. He came prepared and is wearing a flower print silk kimono, complete with sandals. I try not to think about where he got it.

“How do I do that?”

He comes to stand next to me, “Bend over.”

I do.

“Grab your nipples.”

I do that.

“Pull them up.”

This is weird.

He throws the corset over my back, and pins the first clasp closed, “There.”

I stand up straight and close the rest of it. Yes, it is uncomfortable. Yes, breathing is a little difficult. But my figure is good on it’s own, so I’m not lacing it up with hooks.

I stand and look in the mirror. My boobs are bursting out of the corset like little coconuts. Yeah, they look amazing. I put on the skirt and consider again. Damn amazing. It’s the first time I’ve worn a skirt, and it’s a little different. I turn my upper body, and don’t feel the fabric on my legs twist with me. I sit on the bed and start lacing up my boots. They have a pointy toe and the heel is a little lower. I’m not sure what historical period this costume is going for, but I don’t really think it matters much to the people down there.

Then my phone chimes with the Civilian Band, and we hear, “Echo mike echo tango, baker baker one one, at sixty thousand?” That’s me. “We got your approach plan when you’re ready.”

Thank god! Someone down there is doing flight control. I try to run to the deck in heels, find I’m very bad at it, and then figure they can wait a tad. I should not have put on these boots before I got in the flight seat. The pedals feel super weird on my feet.

I get on the horn, “Flight control this is baker baker one one, gimme watcha got.” Then I flip the switch for the modem, and it makes modem noises while they transfer the data. They want a quick descent which is fine by me, but one of my passengers is about to have the ride of his life. “Would the flight attendants please take their landing positions?” I say over PA.

A minute later Chinta hits the signal that she’s strapped in. Then she turns it off because Tinoct can’t figure out his seat belt. Then they’re good and I drop altitude hard.

#

Big Bertha cants a bit in the packed sand as it settles. It’s only a couple inches on the port side, but it’s noticeable and doesn’t help the boots.

Outside the ship has turned some of the sand to glass and the kilning has made it a pretty green color. Otherwise it’s all white out here. Looks good with the sky.

And it’s hot. Hotter than Mekt. It’s dryer, but not “crisp your lips” dry. I have a 20 gallon water bottle in my purse though, and I know I’ll go through most of it.

Bertha is down on the strip, on the outskirts so she could fit herself in. She’s not the largest ship, there are a couple of passenger liners out here. The rest are small, mostly personal, none expensive. Some don’t look like the should even be able to fly. The crowd is thin out here. People wandering back to their ships for more money, or a nice place to pass out high as hell.

The dense atmosphere creates a mirage only a couple hundred feet into the distance, so it looks like the festival is being held in the middle of a lake. There are big white tents out there, looking like sailing ships, and even from here we can hear the noise of a hundred thousand people trying to be heard over the sounds of a hundred thousand people trying to be heard over…

We collect ourselves and set off. Chinta is having trouble with her heels. Around a dozen feet in she realizes—like I did—that she has to shorten her stride. It’s a bit like wearing the shackles they put on you when you get arrested. I assume. Not like I’d know.

She’s carrying a parasol on her shoulder, and from the back you could almost mistake her for an anime character. The red skin kind of spoils it, but I’m sure no one will notice.

My skirt is made out of cool-cotton, but the corset is a little thick, and I can feel sweat start to build up under my breasts.

As we get closer the crowd gets more diverse. In clothing and species.

“Try to blend in,” Tinoct tells us. “Split up, but keep everyone in eyesight.”

This is good. I want to explore a little bit, and I feel like these two are cramping my style. I’ve got $700 cash money, and I’m gonna buy some weird ass art shit.

That’s probably not very professional, but I think professional went out the window when I woke up in the wrong body.

We saw from the air, that the festival has been set up in a bunch of concentric circles, that loop around one another like a maze. There’s probably a reason for that, but damn if I can’t figure out what it is. It would be nice to get to some of the booths I can see from behind the boohts where I am, but I can’t figure out how to get there.

Fuck it. I can see a guy welding a statue together behind a booth selling soap with psychic healing energies. So I just walk off the path, in between the canvases. There’s already a worn path here, so the maze idea was pretty useless on it’s face.

The guy has built a twenty foot tall dinosaur out of a scrap heap. Well I assume it’s a dinosaur. He’s Salc, and I don’t know about extinct Salc species, but I know a dinosaur when I see one. Also, it spits flames, as a dinosaur absolutely should.

#

I move on, wandering really, and hear somebody call out to me.

“Hey! Human! You, Red!”

I turn and see a woman standing in front of her tent. She’s Loa, so I’m not sure if she’s actually a woman. I’m going on form, not function. Loa have three genders and each of them can bear a child. When only one gender can bear a child, like on Chinochkan, and childbirth is dangerous to the mother (like everywhere), the women become too valuable to risk in a conflict. On Earth, in the past, a woman could bear around 8-10 children, before the pregnancy was statistically most likely to kill her. The mortality rate for children was usually between 25% and 50%, so getting the maximum out of your population growth mean protecting women at all costs. Protection becomes marginalization, because why would you allow women to make decisions when they should be making babies.

There, I just saved you a semester of gender studies.

With the Loa, and other peoples, “women” have about four children in them, and once they’ve had enough, they get to be men and go fight in wars and stuff. Of course this means that they start bearing children around (human equivalent) eight years old.

Hey, I didn’t make the rules of evolution.

But all three genders have mamaries, or the Loa version of that, so I tend to think of them all as women.

I walk over, and see that she has a tattoo on her chest just over her heart. This must be what a Loa Butterfly looks like. Not the tattoo, that’s a flower (I assume). But it must be where her navel was. She’s dark skinned, and exotic, and she’s wearing a mesh bikini top, so you can’t help but notice the 4 gauge rings through her nipples. She’s tattooed to an inch of her life. Has all of the classic exotic peircings, ears, nose, eyebrows, tongue, some other things I don’t know the name of. Eyes, your ears, you nose, and your… ovipositor?

She says, “A woman like you can not go around without her ears pierced.”

I’m not sure if she’s coming on to me but our genitals are… not compatible. And while I guess I’m bi, I’m not that bi.

But she makes a very good point. A woman… like me. “Yes. Yes you are absolutely right.”

She leads me inside the tent and I sit in the comfy “get holes poked in you” chair. It’s actually not comfortable at all. The Loa snaps on a pair of gloves, and I think about how weird it is that other races have other kinds of latex gloves. Then I think about what a stupid thought that is.

“Just my ears, I think.”

“How many?”

That’s right, I can get more than one. Do I want more than one? “Two?”

“Do you think that you actually want one?”

The more you have the more girly you look. Unless I really go overboard. I feel like I’m back where I was months ago as I think about it. Then I decide that if that time has passed I may well have gotten somewhere. “Two.”

Then she brings over a tray of rings, and asks me if I’m planning on guaging up, and I don’t know what to say. Until I see the rings. There are stylish, and there are simple, and there are dangly.

“You wander around honey, and you’ll see a lot more, but this is a good starter set.” I pick out two pairs, and she laughs, “Red, you can’t go dangly in both holes. Here, get these to go with those.”

I barely breathe it out, because I’m so out of my depth. It’s not as bad as the makeup, but we’re crossing a threshold here.

“Sit back and try to relax.” She pulls a needle out of its little plastic case, and fingers my ear a bit, and I decide to look at something else for a second. Theres a feeling like a needle being shoved through my earlobe, with doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would, and then I feel a tiny bit of weight in my ear. Then it hurts again, and happens again, and I’m letting my brain just numb out a bit. I’m not processing anything right now.

The chair swings around, and she does my other ear, and there I am in a mirror, looking at my pierced ears.

I look like a girl. I’ve looked like a girl for five months, but now I really look like a girl. She’s put little hoops in my ears, and I can see them, and I’m a girl.

“Oh, come on, it wasn’t that bad,” The Loa says. She doesn’t understand my expression, which is equal parts shock, acceptance, and the urge to cry. I’m not really sure over what.

#

I’m browsing for ear rings. No one here has a printer, they just sell the physical in the open. Most of it is hand cast though. At a real store that would be worth a huge markup, but here everyone is locked in a trade battle, and I win.

But I don’t know what goes with a corset and skirt. I find a tent with a large selection, and I’m looking around when I see something that makes my brain break.

They’re dangly, and they each have a little praxite lense in them. They show little red sparkles, and I know I can blue tooth the things and make them show whatever I want. They’re gorgeous. I’ve never wanted a piece of jewelry like this. Now if only someone would buy them for me. Crap all this femininity is really creeping in.

Conservative guess? $2,000 on Earth. Here I haggle the guy down to a tenth of that. I find out that sticking ear rings into your ears is pretty hard when you haven’t done it before. I think they might bleed some, and I look around to see if anyone has noticed. The store owner has decided to be elsewhere, overcharging another customer after I fleeced him.

Now I’m pretty, and I badly need something to eat.

#

Well look at that. There’s a chob set up between a tent selling silver jewelry, and an old fashioned blacksmith. I don’t think I’ve had anything to eat today, and I feel like I could use some comfort food.

It’s a little clay hut, like a pueblo oven. I can see the equipment used to print it stacked up behind. There’s no sign, just a low door. I duck through, and wait for my eyes to adjust.

It’s very cool in here. Cool and humid. And it smells kind of damp. I look around for the source, and see that there’s an ancient swamp cooler running in a hole in the tent. When I say “ancient” I don’t mean the swamp cooler is old. In fact it looks new. But it is a clay jar sitting in a hole in the side of the tent. I don’t know how they work, but they’ve been found in 1,000 BC Babylon. The one in here is exactly what I remember those pictures look like.

There’s a tiny fan, which is actually a drone rotor, blowing the air into the chob. It kind of spoils the effect a little bit.

I’m the only one here other than a little babushka sort of woman sitting next to a big pot and a jar. She’s dressed in what must be a traditional shawl, but it’s all cool-cotton, I can spot the texture. Cool-cotton is a tiny bit shiny. You put money in the jar but there’s no indication of what the food costs. You just pay what you think some chobbish is worth. Previous pattrons think it’s worth a lot. I put a $20 coin in the jar and sit on a low clay bench around the circumference of the chob. At intervals there are little, um, flower mushroom things. Each has three or four branches with bowl-like caps.

I scoot over to one of these, drag my skirt, and try to brush it under me like a lady.

The babushka is a Dobba, but if she was human she’d be a babushka so she’s a Dobbabshka. I’m hilarious.

She doesn’t say anything, just scoops some chobbish out of the pot with a ladle. When it gets close to the flower in front of me, the flower swings over to meet it. She hands me the tweezers.

I don’t know what to do here. The flower is still in front of her.

< Take, > she says.

I reach out and grab some of the greasy grass, and my tongue remembers what it’s like and spasms in anticipation. When I bring the tweezers to my lips, the bowl follows them. Then retreats when I stuff them in my mouth.

When Marcus said the last place wasn’t very authentic he was being too simplistic.

The Dobbabushka watches me eat for a bit. The food is heavenly and when she sees that on my face she smiles and adjusts her shawl. The she goes back to tatting some kind of thing.

I notice that my bowl is emptying faster than I’m eating, until I take my last bite and see the rest dissapear into the small hole in the bottom of the flower cap.

I look to the Dobbabushka, “What just happened?”

< Chobbish feeds the lobbish root. It grows bigger. >

“What happens if it grows too big?”

< Get a bigger chob. >

Yeah, okay that makes sense.

< You’ve come a long way. >

“You would not believe the half of it.”

< But not far enough. You need to go farther, to find your way. >

I try to internalize this, and nearly succeed.

< You gotta get strong. >

I have to laugh a little at this. I survivor I am. Strong I am not.

< You’ll get stronger. Chobbish makes you strong. >

I think she has some weird ideas, but I’ll tolerate this dispensary of traditional wisdom.

The cool air is nice, but I know that Chinta is probably worried about me. I thank the little woman and she smiles at me, and makes some kind of hand gesture. I don’t know what it means, so I make it back on my way out the door.

I get a text when I step outside. It’s a selfie of Chinta, posing in front of a statue made of diapers. I think that means I should meet her near the statue made of diapers.

I look around for a statue made of diapers, then put my phone into the face of the nearest passerby. She nods like she’s seen it, and adds an expression like she’s seen everything. She’s young. It’s cute.

I give her the closest I can get to a “where is it?” expression, and she points further into the maze. I don’t even try, just set out in that general direction.

On my way I pass two drug markets, an opium den, and three orgies.One in a tent, that seems to be a “pay-to-play” affair, and two that are just out under a little canvas shade. The last is a train, being run on a Salc, who is clearly out of her skull on something. She’s got a dick in every hole, and for a small moment I miss my penis a little bit. My nipples perk up, feel the heat, and decide that a half effort is okay.

That one is happening right next to the statue made of diapers, which seems gross. But I’m not the one getting reamed. Maybe it’s part of the appeal?

I just disgusted myself.

Chinta is nearby, in the shade of a tent. She’s on a table getting a full body massage from an amale, who is erectly enjoying his work. There’s a human there too, oiling up his hands in front of a massage chair, and he’s not wearing a thing. Those Gen-B bodies really pack on the muscle, and the situation gets a little more damp in the heat. I can feel it on my lips now. Be calm 11. It’s just a real human dick that your body was designed for. I make a good point. All this extrasexuality has been great, but sometimes a girl wants the real thing.

I put that at the back—middle—of my mind as Chinta looks up and says, in a voice I’ve never hears so relaxed while sober, “She wants the deluxe package, Joe.”

Human Joe nods. I don’t know what the deluxe version entails, but I’m excited to find out. Human Joe is hitting all my eye buttons. He hands me a little paper cup, with something green inside. “It’ll help you relax.”

Okay. I have a rule against taking drugs that I don’t know what they are.

“It’s just a little silax,” He says.

Oh, is that all. It’s a little like alcohol, but it soaks into your muscles instead of you blood stream. It’s still dis-inhibiting, but it doesn’t pound on your personality. And it’s liquid, loses all of it’s potency in pill form, and tastes like crushed aspirin. Human Joe has mixed it with grape drink, and it only makes it worse. But I find this out when all of it is already in my mouth, and spitting it out isn’t going to make anything better.

Human Joe says, “There’s a curtain, you can undress to where you’re comfortable.”

How naked do you want to get at a crowded festival? Probably not as naked as I would with Human Joe in private.

“Do you have a towel, or something?”

“There’s a few back there.”

Behind the curtain is a little sanctuary of safe space. There’s a chair, and cubbies where Chinta’s costume sits, and where someone has already left a bra. I trade the corset for a cusiony, fluffy. towel. Wrap and tuck. Then I start feeling a little adventurous. I can hear that Salc outside, and I think she’s been joined by another girl. My panties are soaking, and I decide the skirt is enough as I leave them on the chair in the “dressing room.”

The chair is one of the one you sit backwards in, like a cool professor relating to the hip kids. The seat almost isn’t enough for my whole ass, and I try to remember if that’s normal. I lean into the chest pads to find a new and uncomfortable situation. I have to rearrange my tits and the towel wrap doesn’t survive this.

Well, the pads are covering my nipples, and I’m comfortable, so what the hell. Human Joe starts on my shoulders and I melt into the chair.

I completely lose track of the passage of time for some… time. At one point I’m present enough to know that my skirt is bunched up underneath me. I shift it around until it’s draped over the the chair, which means that my bare cunny is right on the seat. The best position I find is with it sticking out just a bit. That’s interesting. There’s a little notch in the line of the seat here. My pussy is out in the open air. This is exciting, until Human Joe starts working with his thumbs and I fade out again.

My arousal builds up slowly, and I’m dimly aware that Human Joe’s getting steadily more intimate with his touch. A brush over my breast here, a closer than necessary stance there. After a little bit I’m aware that my nipples are getting harder from his hands, and I start to revel in the fluffy towel as they perk into it. The chair comes up a little bit, it’s on a riser like at the barber, to make it easier for Human Joe to work lower. I’m in a haze of pleasure when I feel his cock-head through the cloth of the skirt. He’s got enough to stand to attention, but he’s not saluting yet. He bumps me a couple of times, and I start breathing deeper, and then when he doest it again, I raise my ass a little and feel his head brush against my butt crack.

I want.

When he steps back and his dick goes away I let out a little groan of dissatisfaction. I get ready to reach back and try to give that cock the right idea. I don’t have to. It turns out we’re on the same page here. He lifts my skirt up until the hem is at the small of my back. I don’t know which is sexier, the cloth on my sensitive skin, or the fact that my whole ass is in the open air.

I’m slick and ready, and I shift my weight to give him a better angle. When his head touches my inner lips, I arch my back, and push my tits into the chair.

His dick pushes in with no guidence, past my lips, slow and steady. He looked average length and girth, but from the perspective he’s big enough to squeeze me open. Too much, but not too much. after getting stretched by alien dicks it’s kind of a relief. I don’t really feel the pop, I think he’s slicked himself up with the oil. Soon he’s as deep as he can get in my pussy, and I’m* all about the way his shaft feels as I close around him.

Human Joe is a masseur, and he fucks like one. Slow and purposeful. Powerful and deep. There is an intense *drift between in and out, lasting about a second in each direction. When he’s as deep as he can get, he holds for a second, and I yearn for more. Deeper. Fuller.

Then he pulls out, and that almost feels better, but I can’t wait for him to get back in the business of filling me up again. My build up is slow and langorous, and I’ve never fucked myself like this before. There’s no urgency. I’ll get to where I’m going, but this time it’s about the journey.

He runs his hands over my back and then down my arms. When he start moving a little harder I lift up on my elbows, he’s getting deep, and every time he goes in all the way, I feel like he could get just a little deeper.

Then, with what must be professional experience, he takes hold of my arms, above the elbow. He’s gentle, but implacable, as he pulls my arms back toward him. The towel slips off, and the air makes my tits tingle. I’m too far gone to care that everyone can see. I might just revel in it, I’m not sure.

The new curve in my back and my pelvis means he’s coming in at an entirely new angle. His dick pulls the walls of my cunt forward, and stretches my clit over the base of his cock. It’s not an all the time thing, but it’s just what I need right now. The first time I feel it, I let out a long low moan, and I’m dimly aware that passersby are turning to watch. My eyes are mostly closed. The moan comes back the next time. And the next.

He’s getting more powerful. More deliberate. When he gets deep he doesn’t stay as long anymore, and that change of pace is exactly what I need it to be.

He adds a little bit of speed, and my climax starts very slow. It lasts for thirty seconds or so, as he keeps grinding into me while I orgasm.

While I’m coming down, he gives three hard, little, jabs, and I feel him jet inside me. He’s not like Chinta, his cock jerks and shudders inside me. It gets a shriek out of me, and I’m back for another orgasm.

There’s the subtle discomfort of him pulling out, and then he starts on my back again like nothing has happened.

I nod off in the chair, floating on the afterglow.

#

Human Joe is finished, and he just lets me sit in the chair and relax for about ten minutes. The silax is wearing off a little bit, and I’m feeling the tiniest tinge of guilt. It’s masked by sexual satisfaction, so I’m doing okay.

I grab the towel when I get up anyway, retreat behind the curtain, and try to figure out how to fluff and put on the corset by myself. When I work it out, I check in a mirror on the table. Still hot.

Chinta is done as well, and has opted to ditch her underwear.

Oh shit. We’re twenty feet away from the tent when I realize that I’ve forgotten my panties. But commando is feeling pretty good with the skirt on. Fuck it.

There is a tiny trickle on my leg, as I feel some of Human Joe’s semen run out of me. That makes me feel a little proud, and a little dirty. And then pride in the dirtiness. Women are weird.

I’m not worried about getting pregnant of course, this body can’t, for obvious ethical reasons. I have a uterus and ovaries, to help my hormones, but no ovum. As Doctor Jordan mentioned, I’ll only menstruate if I want to. I don’t think I want to do that.

Tinoct has wandered off somewhere, and Chinta and I wander the festival in a relative calm.

That Salc is still making noises, and she’s been joined by another human woman. The line has died down a bit, and Chinta decides to take her own turn. I don’t think she got any from the massage. She’s fully erect just watching the spectacle, and when she gets to the front of the line the Salc sucks her deep into her mouth. Chinta only lasts 30 seconds, before the Salc is motioning for the next in line.

Chinta comes back to me, panting a little bit.

The Salc now gives up, stands up, wobbly, makes a “no more” gesture to the amale and female waiting and stumbles away to get some Gatorade and a nap.

The amale is not cool with this, he shouts after her in Enoctic, all of it obscene, then turns and punches the female behind him.

Chinta and I have been moving away for a bit, but I watch out of the corner of my eye, and hear the crowd gasp. The woman was wearing clothes, so this is pretty much legal.

This is legal rape.

He’s got her down on the ground, roughly handing her ass, and she cries out in pain when he penetrates her. Then she keeps crying, while he yanks her hair around, but she doesn’t cry for help.

The inaccuracy of the LM-5 saves the man’s life. I had the shot lined up perfectly. But he won’t be hearing out of that ear for a while. The shot turns the sand to glass twenty feet past him, and his earlobe burns away in little strings of red hot ash.

He starts screaming with all of his breath, and when he runs out he doesn’t take enough time to breathe in before he start screaming again. He’s rolling around in the dirt, which is going to be really bad for the burns on his face, once he can feel them again. I’m lining up the second shot, this time to wound again, when Chinta grabs my arm and hustles me back into the crowd as fast as she can.

I don’t really resist, because I can’t think through all of the rage screaming in my head.

Two hundred feet away, she slaps me across the face. I snap back into the present, feel the gun still in my hand, hoist it, and start to head back.

Now Tinoct is standing in my way. I don’t want to hurt Tinoct, even in my blind anger, and I point the gun at the ground. I can’t even speak right now.

“Sit down, 11,” he tells me.

“Get out of my way,” I find my voice.

“If you want to stop this, the best thing you can do right now, is walk away.” He puts his hands on my shoulder, “Breathe deep, find your center. We are going to put an end to this, but shooting people in public isn’t going to change anything.”

Chinta lays her arm on my shoulder as well, “We have some people here, in security. He’s not getting away unscathed. You did what was right, and that’s enough.”

The anger is slowly being replaced by shock, and I find a couple of crates to sit on.

“I think it would be wise if we were to go back to the ship for a little bit,” Tinoct says. He and Chinta half guide—half direct me, out of the festival.

#

Inside Bertha I manage to have a moment of solace, in the shower. It’s a microbial shower, so it lasts 15 seconds, and then I just curl up in a ball. I put my head on my arms and feel my naked ass on the floor of the shower.

I think this is a hormone thing. Maybe it’s a woman thing. Maybe it’s an 11 thing.

I’ve sold guns to murderers. I’ve sold them to rapists. I’ve sold them to people who committed atrocities, war crimes, you name it. And I’ve never felt bad about it.

There isn’t a right or wrong in war. Those I’ve supplied were fighting people just as bad as they were. Fighting those guilty of just as much. With a moral gray area like that, it’s hard to find anything to stand for. “Oh yes, I’ll sell to these rapist murderers, but not those ones. Those are the bad rapist murderers.”

Sector weapons are terrible, but they’ll put down a rebellion, or overthrew a government, fast. That’s really what you want in a war. For it to be over as soon as possible. Father rails against that, making products that destroy their own market isn’t the best business practice. Maybe it would be better to stop making such good guns.

And with all of that rationalized, I begin to think about where I am now. In every conflict I’ve been in, I’ve never felt righteous. I’ve never felt anything really. I just show up, enjoy foreign food, exotic drinks, and more exotic tang. Then I fuck off to the next job, and that’s it. Most of the people I met will have ended up in a ditch when the dust clears. You can’t keep feeling that for too long.

Now I’m feeling like I’m doing something important for these women. And that makes me feel a weird range of emotions. Sort of pride, sort of worry, sort of importance. My hormones must be crazy right now.

After a little bit I’m able to get up and go to the galley. I’ve been drinking water all day, but I’m still thirsty. I end up with a cup of hot (synthetic) chocolate. Chinta and Tinoct are smart enough not to say anything for a bit.

I’ve found a comfy chair in the rec hall, where Chinta is watching local broadcast. Nothing about me. Some corespondent covering the festival. He is as vapid as you can expect a news correspondent to be. The sun is setting now, and I’m feeling more tired than anything.

There’s a separate cot in the bunkhouse, but it only sleeps one. Tinoct opts for the couch in the rec. He says the convoy is just a day away.

I bed down, thinking about a tragic world, and wondering if I can face getting up tomorrow.

I bolt upright in bed to the sound of the red alert klaxon. I guess the question of what I can face will have to wait because there’s an emergency somewhere on my ship.

Chinta is several steps away from awake as I rush out the door to find Tinoct. He’s standing in the corridor next to an emergency panel, and he manages to look a little sheepish. “I didn’t know the best way to wake you.”

“Coming to wake me up would be a step above this.” I put in the captain’s code to shut it off, “What’s going on?”

“The police are on their way to shut down the festival.”

I mutter my mantra, “It never ends, this shit.” Then add,” Is it me?”

“Probably not,” Tinoct says. “They shut down the festival every other year or so. It always comes back, but the government likes to give a show of force. Shooting that guy didn’t help, but as far as I understand, someone tripped out and shot a bunch of spider’s. Which turned out to be people.”

“Honest mistake at a festival.”

“That’s racist,” but he smiles.

“I can jump us in an hour, where the hell am I going this time?”

“The convoy is right outside Pahananochka, near the coast. We can make the drop on the outskirts.”

“Get some breakfast,” I tell him. “We hit the sky in sixty.”

I’m getting sick of running checks, but Bertha is not a car. She’s a couple giga-ton freighter, and in the air, working systems are the only thing between you and a bloody crater on the ground. You don’t put your ass on the line unless you’re sure everything is going to work.

And I get a red bar on start up, so it’s a good thing I did. A landing strut has too much sand in it, and I have to run the steam system, and re-lube the thing. I can do that from inside, but I can’t do it from the air. Checks just saved all our lives. You’re welcome.

It puts us back 50 minutes, and we’re ready to hightail it, when I see the pips from Los Federales on the sensors.

I find Pahananochka on the map, and get on the intercom. “Here’s the deal guys, normally it’d take three hours. But I’m gonna fly this ship like I stole it. We’ll be over the LZ in two.” Tinoct makes a groaning sound in the back of his throat. “Stay in your seats, while I burn up some air.”

#

Big Bertha heads into the clouds over the city and there’s some bad wind shear coming down. Once I’m beneath, it’s gentle rain and looks pretty. We have cover from satellite for the next two days, if the weather report can be believed.

I hover over an abandoned industrial complex two miles from the city, trying to find a place to set down. At a thousand feet above the ground it takes some fancy flying not to mow down the warehouses. I melt some cars coming down. They felt every pound of a type-D freighter, crushed so hard the kinetic energy has turned into heat. Their solders are in rivulets, puddling on the concrete.

I get out of the flight seat, pealing my naked skin from the pads. I slept naked and had no time for clothes. I want a rest. In the bunk house, I print some heavy ass steal toes, to go with my coveralls. Then put on the coveralls and feel like I’m ready to kick some ass. Tinoct puts on his own gear, and Chinta borrows my printer again. Her coveralls are pink and have flowers on them. I don’t have the heart to tell her what that’s gonna look like covered in grease.

The others follow me down to the hold and get a first look at their purchase. 200 crates stacked around, at a cool six mil.

Bertha has a beetle hold, the whole thing just splits open, top to bottom. It’s cool in here, a nice relief from the outside. She’s isn’t lit the best, so I decide to open the top doors. The rain comes trickling in, plinking over the stacked steel and making a sound I love to go to sleep to.

The rain is misty, and fine. The temp is 112, but the water in the air backs it off to only 111. We haven’t even started yet and I shrug out of the top of the jump suit and tie it around my waist. I’m wearing a sports bra a look ready to wreck.

Chinta is cold and squeaks out of the rain. Then she goes off to find a hat. I’m enjoying that feeling where the top of your hair is wet, but your scalp is dry. She comes back in a little cargo cap, and shudders when she stands next to me in the rain.

“How are you warm?”

“I’m not, I’m fucking boiling. Your planet is a kiln.”

She gives me a hug, to snuggle my skin. “Oh, you’re cold!” And snuggles harder to try warming me up.

“Honey, if I had your temperature, I’d be dead in seconds.” It’s like standing in the desert and curling up in a wool blanket. I do my best to shove her off sweetly, and give her a little kiss.

I put the ramp down to its squeals of protest. The convoy is an hour away, and driving like a bat out of hell.

For awhile we sit under the shell, watch the rain come down, and smoke.

#

Forty minutes later the convoy roles in. The were truckn’ through the night. Around twenty flat beds, with forklifts chained onto the backs. Four or five vans, packed with women in work clothes and gloves and boots. They all have eyes like survivors.

Stock and briefing takes another hour. I meet Hakho, the woman in charge. I show her around the freight, and she has some ideas that I wouldn’t do, but that will work okay. She makes it clear that I’m not running the show right now. That’s fine, I’m a criminal pilot, not a criminal dock worker.

Oh, yeah. Hakho swears like a longshoreman, in three languages that my interpretor can pick up, and two it can’t.

We break the locks, and everyone starts to get dirty. There’s no dust in space, but there is alway dirt on the floor of the hold. Everything was locked down, and there’s no point in extending gravity in there while in flight, so the crates have all been coated in a thin layer of grime.

I do my part with a tablet, keeping track of what we’re unloading and how. I put on a pair of gloves, and find that my a-muscles are just up to the task of pushing a crate onto a mag. The stacks are around 100 feet high, we have to climb up and move the crates out of the center, while the forklifts hover.

“I had to unload a thousand crates, canted on rocks, while we fought off a blizzard,” I tell Hakho. “This is nothing.”

“Fuckn’ ay, 11. I ran cuntting quantum servers through the jungle on < fucking > foot.”

Then we tell war stories, while we punt the crates around. Hakho takes some time out to yell at people when I tell her about Bridgha, and trying to land in nine feet of water and unload onto canoes. (Only lost three crates.) That’s the one I know has got her beat.

Four hours go by, and we’re a tenth of the way in. We break for lunch.

Down on the ground some guys have been cooking up a mess of food, outside a van that is stocked with supplies. No one ever thinks about food on an unload. I’ve had to sling a hundred crates on a stomach full of power bars, so this is sweet. Okay. Meticulously planned is right. I take back every sarcastic thought I’ve ever had.

They spread the pots on the ground, and segregate things. The women get three pots, there are that many of them, the males get one apiece.

I sit with the women again. Everyone is laughing those laughs you laugh when you’ve just started a big job. In a day everyone will be sitting her silent and exhausted, but now we all have the energy to laugh.

I don’t get most of the jokes, but I smile an nod.

Chinta cracks a case laying next to one of the trucks, and then I get a hell of a surprise. She pulls out a couple Feather Dusters, and I think she’s going to teach the other women how to use them. But underneath the ordinance are a bunch of medical kits.

“Chinta? What the hell is that?”

“What you brought us. Deprotax. What is in cases?”

“What I thought I was bringing you. Weapons.”

“Those weapons we wanted.” She opens up one of the medical packages and pulls out a syringe, “This we wanted more.”

“Tinoct?” I shout over to him. He gets to his feet and comes over to the crate. “What the hell is this?”

“You didn’t know? It’s birth control, 11.”

#

The syringe is a laser, 100 times smaller than a needle. It doesn’t hurt less, but it’s completely sterile. Chinta goes around the circle, slowly winning this war.

“Why wasn’t I told about this?” I’m angry. I’m confused. I’m confused about why I’m angry.

“We assumed you knew,” Tinoct tells me.

I don’t have anything to say. Someone has pulled one over on me and I don’t know why.

No… Whatever this is it’s something over my father. We have other smugglers for drugs, none of them would object to medical supplies. Explain to them what this is, and it’s a public fucking service.

But my father would have seen what’s in these crates, or someone he knows he can trust has. So either he can’t trust them, or he can’t trust the person who loaded the crates.

Jeepers, what a mystery! Thank god the crate I sold to the Bob’s was weapons all the way down, or I would have got myself shot.

I spend some time eating while I think about it. It’s something that looks like lentils and tastes kind of like rice.

Then Chinta asks me to explain the Feather Duster. I pass some around, and show the women how to hold it, fold it, and load it. Most of them have used guns before, that’s a good sign. They show the ones who haven’t how to work them.

This is familiar, gets me back on track. There’s time enough to figure the rest out later.

#

Hakho moves back to the ship like everyone should follow her, and everyone starts to follow her. Lunch is over.

Crate, hold, truck, back again. I lose track of time until I realize I can’t see what I’m doing. I climb off a stack and find the flood light control. They light up the hold like a football field, and everyone says how bright it is, and then we all get back to work like nothing has happened.

Now the hold is a quarter empty and all the trucks are full. The women pack up and take off. The food truck stays, and some guys mill around it, making dinner. They don’t unload the women’s food, because Hakho is the only woman left. I think it’s a cultural blind spot.

“Hey,” I ask her, “Do you want to have dinner at my house?”

She shrugs, “Shit, yeah.”

“Hang on, I have to call my mom.” This statement does not translate even a little bit. I laugh it off, and bring her up to the galley with Chinta and Tinoct.

We use up some of my water to wash the grime off our hands, and I get ready to make a human style dinner. What is the most human thing you can eat? Spaghetti? They would all have problems with the forks, I think.* Pizza.*

Of course they’ve had pizza before, but only Chokhan toppings. They’ve never had pepperoni, or mayo jaga. I go easy on them, sausage, pepperoni and mushroom. My favorite is squid ink, anchovy, and peanut butter, but that’s level 10 pizza, and they’re on level 1.

The pizza’s are recombinant, and cooked in a microwave oven, so it’s about the worst pizza you could have, which means it’s pretty good.

And it’s a hit. There’s four of us for an 20 inch, and we have to make a second. Instead of more of the same (which I don’t have) I skip us up to pizza level 5: pesto, capers and prosciutto. They all think it’s great and are just shy of full. I figure, as long as things are going good, we might as well try level 9: straight anchovy. It’s a 14 inch for safety.

It turns out that anchovies are an acquired taste on this planet too. Everyone makes a face.

“How could you make pizza more salty than a pile of salt?” Tinoct asks.

I laugh, “More for me!”

It’s too much for me and I have to stow it in the fridge. Which is great, because cold anchovy is good, and anchovy that’s been reheated (so the grease has cooled, separated, and melted again), is delicious.

Someone lays on a car horn outside, and we go back to work.

It’s been 36 hours. The hold is nearly empty, and the flood lights are back on for the second time. I know Tinoct has slept, and I went down for around six hours early this morning. I don’t think Hakho or Chinta has slept.

We’re ahead of schedule. The last of six convoys is here. The last truck is getting loaded. There are too many people to work on the last stack without getting in the way, so Hakho is supervising the last team.

I have a Mr. Coffee plugged in in the control bay, and I’m pouring myself a cup when Chinta comes over and rubs my shoulders a little bit.

My body sort of takes over and I lean in to her.

“We’re almost done,” she leaves my shoulders and picks up the coffee pot.“We have enough for 50 million women.”

I stand and rub her shoulders back, “How many women are there?”

“Around a billion and a half.”

“So you’re not even making a dent.”

She shakes her head, “Of birthing age there are only 500 million. Most are held in Pahananochkah, or Mocketca. The convoys are going there first.” She sips her coffee, grimaces, and adds some salt. “A ten percent drop in births is lot. Men will start to understand soon.”

One of the forklifts flies past. We have seven crates left.

Then a klaxon starts blaring all over the ship. Chinta looks at me, eyes wide, and before I can answer Tinoct comes barreling down the stairs, “We’re about to have company!”

I turn and patch in to the brain from here. There are four helos coming in from the city, running police signals. Oh you little mother fuckers. Twenty minutes out, I have more than enough time to open up my personal collection.

Pro tip: If you’re going to arrest a gun runner, best make sure she’s nowhere near her stash.

#

We have one truck left to load and three on the ground. The women use the forklifts to get two on their sides, and we have some barricades. While they do that I invite some of the others up to my room to play with my toys.

“Is any of this—”

“No,” I tell Tinoct, “none of this is legal.” I want to tell everyone about what I’m packing, but we’re pressed for time. Ask a nerd like me to tell you about their guns only if you have a day to listen to them. Chinta puts her hand on my favorite and I smack her wrist, “Don’t touch Magdalena.”

Goddamn it. I got the ammo crate in here with my man muscles, and now I can barely shift it. It weighs 200 pounds, and was difficult before. Now it’s impossible. Tinoct comes over without a word and drags it closer with one hand. I’m too adrenalized to be angry.

I’ve got the cans stacked by caliber, we just pop the lids on the top layer and everyone grabs a handful. Hakho smacks a magazine in with the rifle on her elbow. Like a dogface that grew up guns. I develop more respect for her in that moment.

We have five minutes.

We get back to the hold to see that the others have come prepared with their own collections, which is great, because I didn’t bring enough lunch for everyone. They’re hunkered behind the truckercades, wearing a mishmash of armor and gear, ready to resist some arresting. The last two forklifts scramble while I raise one of the bed gates. They’ll stop a one ton crate from sliding out of the hold, they’ll stop an assault round, or whatever the police are packing.

Then we wait.

I fidget with Magdalena.

Let me tell you about Magdalena.

She’s a 700 kW gauss rifle, sporting 50 inch, solid silver, super-cooled, double helix, rails. She can fire a one pound, 1.25 cal, depleted uranium slug, at three kilometers a second, accurate to within an eighth of an inch at one mile. She weighs twelve pounds, four ounces empty. She gets hotter than the gates of hell, and kicks like a kiss on the cheek.

The sun is going down in the East when we hear the rotors. A second later I spot their searchlights in the distance.

When the running lights appear, Magdalena has a target, but the search light hits her in the face and I have to back off the scope. They start gabbing police lingo in a language that isn’t Enoctic, and my interpreter doesn’t understand. I’ve been here before, it’s not hard to figure out what their saying. ‘Lay down your weapons,’ and whatnot. No one falls for it.

Magdalena makes counter argument to the lead cruisers left rotor. It spits blades into the air, and the right rotor doesn’t have any ballast. It flips the ship like a pog, and the helo tears into a warehouse, in a cacophony of screaming metal. It almost blocks out the cheers from the women in front, and Hakho offers me a fist pound.

The other cruisers see Magdalena’s point and scramble to ground. This means Magdalena’s second shot only clips a tail. That cruiser goes into a flat spin and grinds into the dirt, but it’s a little less impressive.

The second to the last cruiser opens up with a heavy cannon from the ground, and blows one of our trucks to slag. The shrapnel turns the women behind it into bloody scraps on the ground. I can’t tell how many, they’re just blood splatters.

But that means I know where their cannons are, and Magdalena relieves the both of them of their capacity for violence.

Under the cover, the cops are running for the barricade, and at sixty yards they open up on our operation.

I lay Magdalena down, gentle like, and switch to Lulabelle.

Let me tell you about Lulabelle.

She’s a 200 kW plasma carbine with a 600 round banana magazine. She fires 50 rounds a second of burning hot fire, and wieghs… something light. I rebuilt her chassis around an antique Kalashnikov, so she looks bad ass.

Lalabelle lays down a hail of suppressing fire over the barricade, while the ladies cut loose, and I see the cops scramble for cover. For a second there’s a wave of heat coming from our side.

The cops catch wise and start returning fire. We’ve got the last truck behind the barricade, but it’s taller than it is wide, and La Policia tear the roof straight off the thing.

That’s pretty useless, but it’s sends the message that they’re serious. There’s some more language over the loud speaker, and then they start firing at the forklift as it gets the second to last crate onto the truck. The driver isn’t so smart, and she’s backing the lift out. She takes a couple of shots to the back of the head, and sprays the windshield with her blood.

Tinoct taps me on the shoulder, and gestures to the lift. I know what he’s thinking. Lulabelle lays down some impressive covering fire, glazing the air, while I lean out from the side of the ramp. 12 seconds and she’s out of juice. Empty the clip. No time for tactical.

Two crates left, “Can’t we leave them?” I ask Hakho.

“Those crates can serve < fucking > twenty < fucking > thousand women goddamn it, we need that shit!”

Decision made, Tinoct runs to the forklift and grabs the wheel, swinging the thing around and hoisting himself inside in one smooth motion, like he’s mounting a horse. He cranks the crate above the level of the—gore coated—windshield, and takes off down the ramp blind.

The authorities are taking cover behind some concrete dividers laying around. I pick up Magdalena and kneecap a motherfucker who thinks that a couple of inches of cement can stop my baby. He goes down to the side and peaks his head out. I nail it to the concrete.

Then my position starts getting sprayed, like a viscous weed, with suppressing fire, and I have to get low. I’m gonna stay out of the way for a little bit, I guess.

Second to last crate loaded. Tinoct kicks out the windshield of the forklift, stands on the tines, and brings it up backwards, using the chassis for cover. The cops decide they’ve taught me a lesson, and focus their fire on the forklift. It looses a mag but keeps on running, while Tinoct gets the tines under the last crate. He gets off to swing it around, under cover the whole time. Damn does he know what he’s doing. Damn is that sexy. This is not the time for that 11.

There were twenty women when we started, there are nine now. The cops aren’t doing so hot either, I count 11 bodies on the asphalt. This being what it is, most of them will probably survive.

Then Tinoct has the last crate loaded. He and the girls jump behind the freight on the truck, and lay down more fire, while the truck tears out of here.

I watch Tinoct take a round to the shoulder and spin off the bed. He bleeds out in seconds on the concrete. There goes the only man I’ve ever fisted. No time to feel.

The truck is barreling through the industrial park, the same way Bertha is pointed. One of the helos starts making noises like it’s getting off the ground, and the police discourage Magdalena’s position from trying to stop it, with burning hot plasma. Doesn’t matter. Magdalena is all tuckered out.

But, scrambling, that cruiser has two minutes to catch some air.

I toss Maggy over my shoulder and haul ass for the flight deck. No time for checks. I yell for everyone in the bay to hang on, as I climb up to a hundred feet. With the cruiser still behind me, I open up the engines. I watch on the monitor as Bertha’s exhaust hits the cruiser and melts it into the ground.

We’re off and away, I’m closing the hold, and finally starting to feel the effects of shock.

#

Chinta comes to see me on the flight deck, while I’m putting some distance between myself and the last events. I’m trying to get some emotional perspective, and nothing is working. My hands are shaking on the sticks so bad I have to point Bertha in a direction and snap the auto pilot on.

I stand and can’t fight it any more, and I run into her arms for a hug. This is a consequence of womanhood I did not expect and am not enjoying.

She holds me tight. We both cry a little.

Hakho is here now, telling me where to put down. I swing the course around from the computer, rather than trust my hands. By the time we put down in a wide empty field, they feel like they’re trembling, but I can’t see them shake.

They have a car waiting. I want a long goodbye, but I don’t have the time. Chinta and Hakho pile out and I wish them all the luck I’m able to.

I set most of the field on fire taking off, and then punch Bertha straight through the atmosphere without waiting for a window. She shakes like a stripper on a meth detox, but there’s too much planet for them to cover all at once. The nearest patrol is 150 miles below me when I punch through hyperspace.

I’m clear.

Two weeks, and then I’ll get into a shipping lane and pretend I’m legitimate.

I go back to the hold and clean some things up, while the ship starts sneaking out of the system. The bed is covered in scorch marks I’ll have a lot of trouble explaining to people. I put the straps away, I close down the locks, and I cry.

“Do you feel guilty?” Dr. Jordan is having a fruit smoothy for her breakfast. I’m dinning on ashes and cold pizza.

“No.” Of all the feeling I feel, guilt is not one.

“Why not?”

I know she’s trying to be helpful so I do my best to explain, “If it was another gun runner Tinoct would have been in the same place, doing the same things.” Getting the same shot. “I don’t supply people who have the odds with them, or I wouldn’t have a job. He was a revolutionary. Not the first to die, not the last, not even the middle.”

“Could you have saved him?”

“No,” of that I’m certain. He was standing thirty feet away on the truck. He was trying to get to cover.”

“I see,” I think she’s on vacation. She’s sitting outside, and wearing a bikini. “Do you want to talk more about it?”

I shrug, “No? What is there to talk about?”

“You’re a woman, 11.” She’s dropped the ‘fors.’ For now. For the moment. “There’s always something to talk about.”

I’ve heard of this. I’ll try. “It’s not the first drop that’s got hot. He’s not the first I’ve seen die.”

“But…?”

“But it hurts this time.”

She leans back in her beach towel, “You know what I think? I think you’re letting yourself feel.”

“I’m not comfortable with that.” Because you’re right.

“Because I’m right?”

I sigh, “Because of what it means if you’re right. That means I’ve never felt before. I don’t like what that says about me.”

“Would the implication have bothered you before?”

“No,” Easy answer. And that’s worse.

“Tell me about him.”

“Nice guy. Smart, good body, good English. First time I’ve fisted someone, always wanted to try that one. I think he made me like him. I kind of hate him for that.”

She lets that slide without making me dig deeper, “What happened to him?”

“I talked to Chinta, they tried to claim the body, but he doesn’t have any family on the continent. Right now his remains are evidence in a morgue locker somewhere. They’ll probably never release him.”

“I imagine you have a lot to process.”

I still want to cry, but nothing is coming out, “Whatever I did, I think it was the right thing to do.”

#

A month goes by. Big Bertha spirals around the Iron Triangle and approaches from above the galactic plane, avoiding buoys and patrols.

I clean Lullabelle, and the other weapons. I take Magdalena apart and replace her rails. The felt the abrasion of a slug moving at twice the speed of sound, not great on unalloyed silver. I check them for tarnish. Silver is a better conductor than gold, as long as it’s untarnished. Then I vacuum pack her to keep the oxidation off the rails, and put her away.

I go dark for a week again crossing the Anduin/Amari border, and then slip into the Triangle at one of the branches, like a thief in the night, who is a gun runner. in space. There are six or seven ships within a light year, and if they notice me pop up on their systems, they’ll assume I came in on one branch or another. Easy.

There’s some chatter over hyper band; nothing that interests me. I get on anyway, learn some ship names, tell stories about the things I just (haven’t) did, build myself a record.

I turn on the news in the rec hall, every once in awhile. There isn’t much on Chinochkan in English. The TV translator works poorly on their local news, but I can gather that nothing much has changed down there.

I finish Pride and Predjudice, again, pick up one of the twenty translated Chokhan works of literature. I think the nuance is lost on me. Most of the book is about the endearing love of two males. When their woman is mentioned at all, it’s because she’s getting pregnant, pregnant, or getting un-pregnant.

I don’t masturbate for a long time, and worry that something inside me is broken. One night a thought leads me to Comakh, and the way he filled my asshole, and how good it hurt. A damn breaks, I pull out my toys, and get back on a semi-regular schedule.

I very gradually come back to myself. I’m feeling feelings that I don’t like, but I’ve managed to make them my feelings, instead of the feelings happening to a stranger. I’m me again. In fact, I think I’m more me than I ever have been before.

#

Big Bertha is hungry. Fuel slug is at 10%, that’s by design. Fancy calculations got me to the Triangle just when I’d have to gas up. I need some nice un-forged records on my way back to Earth SOI. Someone might check back to my last stop, but they won’t go further without some real motivation.

Route 66 is legit as fuck. Named after a group of ‘ye olde’ gas stations on Earth. The company went under Eons ago, and some company took the rights for a space station on a central hub of one of the largest shipping lane in the galaxy. One solid piece, mostly. Big enough to accommodate real freighters, several hundred people in and out a day. High class synth-brothels, legitimate stores, tedious bars, and franchised McDonald’s. All licensed and regulated and taxed, like good intergalactic corporations.

And boring.

I hate it.

Part of the station is a place for tired truckers, wanting a water shower, and some decent food. Those parts cater to the lowest common denominator of trucking, and offer discount videos, cheap porn, cheaper alcohol, and cheapest women. No truck stop waitress will have sex with you for money. But some whores serve as their day job.

Up one level they cater to middle class vacationers, traveling business types, and families on road trips. Chain bars, restaurants, and strip clubs, with strippers who just strip. With integrity. Or as much integrity as you can get as a stripper. There are department stores, and toys to shut your kids up with, and souvenir shops with clever slogans on t-shirts.

And at the top there’s catering for people at the top. The life I could have lived if I didn’t loathe it so much. Corporate douche-nozzles. Business pricks. And trust fund party junkies. People who have earned their money the hard way, by being born to rich families. They do stupid stuff and other people born to rich families give them more money for doing in. Every goddamn one of them thinks they work hard, and deserve to treat the rest of us like dog-shit.

You might have noticed that I look down on them, hardcore.

I miss Ci and Lia, who just seemed to get it. The people who come here don’t get anything. Just paper people, with the depth of a bird bath. Blow on their lives and they flutter away.

And locked enroute a light year away, I stand in front of the mirror and wonder what I can wear to make all those pussies quake in their shoes.

Well um...yeah, it's been a bit, hasn't it.

The update goes like this: Instead of updating the second draft, I finished it. Now we're in the middle of the 4th draft instead.

Much of what is in the second draft is badly outdated. The first chapter for instance goes from 2,000 words to 17k in the 4th draft. There's a lot more flesh, a lot more depth, and the writing gets better.

Which isn't to say we can't keep updating the 2nd draft if you're all very thirsty. Or we can wait until the 4th draft is done, delete this here and put it up.

I think either way the 4th draft will go up, but let me know if you need more now. 'Cause more now can be done.

Taking a break from the comic book to work on the book cover. It's the scene on Logan's Fun where 11 is getting off the elevator and seeing the inside of the station for the fist time. From the worm eye you can see her in her dress, as she looks at the atrium in the station for the first time.

I'm going for a juxtaposition between the mundane (girl in sun dress) and the fantastic (space station). Should look pretty fucking cool.

At the moment I'm still at the beginning of the modeling phase. The station and the levels are done are nearly finished but not UVd. I've done two of the store fronts, and begun the atrium. That's created a bunch of fucking problems.

A word on the store fronts before we talk about what those are. There will be three or four generic designs, built so that I can place them around the station with relative ease. The majority you will never see inside, so they'll be set up so that I can put a few props inside them, and then place an image plane in the back and fake the rest. That presents it's own nest of problems, like what the damn image should be, and how to put it together. I'm not thinking about that right now. Some stores will have to be modeled in their entirety. Bob's Gun's, the Shower and D'Neesha's. Oh right, I need the ice cream shop too. Put that on some list somewhere. But none of that needs to be done for the book cover, and comic book II is still years away, and the book is only a year out. Needs a cover before publishing.

(I have this fantasy that several different people will ask me where I got my excellent book cover at the end of this, and I'll be like "Fucking made it man." Then they'll be all, "No. Way. Can you do my cover?" And I'm like, "Nope.")

Now on to the atrium, which is turning into a complete bitch. Some other artist might just make something aesthetically pleasing and call it a day, and that's why I'm not like most artists. So I sat down and designed an atrium that would work on a space station and look great.

You'll like this, it's good.

It's helical, so you only need to pour water in from the top, and it all trickles down. Then each part of the atrium has terraces, for bushes and shit, while vined plants fall down from the bottom of the level above. Trees at the top, plants inter-spaced where horticulture allows. that I'm going to do aesthetically, because I don't know any botanists to talk to and I've had enough good ideas I can drop a little research. But then I had to think about the plants that intergalactic libertarians would want to buy. Raspberries, strawberries, grapes, tomatoes, shit like that.

The trees gave me some problems, because they fuck up the aesthetic I want with their tree shapes. And then I was all, "Hey. It's the future, everything is GMO, what if the trees have vines?" And that made a bunch of art problems. So for the past week I've been asking friends, "Hey, if you saw an apple tree with vines, like a weeping willow, but with fruit on the weep parts; and it was in a science fiction comic book; would you be like, "Hey this guy thought of the future of trees!" Or would be say, "Wait... Has this idiot never seen a fucking apple tree before?" (I speak in run-on sentences, don't you?)

And all of my friends look at me and go, "What the fuck are you talking about this time? Is this hypothetical? A riddle? Where the hell did you come up with such a specific rhetorical? Can you give me and fucking context here?" And then we have to talk for half an hour, and they get bored, and I really need to find new friends.

I got the helix done, and that took a day. I found a simple solution, that took four hours to get right, and then another four to implement. And then work came to a shuddering halt when I realized that I was going to have to fill it with plants, and there's no way I'm making 200 20,000 poly bushes and trees.

So I sat down in another file to test some ideas on making cost effective bushes. I'm not, like, modeling every leaf of a raspberry plant, because who has two weeks to spend on each bush. A medium quality tree on turbosquid is $40 bucks. Even if I could afford 10 different ones (and I can't) hang on I didn't think of a way to finish this sentence. There, the period seems to have done it.

I'm making a raspberry bush as a proof of concept, and even that's being a complete bastard. See I'm rendering the cover in arnold. It's faster, and arnold has some beautiful muted tones. Done right you can get a really good romanticism effect going on. But I don't know arnold, because the damn engine is only compatible with Maya two years ago. So I'm learning a new render engine as I go. This means that something as simple as setting up an alpha'd plane took a 30 minute google search. Turns out every plane in arnold has an "opaqe" check box, and if it's ticked on, no material will make it transparent. Like, at all. Good thing I figured that out before I threw a monitor out the window trying to make glass.

Oh, I should include a picture. The picture is the camera frame on left side, roughly blocking how the final cover will look. The right side is a perspective view of the whole model, so you can see 1.) Just how fucking big it is, 2.) what everything looks like.

This all started as a lark.

I'd abandoned another project after my partner dropped out and stopped messaging me for two months. Not arting is something I don't do, so I started writing 11th Sun (then called Eleven) on a whim, expecting it to clock in at 20,000 words or so.

The rough draft was 100,000 words, and I finished it two months later.

But this idea is around 7 years old now (that's why Eleven shares a name with the character from Stranger Things. Had I known I might have changed it, I might not.), and I had long plans.

See at first I had got in to 3d comics, and started collecting. But the quality is...

Look, I'm a "classically" trained 3d artist. I went to college for it, for fuck's sake. I learned thousand dollar software, and spent a fortune to take classes on comic book layout, composition, plot, flow, shit like that. So when I say that most 3d comics are not of professional quality, that's coming from a serious professional. I'm not trying to put them down, for the most part they're self taught, and doing good for where they are. But...

So I sat down to design my own comic and quickly came up against the limitations of the most popular software. Again, this is coming from a professional when I say that Daz 3d is a fucking joke of a program. Carrera can't even hold a candle up to something rudimentary like Modo or even Blender. To say that the interface is limited is a profound understatement.

But to call 3d a time consuming process would be a vast understatement, and if you want to produce something fast, Daz will get you there.

All this is to say that for the last six months I've been working toward making my own comic. I'm modeling from scratch, texturing from scratch, lighting from scratch, and rigging from scratch. The plan for the comic is for it to be 30 pages and I'm quite proud to say that I have finished the first two pages over the past couple of weeks. I think I can get a finished product in two years or so.

This is all the lead in to show the first render from the transformation sequence, and the first finished product. You can see more as it develops at my art station: https://www.artstation.com/nomzod

Death

I changed my books from locker to backpack. Put the textbooks I didn’t need into the little metal space, put the books I wanted into my pack. Grabbed the earbuds that would be confiscated if seen in class. School policy.

I picked up the novel I’d laid on the bottom of the locker, and stuffed furtively into the smallest pocket of my backpack. I can’t remember what it was. Dune I think, but around that time I was on a vampire kick. No, that must have been it, because I can remember stuffing it in my backpack before anyone could see it. It was what they call a “bodice ripper,” the majority of vampire novels being romances. The cover featured a woman, corset pulled aside almost to the nipple, while some male figure, given much less prominence than the naked breast; began to sink his teeth into her neck.

That might have been ambiguous enough, to a classmate who wasn’t acquainted with the conventions of romance cover art. I could blow it off as a horror novel. The title however was in pink, and curly cursive. No ambiguity there.

Backpack zipped, and secret safe, I closed the locker and walked for the bus. Through the press of students, down the stairs outside the front door, earbuds in, ignoring the crowd. I tried to get lost in my own world. A little island of calm in a sea of voices. People shouting at each other, calling names, waving, pointing. It was Friday, and this was high school, the topic of discussion among the masses was how drunk they were going to get over the weekend.

The prevailing opinion seemed to be, ‘so fucking drunk, bro, you don’t even know.’

The allure was lost on me. As a theoretical it seemed interesting to go to a party where alcohol was feature. As a practical, I didn’t get invited to parties.

I walked slow. In a few weeks I’d learned to time it so that I could be at the door as soon as my bus showed up. That way I didn’t have to wait, and try not to look like I was waiting alone.

Up the steps of the bus, into a seat near the middle. The cool kids sat at the back, but the back was where the bus bounced most, and got in the way of my reading. And I wasn’t cool enough to sit back there. The back of the bus wasn’t the kind of place where you could show up and fit in. You had to deserve to be there.

The front of the bus was where the kids who were too cool to be cool sat. Good students, with blond hair and expensive shirts. The ones who had a future, and cared about it.

I was a middle of the bus kid. A guy who didn’t have a crowd, and convinced himself he didn’t want one. Willing to let the world pass by while he read a book. Other kids had learned that sitting with me wouldn’t bring conversation, and I was left alone.

Once a pretty girl sat in the seat next to me. She talked to me, but didn’t talk about what I was reading (Lloyd Alexander), or what I was listening to (Beats Antique), and instead asked me about what I did after class. It was hard to have a conversation about it, because I didn’t do anything after class. I tried to tell her that I played a badass medic when I felt like it, and I mained Blitzcrank, when I wasn’t turned off by the community. She asked if I had a girlfriend, and terrified of the implication that I might be a loser, I responded that I did.

I didn’t.

After a bus ride of failed communication I got off at my stop, said goodbye, and was ignored.

She never sat next to me again. Sometimes I wished she would so I could try to figure out what I had done wrong. Most of the time I dreaded that someone else might try to sit next to me and keep engaging me in conversations I couldn’t relate to, until I died of boredom on the bus.

The bus driver waited three minutes for stragglers, before closing the door. She did it in a way that made it clear she wasn’t opening it for Jesus himself, should he have missed the last ride to Jerusalem. Jesus was going to have to ride an ass, just like he had last time.

Then she slammed the bus in gear, and took off. I switched play lists to something ambient, I was really in to Digital Daggers at the time, and they had kind of a tragic, angry, Lost-Boys-sort-of-vampire vibe. It didn’t fit with the romance, but it was good enough. I opened the book and found my page and got back into it.

I was deep into the part where the protagonist has discovered her love interest is a vampire. It’s my favorite part of a vampire novel. The author decides what legends about vampires to keep and what to throw out. “Sure they’re the living undead,” she (or he) says to herself, “but being killed by garlic would be inconvenient to the part of the story where they order in Italian. I better leave that one out. The spaghetti really ties the scene together.”

When you think about it for a second, every part of the existence of vampires is equally unbelievable. Immunity to mirrors just requires more creativity from the author, and usually gets tossed out the window. “Oh,” says the vampire in the novel, “You believe that trash about socks? That’s silly! Take it from me, a creature that catches fire when exposed to sunlight!”

It’s hilarious every time.

That’s why I missed my stop by three, and when I got through the scene in the book and looked up, realized my mistake.

I got off the bus, lying to myself all the way down the stairs, that this was good, and I wasn’t disappointed in my day. I was going home, it would only take another 15 minutes. I had a little homework to do, and then I could read or lounge around for most of the weekend.

It was late September, and the school year hadn’t taken hold. Most of the freshmen were still finding friends. I had transferred in when my dad got a job there, so I didn’t have anyone who would be ignoring me this weekend. But I’d been around this neighborhood before, and I knew my way home. It wouldn’t be long. I’d cut through the alley connecting Florida and 13th and shave off some time.

I walked as fast as I could, feeling the heavy backpack on my shoulders, and wondering what I would have for dinner and stopping dead in my tracks as I turned the corner inside the alley.

It was sort of an industrial sector out here. Car mechanics, and people that did things with glass, and boxes, and laser cutters. The alley made a sharp right angle, and then came to a dead end, so only the cars that needed to get into the shops around it used it. But there was a narrow drainage path at the far end a pedestrian could fit through.

There was a group of people clustered in the alleyway, gathered around something that looked like a metal trash can with rods stuck through it. Because of the angle I came up within five feet of them, and tried to figure out the most polite way to get around whatever they were doing there.

I’m good at noticing things, and while I was stopped there I began to notice some things that were… alarmingly impossible.

They looked like they worked construction, but each one of them was wearing a suit coat and nice trousers, with snow boots. They all had winter hats on.

That wasn’t impossible.

What was impossible is that their arms and legs would occasionally ‘clip’ out of their clothing. One of them would bend his (its) elbow, and I would see the joint, and their skin, poke through a previously solid object. Then it would disappear inside it again.

Having noticed that, I moved on to noticing that their arms and legs were weirdly out of proportion. Upper arms too long, forearms too short. Knees in places they shouldn’t have knees. Just how many knees does a person have anyway? Not that many, I’m sure.

Then one turned away from me, and I saw that he didn’t have a head, just a face. Under the hat was empty space, while a face, like a mask, floated in front of the hat.

No it wasn’t a mask, like their head was invisible. This one was wearing an ushanka, and with his back to me, I could see the inside of his face. His eyes were attached to something back inside the hat, and his tongue went down the back of his throat. I could see the inside of his mouth, and if I had thought about it at all, I would have thought, ‘so that’s what teeth look like from the back.’

I didn’t think that. This is what I thought, oh crap. Oh shit. Oh fuck. These are impossible aliens like those Alex Jones freaks are always talking about. Oh Jesus, oh Zues, oh Ishtar, oh Abrahamic god. One of you might be real, and I promise to sacrifice a goat, or whatever, to your glory, because I need to be saved from this unholy shit.

Which is a lot to think in just a few seconds.

I don’t know if I was breathing too heavy, or what, but at some sound, they all stopped, like startled deer. Then, as a single unit, ever one stood straight and turned to face me.

Very carefully, like nothing at all was happening, I walked as far around the group as I could, keeping my eyes on them all the time. I’m sure I looked like a harmless scared kid. Who am I going to tell about the freaktures in the alley way. This kind of crap would get laughed off of reddit!

With my face toward them, I made a large path around, and then backed toward the culvert, and the freedom of the real world. Without moving their legs, their bodies moved to follow me.

Then one of them made a mistake. It was standing on top of the metal thing, and turning with the others, and suddenly cried out and fell.

Sideways.

It fell down sideways.

Like gravity didn’t work on the thing, it was flailing its arms and pinwheeling as it fell, parallel to the ground, and right at me.

I held my arms up bracing for some kind of impact, when it just disappeared, a few feet away from where it would have bowled me over.

My only memory then, is one that still wakes me up in the middle of the night. Blinding pain.

#

I first felt a drop in my pelvis. Like a weight had traveled down the trunk of my body, and landed on my solar plexus. The shock wave traveled down my legs, and I and felt my knees shift, twist and give way. Dropping onto them, onto the pavement, hurt. I barely noticed it with the fire in my back.

There was a tugging on my shoulders, and in the small of my back. It felt like I was carrying a bag of water on each shoulder. I could feel my shirt as my chest inflamed and swelled up. I’ve been stung by something. A scorpion probably. I’m going to die. Death would have been a comfort at that point.

The fire spread to my face. It felt like someone was punching the bones from the inside of my skull. I felt my cheeks and my nose contort, while my eye sockets lit on fire.

My shoulders contorted, I might have been screaming. I don’t know now and didn’t know then, what a dislocated joint felt like. Whatever that was, this was the opposite. Like my elbows, shoulders, wrists and ankles were being slammed deeper together. Crammed into my body.

They say that bone pain is second only to burns on the pain scale. They say a lot of things are the most painful thing. Whatever they say to you is wrong, because whatever this was, it wasn’t comparable to a human feeling. It was agony personified.

Then it all stopped. Or I passed out. I don’t remember anything else after that, in any case.

Waking Up

I woke up, opened my eyes, and closed them again because it hurt to keep them open. Not that tired-eyes-hurt, but just like they couldn’t focus. I took stock of my surroundings eyes shut.

The first thing I noticed was that my mouth tasted like shit. So bad it had pulled me awake.

The second thing I noticed was that I had been sleeping on my back. I couldn’t remember another time I had been conscious of the way I was laying when I work up. This is because I’d been strapped down. That thought came with some panic. I put it aside to focus on the third thought.

The third thought was that I was uncomfortable. When I shifted there were things on my legs and a tube running somewhere around my thighs.

Easy conclusion: I’m in a hospital. I’ve never been in a hospital as a patient before.

From there it went: Whatever happened to me was bad enough I ended up in a hospital.

Finally: They have fixed whatever happened to me. That’s what hospitals do.

“I got water right here, sweet pea.” That must have been a nurse on my left. Eyes still closed I gave something like a croak, and then just nodded my head. The back of my bed raised up, until I was sitting. I pried my eyes open long enough to see a straw in front of me. Like an invalid I opened my mouth, got a straw stuck in it, and sucked. Water had never tasted so good in my life.

“Are you uncomfortable anywhere? Hot? Cold?”

Oh, yeah. I was freezing. “Very cold.” My voice squeaked when I said it. Fucking puberty. I had alternated between a bari and a bass since 11, my voice hadn’t squeaked in a year. I tried to let the embarrassment pass over me.

“I’ll get you a blanket, sweet pea.” With water inside me I had enough energy to open my eyes, and watched while she moved over to something that looked like a mini-fridge. She pulled out a stack of thin blankets and spread them over me. I was enveloped in thin cotton that would have been terrible, but they were warm like they had been in an oven. So there’s such a thing as blanket ovens. Maybe this world isn’t so bad.

My but had scooted down in the bed, and I put my hands down to lift myself back up, and my world collapsed around me again. I still felt the swelling on my chest, felt the blanket pull down over the inflamed skin. I must* have been stung by something. Or I’m allergic to the ground. Yeah, I passed out, got too much ground on me and swelled up. Then: You’re being an idiot Ash. This is some kind of medical conundrum. They’ll have to call in experts on swelling, and bones that feel like they’re breaking. It’ll be just like one of the TV shows, where everyone is mean to each other because they’re geniuses.*

While I came to terms with my infirmity, the nurse came over to a computer on a stand, and started checking monitors, while typing furiously.

I wiggled my legs around and felt the catheter between them. And then I felt something terrible. Or a lack of something, and the lack was terrible. Oh god. I can’t feel my balls.

I don’t remember not having testicles, so I guess they dropped early. I do remember asking my grandpa about them, and I must have been four. So for all of my life that I can remember I’ve had testicles. And for all of my life that I can remember, I’ve known exactly where they were at all times. You have to think about what your toes, or your ears feel like, sure. But just like my index fingers, or the inside of my mouth, I didn’t have to concentrate to know where my balls were at any given moment. And where ever they were now was not attached to my body.

Okay Ash. Stay calm. Sure you’ve been castrated somehow, but there’s hormones, and you never wanted kids. I’d never had sex, now maybe I never would. Could you still ejaculate if you’d lost your testicles? That’s not something I could remember them covering in sex ed.

“You okay, darling?” The nurse asked.

Too shy to ask such a deeply personal question from a lady nurse, I tried to cover for whatever expression I had on my face. “Just…” Freaking out. “Wondering what happened to me.” My voice wouldn’t stop squeaking, but it had fallen to the bottom of my priorities for the moment.

“You’re gonna have a long talk with the doctor about that, he’s gonna explain it all to you. You came in in a coma, and you’ve been out for,” She checked her watch, “Six days and five hours.” She winked at me, “You’re lucky you woke up now, they were gonna put a feeding tube in you this afternoon. They are very uncomfortable to remove.”

She went over and started freeing my straps. I stretched my arms and legs as they came loose, feeling the collection of tubes and wires on my hands and around my legs.

“You were picking at your IV lines while you were out. It’s common. We couldn’t have you pulling them out and getting all your blood everywhere.” She finished tucking them away. “That better?”

“Yeah.”

“I called Joann, she’s going to come in before the doctor, and get some information from you. Then your doctor will be in. You want me to turn on the TV?”

I nodded. Anything to block out the knowledge that I was no longer a man.

The nurse was on her way out the door when a woman in a long skirt, or maybe a dress, came in. She was broad, rather than fat, and was wearing a knit shall. “Hello dear, name is Joann,” She told me. Then to the nurse, “I’ll page doctor Stanton when I’m ready for him to come in.”

The nurse, I still didn’t know her name, gave a nod. “The doctor has to tell us when you can get some food in you. Meantime, here’s some water. I’ll be back with him, so I’ll see you soon.” She walked out through a pair of glass doors.

Joann took her time getting a chair just right, so that she could look at me, as I lay on the bed. “Alright honey. My name is Joann. I’m your child advocate until we can contact your parents. So lets start there. I need your name.”

“You don’t know my name?”

She looked at me from under her brows, “You weren’t in any position to answer questions when you got in here, hun.”

“Ashley. Ashley McKinnon. Ash.”

“Ashley. That’s a pretty name, dear. Is that em cee, or em ey cee?”

I was starting to feel patronized. What is with all these ‘dears’ and ‘honeys’. I’m not a child. “Em cee.Just call me Ash.”

“Okay, Ash,” she made marks in her notebook. “Let’s get your date of birth next, unless you know your social security number?”

“[REDACTED],” I said.

“That’s very good, it’ll give me a nice start. How did you memorize that?”

“It was my student ID number for awhile.” The blankets were making me tired, and I realized that I didn’t even need to get comfortable if I wanted to fall asleep at that second.

“Alright, Ash. I’m a child advocate, do you know what that means?”

I shook my head, and then took a stab, “You work for the government?”

She laughed, “Good guess. I work for child protection services, or at least they pay me. Actually I work for you. We haven’t been able to reach your parents, so I’m here to help make the decisions your parents would have made.”

She didn’t add the rest. I was found alone in a coma. She wanted to know why my dad hadn’t been there. She was following up to make sure I hadn’t been abused. That knowledge made me want to cry. She couldn’t help what was going on in my house.

She followed that up in a way that confirmed my line of thinking, “Ash, I’m bound by the rules of confidentiality, do you know what that means?”

I shook my head. Nothing I had heard of.

“It mean that I don’t have to report anything to the government that you don’t want me to. If you ask me, I’ll keep any secret.” I nodded, more than a little relieved and almost ready to trust, “Except—except Ash, where your well-being is at stake. If someone is hurting you, or you’re hungry, or there’s anything sexual going on, it’s in both of our best interests if you tell me.”

I sighed, the conversation was exhausting, but Joann seemed so nice. She asked my father’s name then, his phone number, our address, where he worked.

I gave here all that, finishing with, “He works in Sandia Labs. I have no idea what he does.”

Joann put her pen down then, and looked at me, “How are you feeling, Ash?”

I started to say, “Fine,” and instead I found gallons of tears streaming out of me. My voice wouldn’t stop squeaking, high like a girl’s, even while I was crying. Joann put her things aside and then sat carefully on the bed with me, squeezing my swollen chest, and holding me.

After a few minutes I was all cried out, and really embarrassed about the mess of snot I left on her shawl. She brushed my apologies off, “It’s machine washable. Everything I knit is. Now if you’re feeling like a brave girl, we can meet with the doctor, and get a better idea of what’s happening.”

A brave what now? My hand went to my hair as I said, “I’m a boy.” My face was flaming, equal parts embarrassment and betrayal. That was a cruel mistake for someone who was supposed to care for me.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize.” She picked up her folder, “I’m so sorry hun, let me just make a note that you’re trans, so no one else makes that mistake.”

“I’m not trans. I’ve always been a boy. I was born a boy.” I’d never seen someone’s face freeze before. Like, really freeze. But all of the muscles on Joann’s face stopped moving as she stared at me. I saw something like real fear there, amids the confusion. Seeing that I found out I had more to cry as I sobbed out, “What’s happened to my testicles?”

Joann stayed silent, and pursed her lips. She came in for another hug, but didn’t say anything. Her silence broke me out of the crying fit this time, and I shrugged out of her embrace. Instead she picked up my hand and said, “Nothing happened to them, dear. They were never there.” Then she reached into her bag and pulled out a makeup thing and opened it. She showed me the mirror inside and let me turn it toward my face.

After that all I remember is screaming.

As a case in point, let me mention the observations reported some 30 years ago by the visual anthropologist Edmund Carpenter. Carpenter recorded the reactions of adult Biami, and isolated tribe living in the plateau of Papua New Guinea, when introduced for the first time to their own mirror reflection, video image, and other Polaroid photographs of themselves. Carpenter reported a powerful expression of fear and anxiety in these adult individuals: “They were paralyzed after their first startled response - covering their mouths and ducking their heads - they stood transfixed staring at their images…(Carpenter 1975:452)

It is my contention that the fear expressed by the Biami adults, confronted for presumably the first time with their specular image, rests on the fact that the individual oneness to grip with the profound discrepancy between what he or she feels and perceives about the self from within his/her own body, and what other actually perceive of him or her… (Philippe Rochat, The Structure and Development of Self-consciousness, 2004.)

That would have been pertinent context, if I had ever read it.

An hour later the Klonopin had been working for 45 minutes, and the blind panic had mostly subsided. I read on the Internet awhile before that the little girl in The Exorcist had been purposely prevented from seeing her reflection in the mirror while in makeup. They had put child actors in monster masks before and the freak out was intense, when their cosmetic was real enough to fool a child.

Well I wasn’t a child, I was 14, but seeing a face that wasn’t my face in the mirror had hurt. I didn’t even remember what it looked like. Joann had snapped the makeup box closed, I guess. When I was cognizant of what was going on in the room, I realized there was a nurse there. She was sitting in the chair across from me and reading a magazine.

Making sure I don’t hurt myself.

“The first thing is to breathe.” My mother told me. I was six and she was teaching meditation, as a way to calm down. “Now become aware of your surroundings.”

There were a lot of ways to do this. I liked to count lights. Mom taught me to count the number of yellow things in the room, but this was just as effective. I started doing it every since I saw “Chain of Command II”. I would imagine Patrick Stewart screaming at David Warner, “There are four lights!” Good way to remember what I was doing.

I counted the bulbs, I counted the lights on the panels. I counted all the on light LEDs, from the TV to my heart monitor. There are 27 lights in this room.

“Now become aware of your body.” Was I hot or cold? Warm mostly. My arms were cold. I put them under the blanket for the time being. Where were my toes? At the end of the bed. What were my hands doing? Laying on my stomach. Was my head heavy? My mouth open? My brow furled? Yes, no, no.

There was a stretching on my shoulders, just underneath my clavicle. My chest was swollen, and sensitive. Okay, Ash. Let’s cope with that.

The apron they’d put me in was tight at the neck, because it was tied in the back. I couldn’t look down my neck line. I would have to go in manually.

Conscious of the nurse in the room, under the blanket, I reached my hand up to touch my chest. Gingerly, I expected it to hurt. Instead it felt like… like touching a part of my body.

Only… an intimate part of my body. I felt the heat on my face as I blushed.

I poked myself. Squishy. Then cupped a swollen pec. I’ve never felt a breast before. But if I had to guess, I wold say they feel like this. When I lifted up, I felt the stretching on my shoulders release.

Okay. I have breasts. Shit. What are they going to say at school? I could feel the dread rise up at the thought, and get pounded down by the Klonopin. Now was not the time to think about that.

What was it time to do? Close my eyes and continue to meditate.

I lost track of time, keeping my thoughts centered on my breathing. When I was aware that they had wandered I pulled them back.

Breathe in. Slowly. Slowly. Breathe.

When Joann came into the room, I realized that my hand was still on my breast, and I pulled it away, and prayed she hadn’t noticed. I was a teenager. I was good at furtive, but needed practice with non chalance.

Following Joann was another woman. Tall, blond hair, professional dress. Older, fifties I would guess. I noticed that I could see her cleavage, and my puberty brain put everything that had happened to me aside to focus on that. I told my puberty brain to cut it the fuck out, and tried to focus.

“Hi, Ashley. Joann says you like to be called Ash?” I nodded. “I’m Doctor Gunn, but you can call me Katie. I’m a child psychologist attached to the hospital, and Joann got me right away when you had an anxiety attack. I’d like to ask you some questions if that’s okay?”

When adults ask you “if that’s okay?” they usually mean that you don’t have a choice, but in this case I felt like she really meant it. It didn’t matter, because hanging out here and trying to deal on my own was more scary than anything she could ask me. “Sure,” I said.

“Great,” Then she proceeded to ask me a bunch of questions, all of which I answered with “no.”

Had I ever had an anxiety attack before? Had I ever had any memory problems? Was there a history of mental illness in my family? Had I ever suffered any head trauma? A bunch more question that aren’t important.

She made check marks in the folder for every answer, and her questions sounded more urgent as she went on. Finally I told her that my family had no history of dementia (that I knew of), and she blew out a deep breathe and slowly closed the folder. She put her hands together and looked at Joann for a bit. “How are you feeling, Ash? Are you getting nervous again?”

I was. I could feel myself coming down from the high, and everything was going crazy in my head again. Doctor Gunn looked to Joann and whispered, “I hate doing this, but…” Then she got up and went to the intercom on the wall, and pressed the button, “I’m authorizing another Klonopin.” She turned then, “I have to talk to Joann for a second, hang on while the nurse gets your med, it’ll only take a moment.

Then there was a nurse there, helping me swallow a tiny pill, while Joann and Katie had a conversation in urgent whispers outside the door. The nurse left, the two came back in. Joann looked determined, or maybe resolute. Katie looked… worried? Shocked? Flabergasted. Yeah, that one’s good.

They sat down in front of my bed and Katie started up again, “Ash, sometimes in my job, I have to give bad news to parents. I’m not used to giving bad news to children. Even if I were, in your case I don’t know what I should say.” She paused to struggle, gave herself some deep breathes, and almost looked about to cry when she started up again, “When Joann brought your case to me, I assumed you had suffered a severe case of gender dysphoria, something to do with the coma. Things like this happen when your brain shuts down from damage.” She laughed a little hysterically, “There was a man who woke up from a five month coma fluent in French. A language he’d never heard before. That I could handle. Your case—”

“Your case is different,” Joann interrupted her.

“Very different. Ash, do you remember… having been a girl before?”

It seemed both a very weird question to ask, and at the same time one that should have been asked a long time ago. “No. I’m a boy,” my voice betrayed me. Not squeaking, I realized that now. Just like it had never dropped at all.

“Okay, I wanted to be sure this had something to do with your accident. Ash you were found laying in an alleyway, a mile from your home. Do you remember how you got there?”

Ah. I chose that moment not to talk about the freaktures. “No,” I lied.

“Well there was no trauma to your body, Ash. When someone goes comatose it’s not necessarily because of anything we can see on the outside. It could be any number of things hiding in your brain. So when you were admitted, the first thing we did was an MRI of your entire body. We didn’t want to miss a blood clot in your leg, or a bleed in your spleen.” Katie looked then, very scared at Joann.

Joann said to me, “Ash, I’ve been able to get a hold of your father. He’s adamant that he doesn’t have a daughter. So adamant that he’s refusing contact from us. He says he’s remanding custody to your mother.”

“She’s in Denver,” I told her, “there was a custody thing.”

“Normally Ash, I would want a parent here to help you cope with this, but what Katie has to say is very important, and I need you to understand so that we can get your input. With children your age, we try to consider your wishes as much as possible, and you…” It was her turn to breathe deep, “You have some decisions to make.”

Joann gave Katie the nod to continue, and Katie picked up again, “Ash. You are biologically a female.”

I shook my head as strongly as possible. My own experiments aside, I knew that I wasn’t crazy. That she couldn’t be right.

“Ashley, we have pictures of your ovaries.”

Joann took over again, “Your birth certificate lists you as a boy. Your learners permit is a boys. I have access to your medical records, and you had an CT of your pelvis three years ago.”

I nodded. I had fallen and broken my coccyx, most embarrassing injury a kid could have. The doctor had had trouble with the x-rays and ordered the CT. It was an interesting experience. I would have told all my friends about it, if I had had friends. As it was I got to do it for a special show and tell. Some of the class clapped. That was nice.

“You already know this,” Joann said, “No ovaries.”

Katie finally broke out, “Ash there’s no medical record of this. There isn’t even a Biblical record of this. I don’t have any idea what to do here.”

Joann laid her hand on Katie’s wrist, “Let me talk to him alone please. He understands now, and I have to go into advocate mode. I can’t do that with you here.”

Katie nodded and stood. She looked like she was about to touch me on her way out, maybe give a limb a squeeze. Instead she just looked at me and fled.

Alien

Joann stood as well and came over to my bedside, “You haven’t eaten for about a week, so I don’t know what the doctor wants to do, but it’ll be at least a day before you’re on real food again. Do you want me to get you a Popsicle?”

“That would be nice. Did anyone find my backpack?”

“It’s in one of the cupboards, would you like it?”

“Please?”

She went over to the cupboards on the wall and fished around until she had my backpack in her hands, and brought it over to my bed. “Do you want cherry or orange?”

“Cherry please.”

“I’ll be right back.”

She left, and I opened the pack to find my book. There was another book in the pocked along with my vampire romance. I pulled it out and turned it over in my hands. Flatland: A romance of many dimensions. It was old, but in good condition. Cover had little damage, just some wear. I opened it to the printing page and saw, ‘First Edition.’ Then under all of the printing information, Copyright 1884. I didn’t know how much it was worth, but I would guess: a lot.

I turned the page to see, in very weird handwriting, “Aisling, this will start to explain.” I wondered who Aisling was, and who had bought this for them over a century before. “I hope they got the explanation they wanted.”

Joann came back then, and I put the book aside. She unwrapped the Popsicle for me, the right way, keeping some of the wrapper around it. Then she sat down again and leaned her elbows on her knees. “We have a lot to talk about. I got a hold of your mom, and she’ll be calling me back soon. She’s getting a plane ticket to come down and see you.”

I leaned back and sighed with my Popsicle in my hand. Then remembered it and popped it back in my mouth.

“Ash, we have to talk about what to do, and I want to lay some decisions on the table. Right now, with present technology, and a lack of time travel, you have one option. Remain biologically a girl. That’s it. With a visit to a therapist for a bit, you might be able to start hormone treatments.” She leaned in and put her arm on my leg. Normally I would be creeped out by a stranger touching me. Instead I was grateful for the contact. “I told you, I work for you. Nothing needs to be reported. And Ash?” Here she leaned in, “I’m not against fudging some records here.”

It was a relief. I’d have a penis again, get rid of these boobs, and be okay for the rest of my life. I could use the right bathroom and change in the right locker room. I took the first bite out of my Popsicle, and felt a few dribbles on my chin..

“Your insurance is required to pay for transitional services, but they won’t do that if the government says you’ve always been a boy. I have to talk to your mom about it but… I know some people in Social Services who won’t mind a little incentive to… move things around for you. It’s very illegal. But imagine what would happen if we tried to do this through the court system.”

She made a lot of sense. This was in all of the shows about children who have some kind of accident and have to hide it, so they won’t become an experiment. I was just thankful I had an adult who understood.

Her phone rang then, and she took her hand off my leg to look at it, “It’s your mom.”

I reached for the phone, took it, figured out how to answer it, and put it up to my ear, “Hi mom.”

“Hi dearheart, how are you?”

“I’m okay. I’m a girl now.”

“That’s nice sweety, how’s school?” I love my mother.

“Rotten, the classes are easy, but the students are crap.”

“How would you like to come live with me for awhile?”

“That would be nice.”

“Good, the closest plane I could get leaves at eight in the morning. I’ll see you .”

I hung up the phone and handed it to Joann. “That seemed like a nice phone call,” she said.

“Yeah, my mom is a psychologist. She’s hard to phase.”

Joann gave me a smile, and then laid her hand on mine, “I can stay here for awhile, or I can let you get some rest.”

“I just want to read my book,” I gestured to Flatland.

“Do you want me to stay? They can bring a bed in for me.”

I tried not to cry as I said, “Yes.”

I opened the book as Joann took out a kindle and her knitting. Then six hours went by.

Flatland was… well it was staggeringly racist. Like, ‘triangles are dangerous, so we encourage wars between them, when we’re not imprisoning them as examples for school children’ racist. And it was alarmingly sexist. Like, ‘women are more dangerous than triangles, so we keep them in a closet at home, but it’s okay because they only have a short term memory’ sexist.

It wasn’t until I got to the part where Mr. Square was talking about how color and art were illegal that I caught on that it was satire.

Mr. Square is a resident of Flatland, which exists only in two dimensions. Half the book is about the limitations of living in flatland, while the other half is about his experiences with Mr. Sphere, and his subsequent imprisonment for trying to tell the inhabitants of Flatland about the third dimension.

Mr. Square lives in a pentacle house with his wife and children and grandchildren, and Mr. Sphere takes him outside, and shows him that the house isn’t a collection of lines. He can see the whole of his house, even the inside of his cupboards, and the intestines of his children from outside.

It’s truly fascinating, once you get past the typical 19th century dialog, and the fact that the only time no one seems angry, is when they’re casually sentencing one another to death. Aisling must have had some strange questions for someone to have given her this book.

I finished it around eleven o’clock, while Joann was snoring softly in a roll away across the room, and went to sleep.

I swam slowly into consciousness sometime in the morning, so late it was early. Joann was still snoring, but she’d gotten steadily louder over the course of the night. It reminded me of my gramma.

In the dark I could see a nurse sitting next to my bed and asked, “Can you hand me my water?”

The nurse leaned forward and scooted the aggravating hospital table closest to me. As it did so, I felt my whole body freeze. The nurse—it wasn’t a nurse—had disapeared a portion of her arm as she moved the table, then reapeared it while it spun into place.

Well you’re a girl now, no reason not to scream. I opened my mouth to do that when it said, “Please don’t scream. No one can hear you, but it hurts my ears.”

I listened and realized that I couldn’t hear Joann’s snores anymore, and laid back, resigned. “Make it quick,” I chocked out.

“I’ll go as fast as I can, but I’m not sure you’ll be able to understand all of it.”

“Make it painless then.”

“Most of the physical pain is behind you, but the next few months are going to contain a lot of the emotional sort.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m asking you to make my death merciful,” I didn’t feel the need to cry, but I thought it would be appropriate to feel that. I was a little disappointed in myself.

“I suppose I could drop by in eighty years, if they’ll let me, and I remember.”

I sat up and looked at its mask face. I could see light shining through from all the way around it’s eyeballs. In an act of defiance I took a sip of water and said, “You’re not here to kill me?” I tried to do it archly, and was bad at that.

“No.”

I took another sip, and tried to pretend I was in a Quentin Tarantino movie. “Then may I ask why in fuck you are here?” Spot on Ash.

The thing ruined the dialog by being reasonable, “We felt—I felt, that you were owed an apology—”

“Oh, fuck off with that.”

“—and an explanation.”

“Not even a Biblical record…” Katie had said.

“Okay, you can fuck on with that.” It turned its head in a dog-like expression of confusion. “I mean, go ahead.”

It gestured to the book, “I’m glad you found it, it will help.”

Some things clicked, “You spelled my name wrong.”

“No, I was quite caref—Ah, I understand. I’m sorry.”

“Anyway, what was it supposed to explain?” Only I knew. The pieces snapped into place. “Do I call you, ‘Mister Sphere’?”

“Mister Glome would be more appropriate.”

“What’s a glong?”

“Glome. It’s a four dimensional sphere.”

“I thought I couldn’t see that.”

“You would see it like Mister Square did. A bunch of shapes that moved in ways you didn’t know were possible.” It waved it’s arm to demonstrate. The flesh between his shoulder and his wrist came undone, while his elbow bent in the wrong direction.

I laid my head back, and gave up the charade, “Okay, you made your point.” You can probably cry in front of this thing. He doesn’t know anything about humans. “What did you do to me?” My voice cracked as I said it, and I didn’t bother to clear it.

“You were injured in what will go into our report as a ‘construction accident’.”

“Well I hope whoever is responsible hurt as bad as I did.” A thought occurred, “Anyway they disappeared before they hit me.”

“And that never made you curious?”

I gestured to myself, bumping my breast as I did so. Damn, that smarts more than I thought. “I’ve had other things on my mind.”

“Yes.” It sounded truly sorry when it said, “I’m afraid I don’t even have the context to understand your situation.” It shifted in the chair again, and steepled too much fingers underneath its chin. “When she fell, she fell on top of you, and damaged a part of your body that doesn’t exist to you.”

“…” I said.

“It doesn’t exist to you, because it’s not in the third dimension.”

“…” I said.

“I have another book that will help, if you wish. Have you read any Vonnegut?”

“He’s on my list, after Anderson.”

“I would move him up the list. Slaughterhouse 5 is what you’re looking for.”

I felt the tireds hit me, and laid further back, “So they hit me where I don’t exist, pretend I accept that. Why am I like this?”

“She hit you at nearly ninety miles an hour. Nine point eight of your meters squared, you understand. It didn’t hurt her, but her insurance is going to take a hit. It almost killed you.”

I was too tired to retort.

“We did our best to save your life. You were in surgery for nineteen hours.”

“I thought I was found on the sidewalk within minutes.”

The freakture looked and surprised me with sarcasm, “Really, Ashley McKinnon? You’ve seen what we are in space. What did you think time means to us?”

I did my best to shout, but it came out as a cry, “Then why didn’t you fix me?”

It looked very sorry, head down, the tension drained from its face, “We don’t understand much about your bodies.The kind of experiments we’d need to do to learn would be incredibly unethical. No doctor or scientist would do it.” It finally hit the crux of the discussion, “Your gender lobe suffered permanent trauma. The part of you, outside your comprehension, that makes you who you are was crushed. The only way to repair the damage and save your life was to fuse some of it together.” Its face looked so sorry then that I almost felt bad for it. “That’s how you came to be this way.”

I closed my eyes. I’d been so close to crying this entire conversation, and now I finally felt tears on my cheeks. “You’re saying you can’t fix it.”

“No more than you could regrow a limb.”

“Why didn’t you just let me die?”

“We have ethical standards, and everyone deserves the chance to live a life, if not the life they dream about. You have many more years to come, Ashley McKinnon. I hope one day you’ll forgive us for giving them to you.” Mr. Glome stood then, all bones wrong, and alien. It made a hand gesture that probably meant something in its own idiom. “For what it’s worth. We are desperately sorry.”

The alien disappeared then without another word and left me to my tears.

Mom Arrives

I forgot what had happened to me when I woke the next day. I was snuggled in my bed, and reached down to adjust my balls, as you do in the morning.

When I touched soft lips instead, I figured they were hiding away, searched harder and hit something wet. That’s when it all came rushing back to me, and I really let out a sob. I curled deeper, and put my hand to my heart, felt breasts there. In an action I found foreign, feminine, and comforting, I tucked my arm between them, and felt sorry formyself.

“Whatever you do, you can’t afford self loathing,” my mother sat on my bed.

I felt tears and snot on my face, and realized how deeply I had been crying. My mother stroked my hair for as long as I needed to, and hummed a song she had sung me for as long as I can remember. It’s from “The Tain III” by the Decemberists. It’s hauntingly sweet, and I can’t reprint it here, for fear of being sued.

(Oh, fuck it. -Ed)
For the wind is blowing, it hurts your skin,
As you climb up hill side, forest and fen.
Your arms full of lullabies, orcids and wine.
Your memories wrapped within paper and twine.

The room that you lie in, is dusty and hard.
Sleeping soft babies on piles,
Of yards,
Of gingham, taffeta, cotton, and silk.

Their dry hungry mouths cry,
For your mothers milk.

(Please don’t sue me -Ed.)

I feel asleep again in sorrow, but wrapped safe in my mother’s voice.

When I woke again, it was after 11:00 AM. There was dried snot on my pillow, and my hair was wet from tears.

My mother was knitting on a chair next to me.

“Hi mom,” I breathed out.

“Hi, dearheart. How are you feeling?”

“Sad.”

“I understand. Would you like some breakfast?”

Fuck yeah, I would like some breakfast. “How do I do that?”

“I already ordered for you,” she pointed to the aggravating hospital table, “it’s French toast. Your favorite.”

I wolfed it down the way only a teenager can, in minutes, then pushed the aggravating hospital table away from me. It scooted to the side instead and I punched it and hurt my hand. Then I punched it harder and harder, sprung the table open so the it unfolded, punched it closed, and then swept everything on it onto the floor. I laid back, feeling no better.

My mom watched my outburst without dropping her knitting. “What would you like to do now?

“Cry some more.”

“I think you’ve done enough of that.” She moved the table aside to she could look at me, “Joann had to leave, but I’ve been thoroughly briefed on her plans. I think she has the best idea. I’m happy you have someone with your best interests at heart.”

I was exhausted from all the crying, and still felt like I should get on with the day. “What does she want to do?”

My mother sat on the bed, and held my hand for a second. Then put it on the bed so she could lean. “According to your medical records, signed by your doctor, we’ve discovered you were intersex, during puberty onset.”

“They’re saying I’m a hermaphrodite?”

“They—you don’t use that term. It’s crude.”

“Can you just ‘discover’ that?”

Mom waved her hand, “It’s less common, but it happens. Usually when the boy starts menstruating through his penis, and finds out he has a uterus inside him. Joann’s report says that you’re choosing to live as a girl now, until you can be reassigned and get some surgery.”

I flounced, really flounced, back onto the bed, “Great, everyone knows I’m a freak, trying to unfreak myself.”

“You can think of yourself as a freak all you like. But you’re my child, and you can be as normal or as abnormal as you want to be.” She got up from the bed, “I’ve already signed the forms, as your parent or guardian. I’m afraid we’ve entered, ‘I-know-what’s-best-for-my-child territory. When and if you’re ready, you can get hormones and surgery. Right now, I want you to stay healthy, and work with what you have.”

In case you haven’t guessed from when I said it before, my mother is a psychologist.

I put my fingers to my temple and rubbed. “Okay. Then I want to know when I’m getting out of here.”

“I’ll see what the nurse says.”

My mother came back with the nurse, “Good news. You’re getting released.”

The nurse gave me a smile, “Want all those tubes out of you?” I gave her an emphatic nod.

The IV came out of my hand, and a bandage was taped over the tape marks from the tape the taped the IV on with. The pulse-ox was taken off of my finger. The things on my legs were undone. If I was walking I was at no risk of blood clots, outside of a family history of dying early from blood clots.

Then it was time for the catheter. My mother kindly left the room and waited outside. I spread my legs, at the nurses request, and because I didn’t want her just yanking it out. I was humiliated as a stranger started poking around a vagina I’d never even seen, and which nevertheless belonged to me. I had to resist the compulsion to snap my thighs shut and never open them again. But then I’d never be able to put on pants, and I couldn’t handle a skirt.

The nurse had brought a needle.

“Are you going to stick that into me?” Try to keep the fear out of your voice next time.

“Yes,” she said, “and it’s a good thing too. Otherwise this is excruciating.”

“Well get on with it then,” I said, not unkindly.

She hit me in a very personal place, and I resolved never to look her in the eye again, for fear that one of use would fall over dead from embarrassment.

The removal was still the weirdest sensation I’ve ever felt in my life, as she pulled the tube out of my numb, girl, urethra.

“You did good honey,” she said, as she put all her stuff in the cart, and left me to my shame.

My mother came back in and sat down, “I med the release nurse in the hallway. You’re all set to go as soon as you put on some clothes.”

“First things first,” I told her, “I want some rules,” and I outlined all of my rules:

Rule no.1: On the inside I’m still a guy. And I will have guy thoughts, and guy hobbies, and do guy things.

Rule no.2: No girl clothes; No skirts. No dresses. No bikinis. No heels. No makeup.

Rule no.3: No bras.

“Please trust me, that you will want to wear a bra,” mom said.

Rule no.3: Okay, I’ll wear a bra. If I have to.

Rule no.4: They said I have ovaries. I am never going to become a mother, and I’m not having periods. Therefore there’s no reason anyone can object to my using birth control

Rule no.5: Guess I’m a lesbian now.

“I always figured you’d be a lesbian. Your father owes me a hundred dollars now.”

“That’s not funny mom.”

Mom pulled her chair over and showed me some forms. “I was thinking we would change your name.”

“Why?”

“Ashley McKinnon already has an identity. It will be easier to enroll you in school if you have a new name.”

“I don’t want to answer to a new name. I’m Ash.”

“I know, dearheart. But I just…”

It’s hard for her too. Okay Ash. Let’s be considerate. “There are a lot of ways to spell Ashley. Lets just change that.”

She looked a little relieved. “I was always going to name you Ashley. But if you have been a girl I was going to spell it the Gaelic way. Ay-I-es-el-I-en-gee.”

“Ay-sling?”

“No, ‘Ash-lee’.” She smiled, “Be proud of your heritage of not being able to spell anything like it sounds. At least we’re not Welsh.”

“That’s racist.”

“True though. Welsh is beautiful, but they spell for shit. You thought English was bad?”

“Okay mom. I’ll be Aisling.”

She smiled and popped her pen on the paper and started filling things in.

Then it happened. I had to pee.

I breathed deep, and looked at my mother. I could feel the whites all around my eyes.

“Bathroom is over there, dearheart.”

I got out of the bed, and tried not to plod inside. The seat was cold.

Peeing felt the same, but my bladder was arranged differently inside me. I peed sitting down as a guy, when the occasion demanded it. But I had always had to move around and get my insides lined up right. Now I just sat and the pee came out. It felt like normal peeing, other than…

Other than that I could feel it dribble down my lips.

And I dripped. I could feel all the wetness down there. Further back than I would have expected if I had thought about it. I closed my eyes, but tears didn’t come. This was everything a man feared. Everything he’s proud of. Me man. Me pee standing up. Me jiggle and me done.

I reached for the toilet paper, and wiped myself off. Then I crawled back into my bed, and refused to look at anyone or anything.

My mom put the forms in her purse. “Let’s get you dressed and get you out of here.”

I found the bag they’d put my clothes in and took it into the bathroom to get changed.

Several problem immediately arose. My pants were too long for a start. For a finish, everything else about them. They had an inseam which on me looked like I was wearing a diaper. My but was shaped differently. Bigger, I was certain. Higher on my body. Because the pattern of the pants were designed for a flat but, my ass sucked the crotch of the jeans back.

I came out of the bathroom and looked at my mom, distressed beyond measure.

It was worse than that, but I couldn’t tell her about it. I had switched to boxers, as all young male children do, in middle school. All of that cloth that I used to hang out in was superfluous now, and it rode around inside my pants and bunched in seemingly random places.

My face flaming so hard me mouth shook, I asked the nurse for a pair of underpants. I meant panties. I should have asked for panties. I couldn’t.

Nurse left, and came back with a disposable mesh pair, wrapped in plastic. “I’m sorry, but this is all we have,” she told me.

My mother gave me an arch look and said simply, “We’ll have to go shopping.”

“I know.”

“I don’t think you do. I’m sorry to tell you, honey, but look down.”

I already knew about my shirt. In my old body it came down to my waist but with a pair of boobs the hem was riding up to my navel. “No, mom. I know.”

“Dearheart… you look like it’s fifty below outside.”

What does she… oh god no! I looked at my shirt. Yup. There were my nipples, poking out so hard you could see the areola around them. I gasped and covered my shame reflexively. I realized I looked like an anime pinup as I did so.

Breathing heavily, I panted out, “Bra shopping. First thing.”

“We’ll go to Target. It’s not class, but it’s clothes.”

Target

Target

I kept my arms crossed on the way out of the hospital. I kept my arms crossed in the car. I kept my arms crossed on the way inside. If I had died right there, I would have kept my arms crossed all the way to the morgue.

As a boy, I hated going through the women’s section of Target. It was hard to do without imagining everything that was supposed to fill in the underwear on the halls, hangers, shelves, and hooks. I always made me feel dirty.

It still made me feel dirty, but for the while I belonged there. That made it almost better. And I was too distracted by the thought that, arms down, I was a walking sex object; to worry about sex thought. Puberty brain had shut the fuck up for the time being.

My mom went straight to the desk next to the changing room and told the attendent, “We’d like a bra fitting, please?”

The woman was a professional bra fitter. She looked at me and didn’t say anything that would make me feel like falling through the floor. She didn’t ask why a girl with breasts so big they made her shirt ride up was only now getting to this. She didn’t say, “Oh, first bra, huh?” or “Well you’re a woman now then.”

She said, “Let me find a tape measure and we’ll go to a changing room.”

I was pathetically grateful.

Here’s how you get a bra fitting. First you stare at yourself in the mirror. You notice that you have frekles now, and there are some on your boobs. You see that your nipples are larger than you feel comfortable with. Your puberty brain tries to cut through all the embarrassment, and tell you how hot you are. You don’t listen.

The measuring woman then stands behind you and puts a tape measure just under your boobs, over your boys shirt, and you wonder how that will help. She says, “hmmm. Twenty nine.” Then she looks like she’s remembering it, and you try to too; while you wonder if that’s big or small and you don’t know which one to hope for.

Then she puts the tape measure, over your shirt, across your nipples and you stand stock still in shock, and she says, “Aaaaand, thirty four. That’s a C cup.”

And you think, Oh my god. I’m hung.”

Bra fitting lesson complete.

She waited at the door, and we went out into the bra aisles.

One of the signs on the ceiling said, ‘Intimates’, and it couldn’t be more right. It didn’t matter how plain any of these were, they were all… well… very intimate looking. Like something that someone else would see you in only if you wanted them to. Well now you’re* going to see you in them, Ash. That’s a weird start.*

“You’ll need an under wire,” the underwear lady says. “Annnnnnd… I’m not trying to embarrass you, but you don’t needed padded.” She looked through a selection. “Every girl needs three bras. Black, white, and nude.”

She poked around. And asked my input on styles. I went with the first one she pointed to in every case. I didn’t like any of them. It made me very scared, but the ones I wanted had bits of lace on the edges. And—oh shit—one had a bow on it. But I thought it would look—oh fuck—good on me. I was definitely not strong enough to point out what I wanted there, in front of her and in front of my mother and in front of myself.

My mother just watched the two of us, as she handed them to me, and mother followed me to the dressing room. She led the way inside. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, Ash. And trust me, you’ll need some help.”

I shed my shirt face flaming, expression resolute. This seems simple enough…Nope. Putting my arms through the straps first, and struggling to snap it behind me, was wrong.

Mom looked at me in pity. “When you get better, you’ll be able to do that. In the mean time, put it on backwards and upside down, and inside out. No honey, like this.” She touched me to show me. This time I didn’t freeze, but the girl in the mirror was blushing so hard it extended down to the top of her breasts.

“You fasten it in front and turn it around. You put your arms through the straps like this. Then you flip the whole thing up.”

This seems inefficient and time consuming. I resolved to practice until I could do it the right way. Girl or not, I had my pride. Still. Mostly. Okay, not at all.

Then she stepped behind me, and fingered one of the shoulder straps, “Tell me when it’s comfortable.”

She tightened them, and I said, “Wrong way.”

She loosened them, and I stopped her, “There,” when she found a sweet spot. “It’s still a little tight.”

“Looks like you need the last buckles here.” She unsnapped my bra and resnapped it. It was better but still… confining. “This isn’t nearly as comfortable as I assumed.”

My mother gave a little sigh, and put her hands on her hips, in a gesture that looked wrong on her, “Welcome to womanhood. Okay, that’s one down, let’s do the next.”

We were working on bra three (black) “There,” I told mom, as she got the last strap done.

“Alright. Let me leave you. I’ll take the tags off of this one and ring it up outside.”

“Thank you,” I meant it.

“Do you want to… Why don’t you just stay here a little bit.” She put her hand on top of my head. “I’ll get your some things to try on.

I nodded, and she left.

I looked at the girl in the mirror, in a bra and boys pants, and tried to imagine she was me. I felt my hair. It had been long for awhile. My dad hated it, but he thought if he didn’t say anything I would stop rebelling and get it cut. More fool him. I’d wanted long hair since I saw how cool Klingons looked with it. Around four years old.

The girl had boobs. Like real boobs. Like an adult. I tried to arrange them in the bra to be more comfortable and almost succeeded. The bra mashed them together into something that would be cleavage. I’d never realized before that cleavage was something your clothes did to you, not something you just had. That gravity and flesh didn’t cause cleavage on their own.

I heard a clatter, and turned to see that my mother, my blessed, blessed, mother, had thrown three pairs of pants and five shirts, all on coat hangers, over the top of the dressing room door. “Try these on. I can’t get you shoes, I don’t know your size,” mom said from outside. “Aisling, I know you don’t want to, but try everything on please?”

Hearing my girl name, even if it sounded the same, just made me blush harder. The girl in the mirror was pretty when she blushed. That made me hate her a little bit.

The first shirt fit. A little too well. It looked like it worked, it was just… hugging. Every curve I had. When I looked the in the mirror, I saw I had been right. There was a terrifying dividing line between scrunched together boobs. You could just see it at the neckline, which came down lower than I was (now) comfortable with. Still… it is* comfortable. It’s a yes.*

The next shirt looked like it should fit, but didn’t. It was loose at the bust and everything hung down. What the hell? They were the same size.

The next shirt was looser than the first, but still hugged, and didn’t cleave. I’m okay with this.

The fourth shirt was tight in the bust, and fluttered around my tummy like a dress. None of this makes sense.

Shirt five was fit the best. Loosish and comfortable.

I threw the two over the side, “I can just wear three shirts all year, right?”

“No. I’ll get more. Try on the pants.”

Goddamn it. I needed new underwear. Not for any aesthetic reason, but because I was wearing hospital underwear. “Mom? Can…” Oh god. “…can you get me a package of panties?”

“Already did, dearheart,” They slid under the door. “They’ve been wrung up. Go ahead and split them open.”

Dear mom, if I had to have any parent it would be you, -Ash. They were uniform color. No flowers, no lace bits. Just pastel panties.

Pastel panties without a way to tell you were to face them. No fly.

“Tag goes on the left, dearheart,” Mom said from outside, and then “I’m going to get more shirts.”

I got out of the mesh hospital underwear, and then into the panties as fast as possible, avoiding everything happening in the mirror. They fit snug, and I expected them to crush my balls, and then realized where I was, and depressed myself all over again

The first pants were fine in the hem, and very very wrong in the crotch. When I got it to the waist the inseam was trying to crawl straight up my vagina. Mirror check. Hint of the camel toe I had so longed to see just a couple of days ago. Hard pass.

And so the charade went on. More clothes over the side, more trying on, more throwing back. More failures than successes.

Finally I had four pants, and six shirts, and mom said that was enough to get us between laundry days. “Take the tags off of one outfit,” she said, “Bernice says it’s okay. I’ve already wrung the rest up.”

I slipped on a pair of jeans. Stone washed, and a little too tight. They looked great on the girl in the mirror though. Made her ass look spectacular. That and a white shirt, and I was good to go get shoes.

I came out of the dressing room to see my mom with a shopping cart piled high. I tried to tuck my hands in my pockets like a cool guy. “Mom? I can’t fit my hands in my pockets.”

“You won’t be able to fit anything else in them either.”

“Why?”

“Pockets are for genders that get to feel comfortable and have a place to put things. There’s only one of those. Guess which one it is?”

“I’m guessing it’s the one I just got kicked out of.” A little gallows humor.

“Good guess. Shoes are worse, but we’re gonna give it our best shot.” She paused, “And Aisling? The white bra is there for your white shirts.

I looked down to see the black of the bra shining through the thin white shirt. This will never end. Let it all burn. “Well I’m not changing right now.”

Mom gave me another look, and then said, “There are times when making that mistake is appropriate, but you’ll find out when they are. Usually they’re laundry days but…”

“Please stop, mom.”

The mens shoe section was full of comfortable shoes. The womens shoe section was full of heels. And boots with heels. And sandals with heels. “Rule two mom, no heels.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to, dearheart. I eschew them whenever possible.”

She looked around. Mens shoes are ordered by group. There are sandals, then there are sneakers, then there are dress shoes. Women’s shoes are thrown at the shelves, and fuck you for even trying to find anything. You’re lucky we even stacked the sizes together, ladies.

So we wandered, and my mom tried to find sneakers, and… and I looked at shoes. Rule no.2 was going to be very hard, I realized. Everything had a heel. Even if it was a little heel, it was a heel. Rule no.2 was going to hold strong in the face of adversity. I picked up a pair of ladies Vans and caught my mom’s eye.

“Lets see what your new size is, because you’re not a men’s eleven anymore, I can tell you that.”

Yeah, I had big feet. What they say about big feet holds true, if the locker room is to be believed. I wasn’t popular, but I had reason to gloat. Yeah. Had.

I hadn’t put shoes back on in the dressing room, what would have been the point. So it was a simple thing to lay my foot on the always cold metal measuring thing.

“A four and a half,” mom said. “Well you know what they say about girls with small feet.”

“No? What do they say?” It was hard to keep the alarm out of my voice.

“They have trouble finding shoes that fit,” my mom pushed her glasses up her nose. “In your case we’re in luck. Try these on.”

I pulled the paper stuffing out of the toe, and slipped them on. Comfortable sitting. Comfortable standing too.

My gaze focused on a pair of slipper things, and unbidden something leaped into my mind. I’ll have to come back for those.

I fled the shoe aisle, and from there the store, and finally into my bedroom.

If you are here for the plot, please go back a chapter. Due to a clerical error on my part, it did not appear on the front page.
If you are here for the part where a TG girl masturbates for the first time, go wild.

Exploration

I don’t have any idea what my vagina looks like.

Do all girls know that? Some of them? None of them?

I was home, I’d put stuff away. It was late and I didn’t have school any time soon. “We’ll work on getting you enrolled in a bit,” Mom had said on the drive home. “I have to look into schools in any case. You’ve had a busy week.”

And I was only three days in.

I was in my room, leaning on my door, and wondering what to do with myself. When I had gone to live with my father I left my laptop here. He had promised to buy me a new one, then hadn’t. It was gathering dust on my old desk.

Okay, Ash. What’s first order of business?

Well social media was out. There was nothing I could stand to look at on facebook or twitter. I sat down anyway. Opened the lid, and ran updates.

For a teenager with a broadband Internet connection, I hadn’t seen many vaginas. The porn I watched was mostly blowjobs. That’s what I wanted more than anything. The thought of a woman putting her mouth on my dick was a huge turn on for my adolescent brain. In some of my favorites there was some sex. I had usually come by the time it came on.

I got up and locked the door to the bedroom. Then shed my pants with a little difficulty. In the end I had to stand on one leg to peel them off of the other. I sat on the edge of the bed and shed my panties as well.

Yeah. That’s it. Not very helpful from this angle.

I had a full length mirror on the other side of the bed. I did a little somersault across to it. Okay. Here goes. I put my hands on my knees, still tight together, and didn’t move them. Look, you have a vagina now. You might as well see what you’re packing. Hands, still on my knees I opened my legs. Well that’s still not helpful. I hadn’t realized just how down this thing faced.

Okay. Lean back. Open legs.

Well that was certainly different than what I had before. It was all folds and more folds. I felt terrible being turned on by all of this, but… I scooted a finger across it. I thought I would feel myself getting wet. This is just there. I’d been feeling a familiar feeling in my loins (if you’ll excuse the lame term), but nothing like an erection.

It had a similar consistency to my own precum, maybe a little thinner. And it smelled very arousing. Like a musky flower, all sex and potency and sin. Well I was a lesbian now so…

I smeared my hand around in a way I was definitely going to have to do more of in a second, and licked my fingertips. Like salt flavored honey. A slightly revolting but entirely accurate description. None of that, “sweet/spicy nectar” here. I tell it like it is.

This time when I reach down there’s a lot more of it, and I’m feeling my breasts getting hot. When I lick my finger,s a little trail sticks to my bottom lip and I catch it with my tongue.

Alright, pretty well lubed down there, lets try this—GAAAAAAAGH!

It felt like someone had reached up inside me, through the floor of my pelvis, and was trying to rip me apart. All the porn stars just go right inside. Why can’t I do that? Pain. Pain was why I couldn’t do that. My eyes were watering as I pulled my finger out. That was just one finger. Don’t people use their whole fist sometimes? I tried again to see if it would be better the second time. If anything it hurt worse.

I stuck my finger in my mouth and sucked on my pussy juices as a consolation prize. Then that got everything running again, and my brain just spun around from horny to frustrated to desire to not feel pain.

Wait! Women used vibrators on their clits, right? Maybe I could just use my hand, and kind of bounce it up and down. Which part of me is* my clitoris?* I practiced drumming my fingers everywhere to see if I could find it, encountering various degrees of pain.

Okay. Well apparently I’m so bad at being a girl, I can’t even masturbate. I sat up and looked in the mirror some more. I was still wearing a bra. No one was here. May as well oggle the first real pair of breasts I’ve seen. I couldn’t get the bra to unsnap. I had to pull myself out of the shoulders, and then pull it off over my head, and throw it across the room and stick my tongue out at it.

I sat back on the bed again, hands on knees, and couldn’t help but notice that my cleavage (I had cleavage!) went almost to my neckline like this. I took a hand away to pick on up. Heavy, and kind of like holding a water balloon. In my hand like that my finger tip brushed my nipple. Oh my god! No like stroking an erect penis on the pleasure scale, but it had a lot of potential.

I put my breast back down, and looked at them in the mirror. Did I have big nipples, or normal? They looked big. Can… can I suck them? An emphatic ‘no’. Brushing? Rubbing? Rolling? Pinching? God yes!

I lay back down to concentrate, put a finger around each nipple and experimented different ways of pinching them. Never too hard, sometimes too soft. I found my favorite was to roll one around with the edge of my finger, tracing the areola, while my other hand gave little twists to the other side.

It was delicious, but felt like it would take me forever to get where I was going. Maybe taping wasn’t the right idea. Lets explore the downstairs the same way. Right hand still tweaking my nipple, I let my left creep down. I was even wetter than before, if that was possible. I licked my fingers again and got back to business. This is okay to touch. This is okay to touch. This hurts.

It was like bare skin on the head of my penis. I am—was—uncircumcised, and if you haven’t had experience with having a foreskin, let me put it this way. Touching it with anything dry, even your silken underwear, hurts way too much to stand for long. That especially goes for your fingers.

Some part of touching myself hurt just as much. In a different way, but not much different. That must be my clitoris. Or maybe not. Because right above that spot, over a little ridge was another place. And when I put my finger on that place? Bingo. Now I knew the route, just had to figure out how to drive.

Nope. Tapping it was still a bad idea. Pinching, like my titties? Nothing to pinch a hold of. Rubbing down seemed to work. Maybe circles. Yeah, circles was good.

It was around here that I became cognizant that I had raised my legs off the floor. Some thing in my body wanted to spread them open, and lift them up. My body was telling me good things, as my clitty sent little pulsing shivers, and warm humming pleasure over my body. I decided to indulge the feeling, and got my knees up around shoulder height. Hmmm. I couldn’t rub my titty that way. But my fingers on my pussy were feeling so good. And legs up just felt right.

I’ll just quicken the pace then. I hit the first hill. The one that lets you know you’re on the right track.

‘This direction to orgasm town.’ My right hand found itself creeping up my calve as I went. My legs went further and further back as I climbed higher.

Then my climax swept over me. I may have shrieked it his so hard. As good as the first orgasm, when I was twelve and desperate to feel it for the first time. My legs convulsed as every muscle in my body tensed up. Then it went on. And on. I kept shuddering and jerking and thrashing around, as I rode my fingers through it until the end.

When I came as a guy, once the ejaculation started that was it. The drop off was sudden. Here my orgasm just seemed to keep going until I couldn’t handle any more. And once I put my leg down and took my hand away, there wasn’t any drop off. Just a long, gentle, ride down.

Everything around me seemed soft, and I was warm, and snuggly.

Only after five or six minutes did my legs get uncomfortable from where I had splayed them out coming down. After only a few more minutes, I moved them somewhere more comfortable. After many more minutes I got up, and found my panties and my bra.

I dug around in my dresser for a pair of flannel pajama bottoms, and curled up in bed; to fall asleep in seconds. Dreaming soft dreams.

Staring

I woke to find my hands pressed in between my thighs. That should have been uncomfortable and wasn’t. It was comforting. I rolled over to go back to sleep and found that everything was wrong with my body.

Not that. That was still wrong, but I had woken up with some of the knowledge permeating my brain.

What was wrong was my breasts. One was half-in, half-out of it’s bra cup in one direction. The other was half-in, half-out at an opposing trajectory. One shoulder strap was on, the other was pinning my arm at my side.

I found my way sitting, and tried to get out of the damn thing without damaging it. I flung it across the room again and collapsed on my covers. Well,* you masturbated last night. Might do it again.* Scared too. Felt too good. I was not going to get into this girl thing. I tried to go back to sleep and found myself reliving last night in my head. What must a tongue feel like on that spot? Probably not as good as a blowjob.

Probably.

But I hadn’t eaten since last night, and breakfast called to me. Time to go downstairs and face my mom while not thinking about the taste of my own pussy on my lips.

Bra back on, I tried to decide how dressed I wanted to get dressed, and went into the kitchen in pajama pants and a new shirt.

Mom was in the kitchen reading the paper. The sunlight streamed through the windows, I would guess it was after one. I was allowed to sleep in. Teenagers are supposed to do that.

“How was your night?” Mom asked. There was an empty cup of coffee next to her elbow. I needed some of that.

“Good,” Transcendent? Illuminating? “Is the coffee cold?”

“Mm-hmm. You’ll need the microwave.”

“Yech.” I set about making some fresh.

“Rinse the pot then.”

“I know mom.” She was reading the paper. She couldn’t possibly have seen that I was about to turn on the coffee maker with three lines of cold coffee still in the pot. I added one more scoop than was recommended, made toast and then came to sit next to her at the table. I pulled the comics too me and started the process of folding them right so that I could read them in order. Mom always folded one page behind the other when she read. It was an age old process.

The paper didn’t carry Dilbert. I was glad. I read over every strip, no matter how unfunny it is, I can’t help myself. Yes, especially Garfield, a strip carried in 2,500 papers that has never featured a single joke. Unless you count that dog-cum-drinking one.

And I do.

Mom got up to rinse out her coffee cup at the same moment my toast popped. She brought it to me with bonus prize orange juice. I set about slathering the blackened crust with butter while I finished “Blondie,” and wished to hell I could stop reading that strip. Man is lazy and eats sandwiches late at night. Those three words cover 90% of America, and this guy still can’t write a joke that anyone relates to.

There. I hope you enjoyed this small commentary on the state of newspaper cartoons in America.

If you’re not reading from America, let me add that Fred Basset and Andy Capp are garbage.

I munched toast and orange juice and tried to decide what I was going to do with the rest of my day. I had got out of bed, so there had to be a rest of my day, even if the plan was to sleep through it.

“Please don’t sleep through the rest of the day,” my mom asked me, as she set coffee next to me.

“What else should I do? My life is ruined.”

“It works better if you put your hand like this,” mom put the back of her wrist to her forehead and cast her head back. “Watch. I have errands to run! And I need my son’s help.”

Something about that hurt, and it wasn’t my pride. “I’m your daughter now.”

“Are you? You made rules.”

I made a pphhhhhhhhhp noise, then got to something that had been bothering me, “I woke up and my boobs were everywhere. How do you keep them in your bra while you sleep?”

She laid her hand on my wrist, “You take it off before you go to sleep.”

Face flushed, I laid my head in my hands.

“I was wondering why you were wearing it under your pajamas. They’re not the most comfortable things, you can take them off when decency allows.”

I put down my coffee mug, “I need to go do something.”

Upstairs I took off my shirt and stood in front of my mirror with just bra and pants. Dressed? Not today. I tried to undo the bra from the back, and got one hook undone. With the bra like that, I couldn’t get the second one and had to turn it around again.

Then I put my pajama shirt on and went back downstairs.

“I suspect that feels better,” Mom said, from the table. She’d finished the paper and was knitting with her new cup of coffee.

I sat down and felt everything on my chest shift around. Do I feel comfortable talking about it with her? Barely. But I had questions to ask, and she was safe. “It’s better, but everything is so floppy. How do you deal with that?”

“You just do. What do you want to do today?”

“I just want to sit and read for a bit, while you go to work.”

“I’ve canceled with all my clients for this week, you get my undivided attention. I mentioned that we have errands to run.”

“I can’t go anywhere like this.”

She sat back and put her knitting on the table. “Well, you can’t stay home for the rest of your life. And if you’re going to stay here, we need to take care of logistics.”

I gave a deep, teenage, sigh, “You love logistics.”

“Do you want your allowance, or not?”

“Oh right. Yes I would like some money please.”

“Well then you have to wear something you can go to the bank in.” She picked up her knitting again. “Why don’t you get dressed, and then we’ll go out.”

Upstairs I opened my closet to find some new pants. I hung my clothes in the closet now, instead of putting them in drawers. Actually I mostly stored my clothes on the floor. That was unlikely to have changed with my gender.

What did change with my gender was the way it hurt when I opened the door and knocked it straight into my right boob. Damn that hurts. I have a new set of dimensions now. More depth to my body.

These pants. Getting them on was a pain. I had to scoot them up over my hips. They were boot cut, but they still clung to everything above my calves. That shirt I was in. Shoes. Smack my left boob going out the door. Why can’t I go through a door anymore?

Mom grabbed her keys, and I slumped after her to the car.

“How much do you think you’ll spend in a month?” Mom was taking me to her credit union where I had once got a children’s account. You know the kind. Where they give you a folder to store quarters in, and you feel like you’re special, and you can save money now, and you grow up and realize you can’t.

Target last night I was out in the night time. In a place where everyone was concentrating on shopping. As we stood in line at the bank, I was aware that everyone was looking around at the other customers. Making judgments. I put my head down, tried to hide inside myself. Avoided anyone’s eyes.

I hung close to my mother, and wanted to reach out and take her hand, like a little boy. Wanted her to chase off all the eyes looking at me. When she felt me near she rubbed my back and I felt a bit better. “As far as their all concerned, you’re just a teenage girl, here with your mother,” she kept her voice low.

“I can’t handle this,” I whispered to her.

“I think you can. We’re up next.”

Mom told the teller we needed an appointment to set up a joint account, and we got directed to a little waiting section, and were told to wait in it. Because that was what it was for. I sat and crossed my legs and found a magazine.

My mom sat down and pulled out her knitting. Then she looked at me for a moment and seemed like she wanted to say something, and didn’t. Instead she knit, until she looked up like she was going to say something else. And didn’t. And then set her knitting aside. “Aisling, you’ve seen how a woman crosses her legs.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you know why?

“I never thought about it.” The way I was doing it now was uncomfortable, for some reason.

“If you were wearing a skirt, you’d be showing everyone your panties right now.”

“Well I’m not wearing a skirt, mom.” Rule no.2 hangs on tight.

“Just something to keep in mind, dearheart.” She went back to knitting.

I picked up the magazine again, then waited. When I was sure she wasn’t paying attention to me, I put one knee on top of the other. I could feel the balls of my femurs line up when I did it. It was much more comfortable this way. I switched back to ankle on knee in an act of defiance, realized that sucked, and put them back.

My mom had a tiny smile on her face as she continued to knit. I wiggled my ‘on top’ foot from the knee, and then stuck my tongue out at her.

Around this time a man in a nice blazer and tie and carefully messy hair came up and offered his hand to mom, and then to me, “Hi, Aisling. Hi Ailene. My name is Cameron, why don’t you come on back to my office?”

Inside a bank office, with its bank desk, and giant bank window, and bank computer, and bank pens, and bank pamphlets, Cameron sat down and leaned back, and stared at me. “So I understand you want to open a joint account with us today.”

“Yes,” mom said, “and I’d like to attach a credit card to the account.”

“Okay,” Cameron turned to his computer, while still staring at me, “let’s see what we’ve got here.”

And so we gave him a bunch of information, and he offered us types of bank accounts, and it was all boring, and all the while I got more and more uncomfortable. Am I imagining it? He’s staring at me, right? He looks at mom sometimes, but mostly he’s looking at me.

I tried to be polite because I didn’t know what was going on. Tried to contribute to the conversation because I was basically an adult. Tried to shake off the uncomfortable feeling that was sitting in the back of my head. Maybe I just don’t like him. He is* a bank stooge.* A beholden of a financial corporation. A bourgeois salesman, without the talent to do something creative or meaningful. Just move other people’s money around. No, that’s not it.

He was making me uncomfortable. I knew my feelings, and I knew that. I just didn’t know why. It wasn’t until mom had finished filling out her forms, and he passed those forms to me, that I watched his eyes and realized. He’s not staring at me. He’s staring at my breasts. His eyes took a moment to dip, and make tit contact, and then flashed back to my eyes again.

I picked up a pen from the desk, and hunched over on myself filling out the forms, trying to make myself as small as I could. My hair fell around my face making a little safety curtain, and I focused on filling in the little boxes very carefully.

After I handed him the forms he left to go get something, and I leaned back in my chair. He was, like, mid twenties. I was fourteen. Even if he was a girl, I wouldn’t want anything to do with him. Well you’ve been checked out now. How did that feel? Bad. I felt really bad. I didn’t know why I was so uncomfortable, and I didn’t know why I didn’t want to just punch him. But my first feeling wasn’t self defense. Well it was, but it wasn’t martial self defense. It was the kind of self defense where you just try to make yourself not a target. Where you run away.

As a guy, I’d always wondered why women didn’t just call people out when they were sexualized. Now I knew. For a start, it was too embarrassing to bring up. He was embarrassing my by staring and telling him not to stare would just call attention to the fact that he was staring. And if I did bring it up, I couldn’t prove he’d been doing it. I couldn’t prove that he had been making me feel uncomfortable, because how could I? All he would have to say is ‘Oh, I wasn’t’ and then the whole thing would be worse.

So when he came back, I just refused to meet his eyes. I turned my body away from him as I took the card he offered me.

He handed me a pamphlet with all my account information, and we left the bank. I could feel his eyes on my ass on the way out the door. I could feel them on my breasts as we walked to the door in the lobby. I could feel them on my crotch as we got into the car. I could feel them all over me as I started to cry.

School

My mom let me take some time to compose myself before she started the car. Again, she didn’t ask anything. I don’t know what she thought happened in there, but I don’t think it was as bad as what actually happened.

When the sniffles had stopped I asked her, “Where are we going next?” Trying to pretend that nothing had happened.

“Well I had a couple appointments scheduled, unless you want to just go home.”

I did just want to go home, but I also wanted to pretend that everything was normal. As normal as getting donkey-punched into the wrong gender could be. “Where are the appointments?”

“A couple of schools, I thought we could take some tours.”

“I’m never going back to school.” I was being petulant, I knew it.

“Well I don’t believe in home schooling, and if I did I wouldn’t think myself qualified. You need someone with a degree in what they teach, and you find them in schools.” She gave me a hard look, as she stopped to wait for traffic out of the parking lot, “So you’re going to school until you’re 18. After that I don’t have any control over what you do.”

“I’ll run away,” I said it earnestly, but there was a smile on my face. Mom was being a mom, and caring for me. They say children need rules to let them know you care. If you had told me that, I would tell you I didn’t believe it. But after today I would know I was lying.

“I’ll have to chipped, like we did with the cat. You know the government can use them to track you from satellites.”

“I that true?” That didn’t sound true. That sounded like something grammpa would post on facebook.

“Sure it’s true. Are you telling me you don’t read your grammpa’s facebook posts?”

“I muted him after he posted the eight hundredth thing about how lazy young people are.”

Mom pulled onto the highway and started for the center of the city. “I used to get those posts during family dinners, and I couldn’t mute them. Who says technology limits society?

We listened to the radio for awhile. Mom liked NPR but had no illusions about how much I loved the news, “You can hook up your phone if you want.” I had to connect my phone to the stereo’s blutooth, and when I’d got that done I got ready to blast some Die Antwoord, when mom said, “No Die Antwoord.”

“They’re good.”

“They’re not.”

“Major Lazer?”

“Who are they?”

“They’re good, you’ll like them,” I said, knowing that she wouldn’t.

Mom took her exit off, “You only say that when you know I won’t.”

“Okay,” I settled, “how ‘bout Jonathan Coulton?”

“Who’s he?”

“Like Weird Al, but he writes all his own songs.”

“Let me hear.”

I started with ‘Re: Your Brains’ because it’s the best way to break someone into Coulton, and by the time mom pulled into the parking lot she was singing along with the refrain, and occasionally flubbing a lyric.

“This is no where near our house, mom,” I said, as we entered the… main hall I guess. The big open part in front of the doors, anyway.

“No, but they have one of the best academic programs in the city, and the light rail comes within walking distance.”

“You want me to ride the train with the junkies?”

“You’ll find it’s nearly painless. Heroin much less so. Try to abstain.”

I pouted, realized that I was pouting like a girl instead of coming up with a witty rejoinder. That girls could come up with witty rejoinders wouldn’t occur to me until I was exposed to Jane Austin, and teenaged friends. “Well I smoked pot once, so I guess I’m ready for the hard stuff.” That got a look of shock from her. “You flinched. You owe me lunch.”

“Lunch has passed dearheart. We barely made it before the school closed as it is. Besides, I’m not enabling your munchies.” She said this as she walked to the counter where a very fat receptionist was working. “Aileen McKinnon, here for a school tour.”

We both had to sign in, and put on name tags, and get our pictures taken, then put on new name tags because the fat guy had screwed it up. The new name tags had our pictures on them, and both our names screwed up.

Stupid Gaelic.

I’m sorry Gaelic. You’re beautiful. Please don’t let one of your little people read this and curse me.

Then he brought out a senior, who looked like he got blasted in the face with an acne gun, wearing a letter jacket and told him we need a tour.

The senior’s name was John and he gave mom and I a cool once over. I shrank deeper into myself, and hated that I couldn’t meet his eyes. But that was it. No lingering gazes, no request for my number. Instead he shook my mom’s hand, and away we went.

He showed us the bigger gym as he told us about the footballer teams that blah blah blah the blah’s in blah, blah, and last year. He showed us the smaller gym as he told us about the cheer squad, I blanked out everything he said after, ‘our cheer squad.’ He showed us the library as he told us about the golf team. What in fuck? This school has a golf team?

I nudged my mother’s elbow, and whispered, “Is this what you came to show me? The golf champions of Denver?”

She interrupted John in the middle of whatever he was talking about, “Why don’t you show us the art labs now?”

He had clearly been leading us back to the front office, but he shrugged, and said, “Sure.”

We walked by the art rooms, where I could see that there were 12 or 14 wheels, and desks that swung up, and— “Are those cintiques?”

“Me-huh-oh,” said idiot John. “I don’t come down here much.”

“Thank you John, you’ve been very helpful,” mom told him. Anyone else would think she was giving him a compliment. To me her voice was whithering sarcasm. He turned to lead us away while my mom pulled out her school pamphlet and read through it, not about to move away. I was transfixed. There must have been 10 of them in there, only 8 students, all preoccupied with drawing on the state of the art computer monitors. “They have animation classes,” my mom used the carrot, “two-dee and three-dee.”

That cinched it, “I’m sold.”

“That’s good dear.” She turned to idiot John, “You may take us back to the front office now.”

John did that, eager to get rid of us and text his friends about how boring his office job was, a hobby he would enjoy for the next 50 years.

We met next with the counselor and figured out my school schedule. The schedule went 1st–8th on Monday. Then on Wednesday and Friday it went 1, 3, 5, 7 and Tuesday and Thursday it went 2, 4, 6, 8. On the big class days there was a half hour for lunch if you didn’t have that period off, and you got an hour and a half lunch on two days of the week. This meant that optimal scheduling was to have both 5th and 6th off and have an hour and a half for lunch every day of the week.

Unfortunately the counselor wanted me to sign up for seven classes, and I couldn’t make the case that I needed something off with my mom right there. And I had to choose from a bunch of pre-reqs in any case. Might as well get them all out of the way. Needed a year of English before I could take another language. “They have Latin,” my mother said.

“Why would I want to learn Latin?”

“Don’t you want to read all of the graffiti in Pompeii?”

“Do you think that will be on the test?”

“I’m sure you can write an essay on the meaning of cacatur cave malum.”

She has that smile, where she’s said something really funny, and she knows no one got the joke. Fortunately I had a phone.

The counselor suggested design, so I could take real art, and I agreed. Anything to get that idiot class over with. There was also algebra that I wasn’t interested in, until he said it was a prerequisite to code, which I was. Then he started in on the social— “Shitter beware? Really mom?”

“See? Latin is useful.”

My counselor smiled like he got the joke, and we both knew he hadn’t. I signed up for drama, instead of speech, and got a 5th period lunch.

“Okay, well then we’ll see you Monday,” the counselor said. “We’ll have a badge and a student ID when you drop by here in the morning.”

Mom looked at me, “Can you handle Monday?”

“Would it matter if I couldn’t.”

She turned to the counselor, “Aisling has just been released from the hospital. She’s fine, but she needs the doctor to clear her before she can begin school. Can we do the week after next?”

Mr. Counselor nodded, “Sure, I’ll just put everything back a week in our system.”

“Yes, it would matter,” my mother said, turning back to me.

To embarrassed to thank her, I just bit my lip and nodded, and hoped she got the message.

It wasn’t until we were outside and I had thrown my name tag in the trash that I managed to say, “Thank you. I’m gonna need this week.” It was still difficult to get used to my voice. I was constantly clearing my throat when I talked.

“I know,” mom said. She unlocked the car and we sat inside. “Aisling,” she didn’t start the car, “you know how much I believe in therapy.”

“Yes, mom.”

“I have an appointment set up for you. Doctor Malmon. He’s worked with more than a few adolescent cases of gender dysphoria. I think it would be a good idea for you to go.”

“Can I think about it, mom?”

“Of course dearheart.”

She turned the engine over and I thought about it. It would be very nice to talk to someone. I hadn’t seen a therapist during my time with my father. He believed that talking to someone you had to pay was some sort of weakness. And my mom was being great, and super understanding. But there was so much I was scared to tell her. About my body. About how I was feeling. About the way I felt about my body. About everything at all.

“Okay,” I said, as we took our exit off the freeway, “I’ve thought about it. When is my appointment?”

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

“Oh good, I can sleep in—regular.”

“Regular for you dearheart.”

I got out of the car, and went up to my room, where I found a copy of Slaughterhouse 5 sitting on my bed. This time the dedication read, “Aisling,” I got that now, “Vonnegut wasn’t right, but he wasn’t wrong either.” It was another first edition, hardcover, first printing. Worth about (google search), $3,500.

Well when you have all of time and space at your disposal, what else would you give someone.

Over the next several days, I read, and I got to know Dr. Malmon. He had time for me every day for the next week, which was a big relief because I had a lot to cover.

Slaughterhouse 5 is the story of Kurt Vonnegut ending up in Dresden during the firebombing. He was captured and the prisoners stored in a slaughterhouse (slaughterhouse 5), which is why he survived the devastation of the city. Only it’s also not about that. In the middle of writing the book, he takes off on a science fiction story about Billy Pilgrim who has come “unstuck in time.” Billy’s consciousness moves through his life non-linearly, skipping around through the events. Halfway in I found, during the part where Billy Pilgrim is kept in an alien zoo, the passage Mr. Glome was talking about:

There were five sexes on Tralfamadore, each of them performing a step necessary in the creation of a new individual. They looked identical to Billy–because their sex differences were all in the fourth dimension.

One of the biggest moral bombshells handed to Billy by the Tralfamadorians, incidentally had to do with sex on Earth. They said their flying-saucer crews had identified no fewer than seven sexes on Earth, each essential to reproduction. Again: Billy couldn’t possibly imagine what five of those seven sexes had to do with the making of a baby, since they were sexually active only in the fourth dimension.

The Tralfamadorians tried to give Billy clues that would help him imagine sex in the invisible dimension. They told him that there could be no Earthing babies without male homosexuals. There could be babies without female homosexuals. There couldn’t be babies without women over sixty-five years old. There could be babies without men over sixty-five. There couldn’t be babies without other babies who had lived an hour or less after birth. And so on. It was gibberish to Billy.

—Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five: Or The Children’s Crusade, A Duty Dance With Death pp. 145–146. 1969.

I put the book down to think after I read that, and didn’t pick it up for a day while I meditated on it. Not right, but not wrong indeed, Mr. Glome.

Therapy

“Do you believe me?” I asked Dr. Malmon. It was our fourth session together. I had just finished explaining Mr. Glome to him. I expected to hear the tired refrain, ‘I believe that you believe.’

“It’s hard not to,” The shrink said instead. “You gave me permission to consult with your doctors and other experts.” He paused and gave me a look, “I hope you’ll understand if I leave the extra dimensional aliens out of my consultations—but from what I’ve seen… your explanation is as likely as any other.

“What I mean,” he continued, “is that there is no explanation for what’s happened to you.” He gave a little chuckle at the thought. It hurt a bit, but I understood his dark humor. Hard not to laugh about it, even though it had happened to me. “Doctor Gunn in particular was very distressed. She wants to run tests and make sure you haven’t imagined the whole thing. An MRI, a DNA panel. She wants to science an explanation out of it. If the explanation is actually science fiction—maybe I should say ‘science fact’—I think it would make her head explode.”

I liked him. It was nice to have a psychologist who didn’t just ask what I was feeling, but was willing to help and provide input.

Dr. Malmon continued, “Joann, and then your mother, and you too, I think; were all strongly against the idea. Medical ethics prevent her from doing anything. Do you know the story of David Reimer?”

I shook my head.

“Reimer’s penis was destroyed during a botched circumcision. On the advice of his doctor he was reassigned as a girl and raised as one. All while the doctor, John Money was writing a book on how gender was learned. The old ‘nurture or nature’ question.”

I interrupted him, “What’s that?”

“The question of whether we’re born some way—nature— or raised that way, nurture. Prone to violence, or caring; or our upbringing is responsible. Most often the debate is raised with homosexuality. The ‘pray away the gay’ crowd loves the nurture theory, as you might expect. Myself, along with the majority of medical science take a different view.

“But there are other implications,” he continued, “Whether Hitler, for instance, was destined to become a maniac from birth, or whether his mother’s preoccupation with ‘cleanliness’ promulgated his dislike of ‘dirty’ races.”

I loved his vocabulary too.

“Hitler was obsessed with dirtiness and disease. His speeches are replete with allusions to the ‘infection’ that Jews and the mentally ill were bringing into the ‘pure’ German race.” He paused and considered for a second, “There are apocryphal accounts that his sex life was both bizarre and disgusting.”

This perked my puberty brain, eager to learn something it could use. “Bizarre how?”

“Well it’s just rumor. But there was a lot of shit involved.”

Good going puberty brain. It slunk away in disgust. “You were talking about the other guy? David?”

“Thank you for reminding me. His doctor engaged in several very questionable experiments, trying to get David to assume feminine gender roles. Including sexual ones. David never came to terms with his artificially assigned gender. Both he and this twin brother committed suicide. In almost every way the doctor’s experiments and theories are a complete failure.”

“I have to turn back into a boy, is that what you’re saying,” I had started to cry, and I didn’t know why. Scared of the surgery, I suppose. Scared that I could never be a real man again. Scared that I would want to stay this way? Probably not. That thought definitely had never ever entered my mind.

Is what I kept telling myself.

“For my own mental health I mean,” I added. I didn’t want to commit suicide. And I didn’t want to want to commit suicide.

“I have some thoughts about that, but why don’t you continue to share.”

I told him more about the past week, my fears of going out in public, which had—not subsided—but gradually decreased. I could go to the grocery store without wanting to flee in shame now.

“I think we should stop there,” he said. “I want to talk more about what I’m thinking tomorrow.”

Mom took me home, and it was her turn to choose the music. She went with the classic 90s station, instead of classical classical.

After dinner I was sitting at my computer when I heard my gramma call. Gramma only calls the land line. She learned the number decades ago, and refuses to learn another one. So my mother kept the land line and so I could talk to gramma too, there was a phone in my room. Mom picked it up, and I waited for the, ‘Gramma wants to talk to you’ shout. I waited ten minutes and didn’t hear it, so I called to mom, “Mom, I need some help with something.”

“I’m on the phone Aisling,” she called. I knew she would take the pone away from her ear, and cover the receiver, and that’s when I picked up my phone. She never heard the ‘click’ as I got on the line.

I hit the mute button fast, before calling, “Never mind, I found it.”

“… Sorry about that, mom, Ash needed something.”

“That’s okay, tell me more about it.”

“He’s just in so much distress. It’s terrifying me. There’s nothing I can do to help him with her—condition.” She was already confusing pronouns. How does that* make you feel, Ash.* I wasn’t sure.

“I feel so helpless here.”

“Have you talked with your therapist?” Gramma was a doctor too, but of podiatry. She got mom into therapy young, like me, and it stuck. Hard.

“Yeah. She wants me to stay empathetic as I can. I’m hiding so much from Ash. I can’t let her see the way I’m freaking out, it would just hurt him more. He needs a strong role model. Someone to let her know that everything is going to still be okay. That she’s still loved and it will work out for the best.”

“There’s no one that can do that better than her mother can, dearheart,” gramma told her.

“I know that, and thank you. But keeping up this exterior of calm is wearing me down.” Mom gave a little sniffle, “I know that she’s strong enough to handle it. She’s young, and he has a huge future ahead of her. He’s not going to let this slow him down, I know it. But standing on the sidelines, and hoping every time she falls down that she’ll get back up is truly heartbreaking.”

“Do you remember when you came down with whooping cough?” Gramma asked her. “You were a rare case. I had you vaccinated but one of your classmates still managed to give it to you when you were fourteen.”

“I couldn’t forget mom, I cracked a rib coughing.”

“For 98 days—I counted—you were hacking and coughing and crying and despairing. And there was nothing I could do. The bacteria was in your esophagus, and you had to get it out. I had to watch you struggle. Hold your hand when you woke up in the middle of the night, coughing so hard you threw up.”

“I peed. Several times. Once in class.” They both laughed, but mom sounded hysterical.

“You came home crying. I had to watch it all, and do whatever I could. Now your in the same situation, and I know if I can do it, so can you.”

“Mom, this isn’t going to go away though. It’s permanent.”

“So you said. And I’m sure you’ll explain it when you’re ready. In the meantime you need to be there for your child. I know you have the strength.”

They tried to move on from the subject from there, and after a few seconds I hung up the phone.

I waited a couple of minutes, thinking in my chair. My knee was tucked under my chin again, up next to my boob. I had found myself touching my breasts occasionally. Something about it was comforting. I wasn’t wearing a bra right now, having ditched it almost as soon as I got home.

Then I untucked myself and padded down the hall to my mother’s room. The door was cracked, and I paused, and then pushed it open. She was lying on the bed, in the ‘Disney princess crying’ pose, quietly sobbing into her pillow. As god is my witness I hadn’t the slightest idea what to do. Dad had made her cry sometimes, I remember from being little. So I did then, what I had done further then; sat on the bed next to her and rubbed her back. I hummed our song for a bit, until her tears stopped and she began snoring.

I tucked her in and went to my own room, and crawled into bed. I put one hand between my breasts, and thought long thoughts while my tears dampened the pillow.

“So my mom doesn’t know what to do either,” I told Dr. Malmon.

“How does that make you feel?” I hate that question on general terms, as being a statement that the psychologist has no idea how to relate to you. They’re just trying to fill in until you hit on something they can comiserate with.

In this case he had a point. Identify your feelings, Ash. “Helpless. Scared. Distressed.”

“Your mother is having a hard time with this. Not as hard as you are. But this affects the people who love you, because they love you.” Malmon scooted around in his chair, “I wanted to share some things with you Ash, I think they’ll help. You know that I counsel young people who are transitioning, or want to transition, or want to not want to transition?”

I nodded, trying to figure out where he was going with this.

“Over the week I’ve taken a lot of notes, and do you know the note I haven’t taken?”

“Hmm?”

“Possible gender dysphoria.”

“So it’s a definite then?” Now I really wasn’t sure what was happening.

“Ash, you don’t show any of the signs of dysphoria. You’re not disgusted by your body, you’re perplexed by it. You’re not trying to reassume your gender. You seem to me to be adapting to it.”

Angry I said, “You think I want this? That I wanted it all along?”

“Not the least bit. But you haven’t shown me that you don’t accept it. That you can’t accept it.”

“Does this mean you won’t sign off on my transition?” That terrified me. I think.

“We have to meet for a year before I can. My position will very likely change. But for right now I would not diagnose you as gender dysphoric.”

“Then what am I?” What else could I possibly be?

“To me you look like someone who is trying to deal with bodily trauma. I’ve treated some people with limb loss, and sudden disabilities. That seems more like what you’re going through.” He paused to think some more, trying to moderate what he was saying, “Ash, I think in your case, you’re trying to adapt to a body that doesn’t seem like yours anymore, but you are adapting. What we tell people in cases of trauma, is that you have to stop defining yourself by wht you were and start defining yourself by what you are.”

I felt like, in some way, his words had helped me pass a roadblock. A week ago they would have just made me cry harder. Now I felt like they would help me deal with the days—the life—ahead of me.

I was still a boy. The rules still held. But I couldn’t act like a boy this way and still find myself functioning. “Thank you, doctor Malmon. I’ll think about what you said.” Trite, Ash. Trite but true.

“That’s all the time we have. Say hello to your mother for me. I think we’re seeing each other every two weeks from now on.”

I shook his hand as I got up, and went out the door.

Come what may, I would be ready for school on Monday.

Crew

What does a guy who’s a girl, wear on his first day of school? I had always just gone to school in whatever I happened to put on that day. My mother hated it, but I didn’t see the point in wearing something different on the first day. Today I stood in front of my closet, and wondered what I was going to wear. This shirt. It was the one with the little loopy bits on it. These pants. They were the ones that fit the best. This bra. It went with the shirt. These underwear. In only a week I had a favorite pair. They were blue. I like blue.

I had an hour before I had to be there and no idea how long the train ride would take. “I can drive you in on the first day.” Mom had said. I hadn’t wanted her to do that. “What if you forget something?” I would call her and have her bring it to me. “I can’t be your go-for, Aisling.” Please mom? “Do you need to do this yourself?” Yes mom.

And so I was going to the light rail station, with an app that told me when I should leave, and what transfers I would need. I had my shiny bus pass in the wallet that wouldn’t fit in my back pocket anymore. I had shoved it inside the backpack, which made the whole point of a pocket wallet moot.

I got my earbuds, made certain my phone had a charge, and emptied my backpack of everything but a notebook and pens. Empty, it slung over my shoulder like a wafting corpse. By the end of the day I would have all new textbooks to hate inside of it.

Downstairs I found a Poptart while my mother stood with her hip on the sink and watched me with a coffee cup in her hands. She handed me my own cup, a travel paper one (we had a stack under the sink) with a lid. “Do you have all your things?”

“Yeah, mom.”

“Do you know how to get there?”

“Yeah, mom.”

“Do you have your phone on you?”

“Yeah, mom.”

“Okay,” she came and gave me a little kiss on the forehead. “You’ll do fine. Call me if you need anything.”

And I was out the door, putting on my earbuds and playing a dubstep mix tape.

I got to the platform just in time to wait five minutes for the train. I sat on a bench in the shade. Shade slowly becomes a necessity in a city that gets 300 days of sunny skies. Despite the Octoberness of the month it was a nice 70 degrees in the morning cold.

Gradually people started filtering in. Cyclists with their road bikes and helmets and silly pants. Business pricks in suits and briefcases, schlubbing with the common folk. 20 somethings, who knows where they were going. And three children, one stroller, and an overworked single mom.

The train came on time. I would learn later to get in the first car. The first car is furthest from the stairs, so no one gets on it except the people who feel like walking the extra 50 feet. This first time I got on the last car, already filling up.

The train wasn’t full, but I had to go down the car to find an empty seat to slump in. There were signs saying not to put your feet on the other seats. I tried to, and with my new height it was much less comfortable than I thought it would be. Instead I crossed my legs, lady style (it really was more comfortable), and read the last bit of Breakfast of Champions while the train took off.

I watched carefully for my stop, then followed my phone the five blocks to the school and checked in at the front desk.

Matt was there, and his first words to me were, “We have a problem with your test scores.” Then he said nothing to me as he took me back to Mr. Counselor, and I sweated over what the problem could be.

“Good to see you again, Miss McKinnon,” Mr. Counselor stood and gestured to the chair in front of his desk. “We didn’t see your scores for the aptitude tests until last week when Albuquerque sent the records over,” he sat and blew out of his lips. “They’re… impressive.”

“They should be. I had to take the dumb test five times.” I had been pulled out of my English class once a week, for five weeks, to fill in little bubbles for an hour.

“Yes. Well. Have you considered an AP class?”

“No. Why?”

Mr. Counselor shuffled his reports, “Because frankly you test out of everything else we offer. I could put you in English four but… Look Aisling, you’re not going to find it challenging.”

“Can I just not take an English class?” I found the prospect a little disappointing, to be honest. I didn’t like to take a class I didn’t need, unless it was an art class. But English offered the opportunity to expand my reading list.

“You can. With Common Core I can just test you out of everything. But frankly,” he used that word too much, “It doesn’t look great on your transcripts. Admission officers are going to ask if you’ve actually learned anything.”

“I was planning on art programs.”

“Frankly, they still look at your English scores. The good ones do at any rate.”

“And AP English looks good.” I wasn’t asking a question.

“AP English your freshman year looks very good.”

“I’m coming in two months into the semester.”

Mr. Counselor leaned forward in his chair, “Frankly,” there was that word again, “I think you can handle it.”

“Okay, AP English it is.”

“Great!” He printed out my new class schedule, and signed an excusal note for me. My new first class was “Health,” which was a pre-rec for PE, for god only knows what reason.

On my way out Matt handed me my ID badge in a little sleeve and told me to keep it visible at all times. I put the lanyard over my neck and went off to ‘Health.’ Seeing the stragglers going to class, I noticed that none of them was keeping their ID visible at all times, and felt like a dork.

I stood outside classroom 234 for several minutes. Okay Ash. A classroom full of people. Not just people, your peers. They are going to judge you. But, they are going to judge you based on what they see. They’re going to see a pretty (you know you’re pretty) girl, who’s just starting a class like a new student.

In all likelihood, no one will care.

Confidence at nearly 30% I opened the door and walked inside.

The teacher was writing notes on the board, looked at me and said, “What do you want?” Like a coach who thinks he’s a drill sergeant. My confidence crashed to nothing, and I felt my eyes water. The guy realized that he’d just yelled at a vulnerable young woman, and that this could get him another meeting with the PTA, and immediately softened his tone. “How can I help you, little lady.”

He surely can’t know that’s worse. If I’d dealt with that all my life I’d be more pissed than embarrassed.

“I’m Aisling McKinnon. I just transferred in.”

He went to his desk, leaned over the drawers, and started pulling things out. “Lets get you on the seating chart.” I glanced at the paper. He’d filled the desks from front to back, so the only spot left was furthest from the door.

I just wanted to come in and sit down. No wait, this was better. If I sat in the back, no one could stare at me.

“Michelle, you have a new friend.” This guy was a real treat. He handed me a syllabus, and the homework plan, and a pamphlet on exercise, then stood straight and went back to the board.

I went to the back and sat next to Michelle. Michelle had hoop ear rings and bangs. Her nails were sharp and I couldn’t figure out how she was using the phone, hidden under the desk, with them on. My ‘Hi’ was not returned, as I pulled out a notebook.

Here are my notes from the first class:

Organs
—Heart, lungs, etc
—Skin largest
—>Groups
—> I leaned this in 5th grade biology
Why am I relearning it just so that I can run around on a track.

The rest was a dragon I drew.

All I had to do was get through history and then I had design and drama and English

Drama was interesting. Ms. Clark wore a skirt, took her shoes off to teach the class, and told us to call her Sally, when no one in the administration could hear us. I was given a small introduction, and asked to tell everyone a secret about myself, and that this secret should be a lie. This is some kind of drama thing. I went with a firm belief in unicorns.

Two months into the semester we were playing a game called “Machine” to warm up. Someone stands in the center and performs a simple repetitive action. Then everyone around them takes turns joining their “machine” with their own simple action.

The key word is “simple”. When I had figured out an action to add (full body stamping the invisible somethings that another student was loading onto what I had decided was a conveyor belt), it only took five or ten stamps before I realized what a mistake I’d made. By the time the warm up ended, five minutes later, I was getting dizzy from exertion. And from throwing my head back and forth.

I wasn’t told how Machine ends. Machine ends with the explosion of the machine. Most of the other students exploded by throwing their arms up and crashing to the floor. Someone next to me exploded by flinging his body through the machine and knocking everyone over.

“Curtis, this is the last time I’m going to tell you to stop doing that,” Sally said. Curtis responded by flailing his body around, and making more explosion noises, which got him detention.

We took our seats, and I noticed that one guy, wearing black pants, a black shirt, black boots, and an army jacket, was waiting for me to choose a seat. Then he sat next to me. I knew I was new, but it was hard not to be shy about it. It’s okay, with luck he won’t talk to you.

“Hi,” he talked to me, “I’m Regular Dave.”

“Aisling,” I told him.

“I know. You were introduced in front of the class, remember? You really believe in unicorns, don’t you.”

Try one word answers, see if that will get him to stop. “Sure.”

Regular Dave nodded like he understood a secret truth. “I do too. As a pure virgin, I’m hoping to tame one.”

Oh my god he’s a Jesus freak. Then Regular Dave put his thumb under a Satanist pendant and gave me a wink.

I stifled a guffaw as Sally started talking to the class, “Okay, we’ve finished up with improv, so now we’re moving on to monologues. You’ve learned to act with your body, now you have to act with your voice. There are monologues starting on page thirty five of the book, but you can choose your own. The one’s in the book should all be under two minutes. If you choose your own, it needs to be under two minutes too, unless you talk to me. By next class you should have a monologue chosen.”

And then she gave us free time to choose our monologues, and everyone spent their time talking instead.

I was sitting in the middle of a group of friends, who all decided that I could be ignored, while they talked around me.

Regular Dave rescued me, leaning in and saying, “Do you already have a monologue.”

I just found out that we had to do them, what are you talking about? “No, why?”

“You haven’t opened your book yet.”

“Oh, no.” I gestured around me, “I was listening to the conversation.”

“It does sound compelling. I’m fascinated to know which one of their classmates is a slut too. Whatever you do, don’t do Sophie’s monologue from Star Spangled Girl.”

“Why not?”

“Because everyone is going to do it.”

“Really?” I picked up my book and started leafing through it to find the offending text.

“At least a hundred and five percent of the girls, and usually one guy too.” He leaned back in his chair.

Don’t touch your hair. Don’t touch your hair. Don’t touch your—goddamn it! I brushed a lock over my ear, and rested my elbow on the back of my chair. My arm ran across my breast as I did so, and I hoped he wouldn’t notice me blush. I still couldn’t touch them in public without feeling like I was doing something wrong. I kept expecting someone to laugh at me every time I brushed them, or adjusted my shirt. “Have you taken this class before?”

“No, I usually sit in on the auditions. Only a year and I’m already sick of that piece.”

“Why do you sit in on the auditions?” I knew I should be feeling shy, but he was just so easy to talk to.

“I’m the STD,” he said it like he expected me to laugh, and I defied him by only raising an eyebrow. “The student technical director.”

I had no idea what those words meant strung together like that, other than he was a student, and directed something technical. Other than the semantics it didn’t tell me a lot. I was about to ask more when Sally took the class over again.

“We have five minutes, so beat the rush hour traffic. On your way out, there are audition sheets next to the door. This semester we’re doing Spring Awakening—” Here Regular Dave threw his hand over his head in the classic “woot” expression, “—And it’s gonna be a lot of fun, David. It’s a hundred extra credit points if you audition.”

On my way out the door Regular Dave walked ahead of me, then stopped and gestured to the board, “You should sign up.” Then he blocked the doorway, and leaned against the wall with his arms crossed.

Well I don’t have to take the role, and the extra credit means I won’t have to do the monologue… “You won’t let me go until I sign up, will you.”

“Nope.”

“Give me your pen.” He whipped a beaten pencil on a clip out of his pocket so fast I almost didn’t see. Then tapped the paper where he wanted me to put my name. I carefully printed it on the line on the sheet, under the word “Crew.” Regular Dave threw me a huge grin, and left without another word.

1st Meeting

Directly after Drama was Math, and I had some problems finding the classroom. I got no introduction this time, just sat down, and was pleased to learn that our section had been covered last year at my old school. This was going to be a breeze. No studying in for this.

And after that was lunch. Which I had been dreading. Occasionally, in the distant past, I had been tolerated at lunch tables. That never lasted long. I never felt like I had anything to contribute. Everyone was trying to make the table laugh the hardest, but all their jokes sounded so stupid to me.

I had pre-packed a lunch, and entered the cafeteria looking for an empty table. There in the back were a few unoccupied, sad, little, unloved bits of refuge, where I could read and pass unnoticed.

On my way toward them I heard someone call my name, “Aising!”

And then several more voices called out, “Hey, Aisling!” or something similar.

Red faced and mortified, I considered hunching over and ignoring whatever bullying was about to start, when Regular Dave called, “Come sit with us.”

I had never been asked to sit with some group. I had never been asked to sit anywhere. Some forgotten feeling rose in me. Hope.

I turned to see a motley collection in the middle of the cafeteria. Spilling off of their small table, and borrowing chairs from other ones. Eight or nine kids, all various ages and genders and sizes, dressed in black pants, almost all of them, and wearing black boots almost exclusively. Regular Dave lounged in a chair with it’s back to me, and had wheeled around to wave his arm for me to come over.

I almost tripped over my shoes coming to join them. Please don’t make an ass out of yourself. Now is not the time to be Loser Ashley.

Regular Dave pulled out a chair and as I sat said, “This is Aisling, she’s one of us.”

Huh. Is this what popular kids feel like? If they didn’t, or they ever had, the wanted to. I didn’t know what I was one of, groups liked to call themselves things, and I didn’t know anything about these guys. None of them were dressed in letter jackets. None of the girls wore makeup, save one, who was only wearing purple eyeliner. None of them were dressed in what I knew fashion was like.

In fact, looking around I could see that I wasn’t one of them. Here I was in a pastel t-shirt, and jeans, surrounded by what looked like a bunch of roadies. And instead of pointing out that I clearly did not belong at their table, everyone said hi and introduced themselves. There was Big Davey, who was big, and Wee Davy, and Regular Dave now made sense. There was a Bree, Autumn, Sarah and Rachel. And there was Jeremy. Jeremy didn’t introduce himself, until two people had introduced himself as Goober. Jeremy clearly didn’t want to be called Goober. He’d been loosing this fight for a long time.

At this time someone else might have talked about what they were wearing in more detail. Couldn’t care less, then or now.

I’ll talk about what was on the table in front of us instead. Cards. Lots of cards were on the table. Perhaps a game of some sort? “What are you playing?”

Autumn put a card on the table, and Wee Davy groaned and threw his down. Then he scooped a small pile of pennies into the center of the table, and Autumn raked them over, taking the pot.

Everyone sat down then, as Autumn shuffled the deck. “Lunch money. Someone give her some change.”

Bree, sitting closest to me pulled a roll of pennies out of her pocket and counted out five to me. “The goal is to take everyone’s lunch money. Normally we play for pennies. I’ve hear of groups that buy in with a hundred dollars.”

Everyone argued over whether that was true until Autumn finished dealing, then argued about it some more while they beat each other with fists, boots, and clubs. Well with cards that represented fists, boots, and clubs. Goober targeted me early on, because I was the noob, then everyone piled on him. After that it was a free for all. I was third from the last, with Bree and Big Davey battling to the finish.

The bell rang, Bree was down further and gave her money to Big Davey, and everyone split up.

I walked off to English feeling like being a girl wasn’t all bad.

Then I opened my locker and ran the door into my boobs and everything sucked again.

Physics was over and I felt the familiar melancholy of a school classroom emptying out. People with places to go, and things to do. The feelings of welcome over lunch had all ebbed away, and I was alone again. Ready to walk to my bus and try to negotiate my way through an unfamiliar system, to an unfamiliar home.

I left the classroom, and followed the flow of people. In the wrong direction I realized, but I didn’t want to look like an idiot and turn around. The school was a loop. I lied to myself and tried to make myself believe that I needed to see the rest of the school in any case.

And then on my way past the auditorium I heard Bree call, “Aisling? Where are you going?”

I turned. Does she want to talk to me? What if I miss my bus? Do I hang out or go home. The decision was easy. I had people. They weren’t friends yet, but they said I was one of them, so maybe that was the start of something. “Home?” I told her.

“Oooooooh, are you changing? Do you have a car?” Autumn was sitting on the floor next to her, chatting with Goober, and I couldn’t tell just what they were all doing here. No one was making any move to leave the school.

Even if they all drive, don’t they want to go home? “I ride the bus. I don’t have a car. Why would I change?”

“Well the meeting is in a half an hour. Are you really going to work in… that?”

I still didn’t have any idea what she was talking about, and vacillated between running away, becoming a nun, and taking a vow of silence; and seeing what the hell she was talking about. I went with the former, moving toward the center of the group, like that was were I was supposed to be, and then asking, “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, honey,” she laid her hand on my wrist, “we have to work on your grammar. It’s ‘what the fuck are you talking about.’”

“Okay, yeah. That.”

“Susan will get here in thirty minutes and unlock the stage. Then we have a short-ass meeting, and get to work.”

One thing to know about me. I find it very hard to confess my ignorance to anything. So standing there, with no idea who Susan was, or what the meeting was going to be about, or what ‘work’ entailed; I just nodded my head. “Oh, Regular Dave didn’t explain that to me.”

“That dumb-ass,” she said the insult fondly. Perplexing. “Hang out with us.” And she sat down. I sat down.

Then the regulars started filing up. Wee David was there next, plopping down with one ear bud in, and jogging his head to music. Big Davey showed up and leaned against the wall.

Everyone turned to Big Davey at this time. Big Davey gave a knowing nod to everyone. Everyone looked like they were going to ask Big Davey a question. Big Davey waited for them to ask.

Autumn finally caved, “Did you get it?”

“It’s in the car, Regular Dave is watching it.”

“Which one did you get?”

Big Davey didn’t answer because Sarah came up at that moment, wrapped her arms around Big Davey and kissed him. “Did you get the Vimle, or the Kivik?”

“I thought we were getting the Färlöv,” Autumn said.

“No one wanted the fucking Färlöv,” Bree told her. Bree was mean. I liked Bree. “It’s a hundred dollars more than we had, and it’s an ugly piece of shit.”

“Sorry, Autumn,” Sarah told her, “but it is an ugly piece of shit. It has throw pillows. What are we going to do with throw pillows?”

“Okay,” I said, “This is a fascinating conversation. Will anyone tell me what the hell you’re talking about?”

Big Davey looked at me, “Should we tell her?”

“She didn’t put any money in, so, fuck no,” Bree said.

“Besides,” this from Autumn, “I wanna see her face when she finds out.”

“My face is right here, you could tell me now, and then you would see it.”

“Not as fun that way, love.”

The door to the stage opened and a woman in her mid fifties with fluffy blond hair propped it open without saying a word. Goober helped Autumn up, Wee David pulled the ear bud from his ear, and everyone filed inside. There was a calm flurry of activity. Everyone knew what needed doing, and they went around turning on the lights they needed, opening up the garage door behind the stage, arranging the curtains. When that was done they all sat down in the garage part, while I was still reeling from my first real encounter with a stage.

It smelled like dust. But so much dust. And so many different kinds. A zoological treasure of species of dust.

There was the dust of the stage itself. Dirt, rubber scuffs, mixed with wood polish. The dust from the curtains, impossible to vacuum, I suppose. Heavy cloth, with a velvet nap, cloth and fabric. There was the dust from the auditorium, a hundred thousand shoes, mingled with the chairs. And the dust from the shop. Sawdust, hot metal. Work dust, that knew it was dangerous. Dust that could lop your finger off, if you hadn’t learned to be careful so hard you no longer thought about how careful you were.

We stood in the center of light and activity but beyond our little island was a dark abyss. The house wasn’t lit, and it was a blank nothing beyond.

I don’t know if what I was feeling had a name, but I wanted to feel it forever.

“It’s like that every time,” Regular Dave said from behind me.

I felt like I had been fooled into a profound experience, and then caught with my pants down, “What am I doing here?”

“I told you, you’re one of us. You’re a techie now.”

Susan was dumpy, not really fat, but over the years her face had melted like a wax sculpture. Everyone was standing around her in the shop. Along the back wall was a pile of lumber on steel bars. They seemed to be there to separate one pile of lumber from another, but I couldn’t tell by what criteria. It made it look like someone had done something to the gravity in here, and a house had fallen sideways onto the wall and disintegrated. There was a table saw, and I knew what that was because it was in the middle of a table. All the other things? Well they were sharp things, and probably had names, so that momma sharp thing could tell them apart.

“We’re finalizing the designs for the set this year,” Susan told us, “so it’s platforms and flats for the next two weeks, because everything we have is in really bad shape.” She turned to me, “What’s your name hun.”

“This is Aisling,” Sarah said. “She’s cool.” I tried not to beam.

Then Susan killed my vibe, “Those shoes are okay for today, Aisling. But Wednesday I need to see you in some boots, or you don’t touch a thing in here. There’s lumber down stairs in the truck, go bring it up. I want 15 platforms done today.”

And then everyone filed out, and went downstairs, and propped the door open. In the back was a truck, but not like a truck. Like a truck. Not a truck that you buy because you think it’ll be cool to have a truck. Like a truck you buy, because you need a truck. A scaffolding had been welded along the back so that a bunch of plywood sheets could be stacked lengthwise while the rest of the truck was filled with 1x and 2x. I looked around, chagrined to see that everyone else was wearing, or putting on, heavy work gloves. I was trying to decide if I should say something along the lines of, ‘Oh you guys use gloves? I stopped a long time ago’ when I was jerked out of my plan. I looked down to see Rachel had slapped a pair of rat eaten gloves into my chest.

“Here, I just bought new ones,” then she climbed into the truck and started passing big hunks of wood to people.

Bree was the first in line, and I expected her to take a 2x, and then bring it inside with someone’s help. I expected wrong. She took one, and then another, and then another, and then another. At three she swung around, very carefully, adjusted them on her shoulders, and took off. Well okay. But that’s Bree, Sarah won’t—Sarah took four. Autumn took four. So it went until it was my turn in line and we were out of 2x4s. Oh thank god, I can probably carry four of the skinny ones. And Rachel put four on my shoulder, and I said, “Hurk.”

She stopped, and did her best not to look at me with pity, “By the end of the month, you’re going to be throwing those around like they’re toothpicks.”

I gave her a wan smile, and spent the next ten minutes trying to get them inside without fainting, while people carrying a lot more passed me on the stairs. I managed one more load, and by that time the guys were carrying in the plywood, three to four at a time.

I put my load on the pile, which Wee Davy was busy sorting. He had a forty gallon trash can next to him, and was throwing smaller pieces of wood into it, while he shuffled the other stuff around. “Hey,” I asked him, “does everyone always know what they’re supposed to do here?”

Wee Davy looks at me a little confused, “She told us what to do, we’re making platforms.”

“You aren’t making platforms,” I don’t know why this bothered me. I felt like I fit in, and didn’t fit in.

“No, I’m organizing the lumber, so that other people can make platforms. Then I’ll make platforms.”

“Okay,” It was time to admit my ignorance, “how do I make platforms?”

“Oh!” He seemed to get something, and threw the planks into his hands into the trash can. “We have to get Rachel or Regular Dave, I can’t certify you on anything. Come with me.”

On the stage there were three teams of two, each one working over the plywood with tape measures, and chalk lines. Rachel and Regular Dave and Susan were talking as a group, while everyone worked. Wee David didn’t even wait to interrupt, “Aisling needs to get certified on everything before she can start.”

Susan nodded, “Will you do that Rachel, get a form out of the desk, and put it on the wall.”

Rachel nodded, turned and appraised me. “Do you have a hair tie?”

That’s probably one of the girl things mom wanted me to buy. “Not with me, no.”

“Alright, we’ll have to get a rubber band. You can’t go into the shop with your hair loose, it has to be up.”

“Why?”

“So a band saw doesn’t catch it and rip your scalp off.”

“Hair up in the shop, got it.”

Rachel pulled a form out of a desk inside the shop, threw a rubber band at me, and misspelled my name on the form. “No, it’s spelled A-I-S-L-I-N-G.”

“Aysling?”

“It’s Gaelic.”

She handed the form to me and I corrected the spelling. Then she took it, put it on the wall, and screwed it in with a screw gun. “There.” She looked at me and waggled the gun, “What’s the point of keeping thumbtacks around?”

Over the next half hour I was taken through the shop and told all of the ways not to do things. This is a miter, hold this, don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this. Here’s a quick square, use it like this, not like this, not like this. This is a band saw, don’t touch this, don’t put your hand here, don’t lean. Here are the nuclear launch codes. Don’t press this button, or this button, and especially not this button. And on and on like that.

What she didn’t ever explain was how to do anything, just how not to do it. She assumed that I would figure out what worked. And at that point I wasn’t sure what I could possibly be doing here.

And then I got to build a platform and fell in love again.

Platforms are the Lego of stagecraft. They’re the bits that actors walk on, or stand on, or talk on, or whatever it is actors do. A platform is just like it sounds. A 4x8 piece of 3/4 inch ply, with 2x4 runners. You put them on legs, and stabilize them, and they can be anything you want, as long as you want something that you stand on at a certain height.

Rachel put a screw gun in my hand, and handed me some screws, “Do not ever put the screws in your mouth,” she said, speaking around two screws sticking out of her lips. “This runner is cut, put two screws here.” She watched me. “Now put two here.” “Good.” “Do the same on the other side.” “This needs to be cut,” she handed me a 2x4. “The ply is four feet across, and there’s a two by on either side, how long does it need to be?”

“Umm,” Do some quick math— “Three feet eight inches.”

“Right—” I turned to cut my first piece of wood, ready to step into the fire, “—but wrong,” she finished. “Two by fours are measured before their trimmed. They’re actually one and a half inches thick, and three and a half inches wide.”

“Okay,” More math thinking, man I’m not used to this, “So that’s three feet, nine inches?”

“Yup. Go cut it.”

I went in to the shop, Rachel didn’t follow. She’d showed me what to do, and now I had to do it, and she wasn’t going to watch me. This seems easy enough. Just don’t touch anything in the shop and flee. Instead I put the measured hunk of wood on the miter, and cut it. Wow that was easy. Then I did it three more times, threw the end in the pile.

It was around this time that I began to realize what I had been feeling this whole time. Power. Here in this shop, I could do anything I wanted. No one was watching me. I could build a ship. I didn’t want to build a ship. I wanted to build platforms. Why did I want to build platforms? Because no one was there to tell me I couldn’t. Someone needed platforms. I knew how to build platforms. I will build someone platforms, and no one can stop me.

That was what the stage was. Everything you wanted to do to have a play was there. It was versatility. It was can-do attitude. It was a cornucopia of untapped potential.

One platform done, I realized that Rachel had left. Jeremy was with me now, and we were just working. We didn’t talk, we didn’t have to. He could see what I needed, and he did it. I could see what he needed and I did it. And for a little bit the world was perfect.

The Loft

Sometime around platform number three I stopped to rest, because everyone else had stopped to rest. I sat, legs splayed in front of me; arms, like a tripod, behind me. Autumn and Sarah were discussing the play we were doing, as if they had both read it. Because they had both read it. The discussion centered around the set design, and had nothing whatever to do with the rest of the play.

I had done some drama before. In my experience the discussion was all centered around the difficulty of a particular scene, or the motivation of the character. On the other hand, all of the actors had contributed to building the sets (which were marker drawings on butcher paper), there were no lights, flies, or sound. Apparently the stage techs did not give a flying fuck about the character’s motivation, of the subtleties of playing them.

I asked something about it, as round about as I could, “Do you think the lead will be difficult to play?”

Bree shrugged, “Not my problem. So long as they can find the light and get to sound checks on time, I couldn’t give a fuck.”

“Are we getting a choice between painting and building again?” Sarah asked her.

“As long as I have anything to say about it,” Regular Dave said from behind them. He was carrying a really big box with Big Davey. Big Davey was around five foot tall and Regular Dave was closing in on six foot, so there was kind of a mismatch there. “Susan has left. We have about an hour fifteen. Sarah, can you bring in fly bar one?”

Sarah got off the ground with minimal effort, and went stage right, where a group of… well… very complicated pulleys stood against the wall. She did somethings that seemed only a little less complicated, then called out, “Fly bar one coming in downstage!” And started cranking the rope.

From down from the ceiling—the flies I guess—a big metal bar descended, while everyone moved out of the way. She held her place over by the fly pulleys while Regular Dave took some strap things from Rachel. He carefully cinched the box up, and attached some caribiners to it. Then he and Big Davey clipped them to the fly bar and screwed them on tight.

I could see that there was a picture of a couch on the side of the box, and made the leap when Rachel asked, “Hey Regular Dave, what’s the safety factor on a couch?”

“Sixteen,” he told her. Everyone laughed.

I’m sure I’ll get one joke eventually.

Everyone stopped laughing when Sarah called, “Give me a second to load eight hundred pounds on here.” She turned to a stack of weights.

“Don’t you dare,” Big Davey called to her. “It weighs fifty pounds. You’ll send it through the fucking roof.”

“Don’t joke then,” she flipped him off. He flipped her off.

“Take it up,” Regular Dave called.

“Fly bar one going up, downstage!” Sarah shouted again, and the bar went back up.

Autumn got up, and offered me her hand. I took it, and brushed dust off my ass, as Regular Dave led us over to a ladder standing next to the fly pulleys.

“Four years ago,” Autumn told me, “Susan had to go somewhere—”

“—to get high in the park—” Goober interrupted.

“—so she left the keys with Jessica. She was the STD, graduated that year. Jessica worked at Home Depot part time, so she took the keys over and copied every one of them.”

“These keys,” Regular Dave showed me, “Have been passed down between STDs ever since.” He unlocked the metal plate the blocked off the ladder, bowed and waved gentlemanly for us to proceed.

Rachel went first calling, “On ladder!” Before she started climbing meticulously. Never less than three limbs on a rung.

I was next, and I stepped forward and put my hand on the ladder when Autumn put her hand on my shoulder and yanked me back. “Wha—”

“Safety first,” she told me. Then she stepped between me and the ladder and waited without touching it.

When Rachel called, “Off ladder!” Autumn called just like Rachel had, when Rachel called “on ladder”. Then started climbing.

Then I was next, and I waited until I heard her call out, and climbed just as carefully.

The top was a huge, new kind of special. Dark for a start. The light filtered up from below, making this a weird twilight realm, fifty feet above the stage. We were over the house, where three rows of catwalks were connected by one walk that went from the back of the house to the back of the stage. Along bars—haphazardly placed—were long, tubular lights, with levers and hooks hanging from c-clamp type things.

I was spellbound all over again, until Rachel called beside me, “Off ladder!”

I turned to her, trying to shake off my awe, “I could have done that.”

“But you didn’t.”

I had to give her that. I stepped away from the ladder and looked down at the stage. I’d like to say it looked tiny, and it did, so I will. At the same time, I was aware that this part here was also the stage. And the walkways that led back to the house were the stage. And the flies that stretched still further above us were the stage. And it was all the stage, and it was huge.

Rachel left my side and started down the catwalk, to where the box sat suspended on the bar. She started pulling the bar closer, then called down to Regular Dave, “Hey genius. The loft is back there.” I couldn’t see what he did, but I saw her flip him off. This seems to be a common refrain here. No one is upset by it. When I’m comfortable enough to flip someone off, I’m in. I started to plan who it would be, and why I would do it, as I wandered along the cat walks thinking.

Finally Regular Dave called, “Off ladder!” and we were all up here. By this time Rachel and Sarah had wrestled the box off of the fly bar and were negotiating it further upstage over the catwalk. I followed the crowd, which followed the two of them, eager for something new to discover.

What I discovered was “the Loft.”

The Loft sat above the shop, but not over the shop. The Loft was poorly lit, until someone flipped a switch, and a light hanging precariously from one of the rafter bars came on. Then the Loft was too brightly lit, and I could see that it was pieces of 3/4 plywood c-clamped on the rafter bars. Two feet below were foam ceiling tiles that I knew would shatter to bits if I put the slightest weight on them.

The Loft was about fifteen feet to a side, and the rest was empty space. At some point guard rails had been erected as sturdily as everything else these people did. At first glance it looked like it would come apart in a second and we would all plunge into the abyss. Then I noticed sturdy bolts, strung high tension cable, and thick wood. Whoever put this together knew exactly what they were doing. “When did you make this?” I asked.

“No one knows how long it’s been here,” Wee David told me, from where they were setting down the box. “Since the school opened we guess. Jessica put in wire rails. Before no one came here because they were all terrified.”

Box down on the floor, three people whipped out sharp knives and started cutting it to pieces. Then they pulled packages out of the pieces, and started cutting them out of their pieces. Wee David and Rachel started passing the bits to Autumn and Bree who had loaded a screw gun each, and were already reading the instructions.

The a couch like the one that had taken my mother and me half a day to finish was together in about ten minutes. That done, Big Davey picked up three screws off the floor. “When you have parts left over, that just means you built it better than it was supposed to be,” Bree told him.

Regular Dave sat on one of the beams and crossed his arms, “Did anyone bring a gel?” No one had. “Aisling, go to one of the ellipsoidals, and find a gel. Try to get darker than fifty percent, but anything will do.”

“Sure,” I told him, “I will do that, because I totally know what all of those words mean. In fact, I know so well that I should give you a test on them.” I did my best to not be terrified as I leaned on the rail, “Now, what do they mean?”

“Let me show you,” he said.

An ellipsoidal, it turned out, was one of the long lights. Gels out it further turned, were transparent colored plastic that hung in a frame in front of the part of the light where the light came out. Regular Dave took one of these, melted into a little bubble, back to the loft, where he put it over the little can shaped light.

“What do you think guys?” The loft was bathed in hideous green/yellow light.

“It’s shit hideous,” Sarah said.

“Blue? Red?”

“Red,” said everyone.

“Can you do it, Wee David?”

Wee David got up from the couch, where Rachel promptly sat down, and grumbled his way down the ladder. Yes, he called out, “On ladder!” and “Off ladder!” Then he called it again when he came back.

“What game should we play?” Bree asked.

Everyone started to say games I’d never heard of, when Regular Dave checked his watch and said, “We only have thirty minutes.”

“Hang on,” Sarah pointed at me, “She hasn’t been sworn in.”

Everyone agreed, that, yes, I hadn’t been sworn in. “Is this something with blood?” I’m not afraid of blood, unless it’s my own, and I have to bleed it.

“No,” said Regular Dave—

—at the same time, “Yes,” said Bree. “You can’t go easy on the new girl just ‘cause you’re hot to get in her pants.”

I looked at Regular Dave with a whole new sense of fear. Oh, god. Not him. Not now.

“I’m not trying to get in her pants,” said Regular Dave.

Whew.

“That will happen later.”

Crap.

Regular Dave pulled a screw gun off of his belt, and flipped a knife open.

What the hell are you doing here, Ash? Everything about today had been surreal. For a moment I felt myself outside my own mind. This couldn’t be me. This kind of thing didn’t happen to me. I didn’t make friends like this. I didn’t end up inside peoples secret lofts. I’m really at home right now. I’m reading a book, and imagining all of this.

Then reality snapped back when I saw myself offering my hand, palm out.

“No, use this one,” Autumn told him. “I just got a new one.” She leaned forward on the couch, and pulled a knife out with a clip on the handle of a pocket. I could see as she did that there were two other clips on that pocket, and three on the other side of her jeans.

She handed it to Regular Dave who said, “This is a Kershaw, are you sure?”

“I said I just got a new one.”

Regular Dave shrugged and looked at me. I had put my hand down, and I held it out again, palm up. “I’m not gonna cut your palm,” he said. “It takes weeks to heal, and I can’t have you bleeding all over my tools.”

Rachel laughed, and looked to the group, “He thinks they’re his tools.” She threw a gum wrapper at his head.

“That’s it,” he said, “You don’t get the keys anymore.”

“Please? I’ll suck your dick.”

“Okay you get the keys again.” He took my wrist in his hand then, and with Autumn’s knife, he drew it across my upper arm. I didn’t hurt at all, but I said ‘ow’ out of reflex. Then he took my right wrist, almost tenderly (I tried not to think about that) and put my palm on the cut.

My mind had gone numb at this point, like what was happening was happening to someone who had a clue. Who was cool.

“Put you hand on the screw gun.” I did. “Repeat after me, ‘I Aisling McKinnon do solemnly swear…’”

I repeated all this, don’t make me write it twice, and I won’t make you read it twice. It’s boring for both of us.

“ ‘… will not, on pain of death, dismemberment, and more death, reveal the keys, the Loft, or our extracurricular activities, to any faculty, parents, or shit-eating, cocksucking, actors.”

Extracurricular activities? It’s just tech club. Wait, is this a club? Whatever.

“Free from jealousy or envy I will play without inhibition, so do I swear.”

I finished repeating. What the hell does that all mean?

Regular Dave took my hand off the screw gun, as the crew said, in unison, “So swear we all.”

Autumn got off the couch, “I’ll show her the first aid kit. Save my place.”

“You all have to go,” Regular Dave said, and the crew started to file out. All except Sarah and Big Davey. “Rachel,” Regular Dave admonished, “you owe me something.”

Rachel turned back, “What about them?”

Sarah had turned around on Big Davey’s lap, and looked up from where she was kissing him seriously. “We’re gonna stay and christen the couch.”

I only realized my mouth was wide open, when Autumn whispered, “Your mouth is wide open.” I shut it, and cursed my titties, hard and pointy enough to be shot out of a cannon. As I left, Sarah was busy unbuckling Big Davey’s pants, while Regular Dave sat on the couch, and Rachel got down to kneel in front of him.

What in hell has happened to me here?

I remembered to call ‘off ladder,’ this time.

Skirt

“Who’s going Aisling’s way?” Bree said.

I was sore all over. I had finished six platforms. Rachel sucked Regular Dave’s dick. We were walking out of the back parking lot, through the door under the stage. Night had fallen, and it was somewhere around not too late.

“Where does she live?” Sarah asked.

Sarah had sex in the loft. “In Aurora, on Mississippi,” I said, “Near the light rail.” Everyone was splitting for cars. I texted my mom, but hadn’t heard back yet. I had expected to be really late, taking the train. Like a loser. Or maybe loser Aisling had died.

Rachel got down on her knees and sucked his dick.

“That’s me,” Autumn said. “Come meet Bruce.” I followed her to a… car. I’ve never know cars. I guess it was an SUV. It was big. Like, really big. And a very ugly color, somewhere between brown and gray. I got in the passenger side, feeling all the while like I should wait for permission, or for Autumn to open the door or something. But that was loser Aisling thinking. This Aisling didn’t wait for some fucker to open her door. She just got in some stranger’s car, and got taken home.

Sarah just unbuckled his pants. Just like that. Like she knew what she wanted to do. And how his pants worked.

Bruce reeked of hippy air freshener that I was certain would give me a headache. Autumn closed her door, rolled down her window, and before she even started it up, she lit a cigarette. “Hope you don’t mind, because I’m not gonna stop.”

“No, that’s fine.” With all the air freshener going on in there, I wasn’t going to smell when I got home.

Rachel on her knees, then coming back to the stage like nothing had happened.

Autumn pulled out of the parking lot, and I resisted the urge to give her directions. There was an uncomfortable silence, until I asked, “Was that… was that normal?”

“Oh, no. We only build new platforms every few years. Some stages keep using them until they fall apart, but Susan has high standards.”

That’s not what I—They all did that next to each other. I could still feel my damp panties, and I didn’t know what arousal smelled like, but I was pretty sure I smelled like it.

“Are you East or West of Chambers?”

All that sex, and they just did— “West.”

“I’m on the East. Do you have a first and second period?”

I haven’t even had my first—oh. “Yeah, I don’t have anything off until fifth.”

“Okay, I’ll be at your house at six thirty.”

“Oh, no, I’ll just take—” That was loser Aisling speaking. “Are you sure?”

“Just give me some gas money.” And then she talked all about tech. She’d worked fifteen shows, four at the school. She was a junior. She wanted to keep doing it, but not professionally. There weren’t a lot of jobs.

“Right. But the… the sex thing. Normal?”

“Oh. Oh yeah.” She gave me a wink. Loser Aisling would ask more questions. Cool Aisling would be cool, like that was cool.

“That’s cool.”

“What have you worked?”

That was it. I had to confess. I told her all the parts where I had never done this before.

“You’ll love it then. It’s just like playing with Lego. And working a show? That’s stress like you’ve never felt before. But it’s a hell of a rush.”

I pointed the way to my house, we were close at that point. She dropped me off at the driveway. I went inside, trying not to think about Rachel, and what Regular Dave’s dick was like, and what it tasted like, and her on her knees, and how it would feel in my throat… Then I realized what I was thinking, and scared myself more than any thought I had had until then.

I breezed in the front door like nothing had happened to me, to find my mother sitting on the couch, reading a thick book. She looked up as I came in, “You’re home late.” It wasn’t an accusation. Instead an invitation to tell her more.

I came over to the couch, and laid my backpack down in my chair. It was a deep armchair, not a recliner, just a comfy chair. My mom had the couch, I had the chair. I didn’t sit in the chair now because I knew if I sat down I wouldn’t get up. “I think I made some friends.” Or something.

She looked at me over her glasses. I don’t know where she learned it, but when she looked at me like I should talk, I just wanted to talk to her. It was weird. But with being a girl, it seemed like we had more to talk about.

Still, what I was about to ask was both emasculating and em-adulting. I was 14, and I wanted independence, and now I was going to have to compromise that. And I was still a boy, and… “Can you take—can we go—shopping?”

She put her book down, and untucked her feet into a pair of crocs. God love her, but she was so lame. “Sure, it’s late, but I’m sure some things are open. What do you need?”

To stop thinking about sex, and other people having sex, and how badly I want sex. Then my stomach reminded me that I hadn’t eaten since lunch, 20 million years ago. “Something to eat for a start.”

“How does Panda Express sound?”

“What kind of shoes do you want?” Mom asked. We were standing in the aisle of a… some shoe store in the mall. It was like a shoe store. Smelled like leather. Benches with foot measures, and mirrors. A stock in the thousands, and they don’t have the shoes you want in your size.

I didn’t have to give it a lot of thought, “Something with steel toes.” One day of doing stage construction, and I knew how important that was without having been told. When you’re lifting a platform up, or putting it down, easiest thing to do is set it on the toe of your boot. I toughed it out for one day in my sneakers, I wouldn’t be able to do it for two.

We went down the aisle. The store was local owned and high quality, that’s why my mom liked it. They had Birkenstocks. Mom loved Birkenstocks, but she never bought them. She didn’t have to. She still had the pair she bought before I was born.

She found a store lady, with a name tag and a vest, to ask, “What are the best work boots you carry?”

The lady wasted no time taking us to the work boots section, which was filled with work boots. Then she took us all the way down to the last five feet of the aisle, where the womens work boots were. “We have CATs and we have Dickies, and we have a bunch of other brands I hate.” She picked up a pair, “What size are you.”

I saw an immediate, and limiting, problem, “I need them in black.”

The lady sucked her lip, “Well then we have these.” She picked up a pair, and “You look like a four but lets measure.”

I didn’t move. I was at war with myself. With my psyche. With my identity. With everything I thought I knew about myself. In a very small voice, barely squeaking it out, I said, “They’re… kind of ugly.” I tried to keep myself from blushing.

My mother gave me the strangest look, half surprise half understanding.

The store woman opened her mouth, about to tell me that ‘if this is the kind of boot you’re wearing, you’re going to be attracting women who don’t care about that.’ Then she caught to look mom gave her and thought better of it. Instead she thought about how she could keep us in her store, and her commission. “Oh! We just got something in. Measure your feet real quick.”

I already knew I was a four. But I took off my shoe to see my tiny girl feet again. Something about looking at them made me feel humiliated, and I did my best to stuff that feeling deeper inside. I put it on the cold metal tray, and slid the dial down.

“I was right,” Store woman said, “I’ll be right back.”

Mom didn’t say anything while she was gone, and I couldn’t help but be grateful.

Store woman, after far longer than we expected, was back. “It took my awhile to find your size, we just got these in. They haven’t been stocked yet.”

The side of the box said, Caterpillar Black Jace Waterproof Steel Toe. I expected her to pull out something terrible, and readied myself to just go with it. Instead she pulled out… “Perfect.” Shut up, Ash.

They were black. They had suede, and buckles. The were womanly. The had—gulp—not a heel precisely. Just kind of a larger ramp from the ball to the heel. More pronounced. I hadn’t resolved to never wear heels, at least not consciously. Looking at them now I internalized that vow, and then carefully put it aside. Maybe I could wear heels like this. Maybe… maybe I could wear heels a little taller than that?

Shut up Ash. I didn’t know what I was thinking, after a day of not knowing what I was doing. I was tired. My head was tired.

Following that train of thought was Rachel, getting down to the business of sucking cock, because she had said she would on a whim. Now is not the time to think about that. But my brain kept coming back to it.

I remembered at that moment that no one could see my erection. I didn’t keep trying to stop myself from thinking it. But thinking it suddenly felt safer.

What does precum taste like?

Not much safer.

I left the shop, wearing the boots out, with mom. She didn’t look at me as we walked, but I could tell I had all of her focus.

“So. Do you want to buy some new clothes?” She asked.

The first time she asked was when I found out that boys inseam didn’t work with my body anymore. That was a week ago. I looked at my reflection in the shop windows as we walked past. Lengthening hair, girls jeans, t-shirt, freckles. “Okay,” I said, as quiet as I could and still be heard.

“Do you want to… look more like…?”

“I said okay, mom.” I saw the look on her face, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. Where do we go to buy… that kind of stuff?”

“Well I’m not taking you into Victoria Secret, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“MoOOOm!”

She just laughed. “Let’s just go easy and try Pac Sun.”

We walked in, and past the, mannequins. I began to understand all that stuff about body image everyone keeps talking about. These mannequins didn’t look anything like me. I know they were wooden and (generally) andro, but…

They were all so tall. And elegant. And just wrong. Weird necks, weird calves.

That wasn’t it, of course. I was dissembling to myself. It was their tits. Conical, and pointy, and way too far apart. It was like their clothes had no impact on the shape of their bodies. My boobs were constantly getting mashed into bras and strangled in t-shirts. I didn’t know a lot about breasts but I assumed mine were perky. They looked perky to me. But when I took off my bra, gravity still took over. These mannequins didn’t have to worry about gravity.

My mom caught my eye and gave me that look again.

“I just… now that I see it, I don’t think these things look anything like a real woman.”

“Of course not, honey. No one would buy the clothes if they did.” I followed her deeper into the store, “Just what are you looking for?”

“I think I need black.”

“Oh honey, you’re not going goth, are you?”

I looked around me, “This isn’t Hot Topic?”

“Clever girl.”

I blushed are the pronoun. It definitely wasn’t hot topic in here. The walls weren’t painted black, and they weren’t blaring god-awful music, but there more subtle indicators. Brown wood motif with soft low hanging lights. Those round little clothing racks. The ones that were so fun to hide inside when you were little and could fit.

Mom was going around and brushing hangers aside, humming softly to herself. I couldn’t remember the last time we had gone somewhere to hang out. Not that I wanted to hang out with my mom.

I was lying to myself. This was nice.

She looked at me over the rims of her glasses again, “Do you want me too just pick out some stuff?”

“Yea—no. I’m a big boy, I can shop for clothes.”

“Alright.”

I picked through the rack, quickly realizing that I had no idea what would look good on me. All that practice with mirrors had helped, but my face and my body were still new. I didn’t know what girls wore. They just showed up in school in clothes that would give you a boner in math class. Beyond that the process was a mystery.

My mother continued to watch me. “How ‘bout some help?”

Oh, thank god. “Sure.”

She “helped” me, by picking out pants and watching my face. Occasionally she would hit on one that I knew was hideous, but other than that I didn’t ca— “Wait, go back. No, not those, back further.” I pulled a pair of jeans off the rack. Black, yes. Stylish? Perhaps. But something about them said, ‘you should wear me. I’ll look good with you inside me.’

Big Davey was inside Sarah. He could be inside y—Holy Christ, I’m loosing it. Had to stay focused. If anything, I was a lesbian. Rachel’s underwear rode out of her pants as she knelt down, hot ass resting on her heels. That was almost better. Only a few seconds after I started that line of thought, I could feel bullet nipples again. On the plus side of the negative side, I wasn’t in a shop, with my mother, and an erection.

I managed to pull myself back to the present, where I was looking at the jeans.

“Okay, now I know what you like,” mom said, and started going through the rack again.

“Let me see them on you,” mom said, as I went for the changing rooms with four pairs of pants and five tops, in various styles and color.

The changing rooms were just off to the side of the shop. Not even in one of those little hallways, like a target. No room to psych myself up for what was to come, out of my mothers sight. With confidence I didn’t feel, I opened the door and breezed inside.

Okay, lets start this. First order of business, shoes off. I sat on the little bench, undid the buckles, and wiggled my toes. Cant wiggle your toes inside steal toe boots. I put my feet flat on the floor and stared at them for a bit. Feet like this I would expect to have painted toenails. I’m like this forever now. It’s forever until I can get the hormones and halt all this puberty. But my feet would still be the same. I brought my gaze up, past the pretty girl in the mirror, to the pants I’d hung on the hook. The big tag said that they were low-rise, boyfriend, jeans. I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know what they would look like on me. I didn’t know what I was doing here. I didn’t know what I was.

“You’re a techie now.” I heard Regular Dave’s voice in my head. Okay, well techies wear black jeans, when they weren’t wearing black army pants. And (former) boy or not, I couldn’t bring myself to wear army pants.

I stood and robotically took my pants off. The familiar feeling of vulnerability followed them onto the floor. I was naked in public. It was amplified by the fact that I had a girls body. And a girls pussy. There it was behind the panties in the mirror. This is a bad time to touch yourself. Right? That in itself was enough to send me scrambling into the pants.

Hm. Well okay, this is what boyfriend pants are like. For a start, the cuffs were rolled up. They came that way. I think they were supposed to stay that way.

There were shirts—no, just ‘tops’ in here. I found myself going through them, and deciding on something yellow with stripes. Problem.

“Let me see,” mom called. I don’t know how she knew I had an outfit on.

Dressed now I could feel okay about opening the door and going out into the store.

But I couldn’t stop myself from tugging on my shirt as she looked at me.

“Turn around.”

I stumped my way around, refusing to turn like a girl.

“You look nice.”

“The shirt squeezes my boobs. I don’t like it.” I was lying. It made them look huge. Way above the C cups. I don’t know why that made me feel proud, and I decided not to read anything into it.

“Well you look nice, but you can try something looser.”

“I think I’ll go with it.” Oh shit. Did I just agree too fast?

“Okay, honey.”

In the end I left the dressing room with three tops and two jeans.

And then I saw it, and my heart stopped. My mother followed my gaze, and said nothing in that way she did. I made my way, trepidatious and with care across the store. It was faux leather. It had a zipper. The hem was different lengths. I fingered the fabric for a moment. Then I gave in, and took it off the hanger and into the changing room with me.

After staring at myself for several minutes, I heard my mother ask again, “Can I see?”

I came out of the changing room, looking down. Not ashamed exactly. Just… like a stranger in my own head.

My mother raised her eyebrows as she looked at me, “Daring. Do you want it.”

I sucked on my lips, and nodded my head slowly without making eye contact.

“Okay honey. You can have the skirt too.”

Secret Entrance

Rachel on her knees. Sarah unbuckling a belt. What does Regular Dave’s dick taste like? What does Big Davey’s cock feel like?

Don’tmasturbatedon’tmasturbatedon’tmasturbate.

I had come home and put my new clothes way. Home to my room with its comfortable mess, and its desk, and its laptop. My mother had reminded me that my clothes hung in the closet now. I had put my new boots by my bed. And then I was lying there in my pajamas. My boy pajamas, with flannel stripes, trying desperately to keep my thoughts (and my fingers) away from my pussy.

Finally I got up, and got my laptop. I put it on the bed in front of me, and just stared at it for awhile. Together on the couch. Right next to each other.

I opened the screen. I found my earbuds, and connected the blutooth. Then fished around under my bed for the little mirror. It wasn’t shameful to an onlooker to have a mirror floating around, I reasoned, as I kept it stowed under the bed.

I always kept my browser opened, and unbidden I was moving the mouse to the bookmarks, finding the folder cleverly labeled ‘boring bookmarks’ and opening up redtube.com. And I was typing in blowjob, like I always did. And I was finding a familiar video. And I was skipping ahead. Past the interview. Right to where the girl started getting undressed.

I shed my pajama pants. And then my damp panties. I had always wondered what pussy smelled like. Now my pussy smelled like it. I tried not to be aroused by it, and couldn’t help it.

I put a leg on either side of the laptop, and again I set the mirror in front of me and looked at my own vagina. This time as I did so, I compared notes.

I had more hair than she did, but it was light fuzz. My lips were a little puffier. She spread herself wide for the camera, and I put a finger on either lip like she did, and spread myself open. Well. I guess this is my clitoris. With my other hand, I ran a fingertip over it slowly. Yep. I shuddered a little bit at the sensation. I tried it harder, and that really hurt!

Okay, that doesn’t work like I thought. I tried the way I had before, pushing that little hood down on top of it, and running it in circles. I felt my calves start to twitch as the feeling shot deep into my pelvis. Yeah, that’s the stuff. And while it was feeling good, I was nowhere close.

The girls got on her knees then, and I hit the buffer back again.

I couldn’t see her pee hole or mine. And her entrance seemed squished. She spread herself more (I’d missed that part) and I could see it get larger. I looked at my own. How can a dick even fit in there. I tried what I had done the first time, but more carefully. My finder felt good up to the first knuckle. After that it was all pain. Even the first knuckle thing wasn’t nearly as good a rubbing the clit the way I returned to doing.

This time when the guy came into view, and the girl got on her knees, I put the mirror aside. She unbuckled his pants, and then his zipper. I guess it wasn’t just porn stars who knew how to do that. It was a dumb thought, girls wore pants. Even it they didn’t, it hardly took a manual to know how to use them. The the thought was still surprising. I can do that too.

That’s when I noticed how deeply my thoughts had changed. Normally I would imagine myself being the guy, watching the head of my dick disappear into her mouth, and imagining what it felt like. Alarmed, I began to realize that, as I stroked my cunny, I was thinking about the way that dick would feel in my mouth. Did she like the taste? Did the skin feel the same way in her hands as my skin had in mine? Was it sweet? Salty?

My fingers were going faster and faster, and I skipped forward a few minutes. My head was all in my clit now, as the biggest sexual organ in the body (my brain, you perv) started down a trail it’d been contemplating all day. Everyone has that part of the scene that they want to cum for, and I knew what it was now.

I’ve never had a thing for money shots. Not really. It always seemed like an un-exciting conclusion. Like the porn didn’t have anywhere to go, so they just decide to end it somewhere. The industry just gets to the closest thing to a resolution, and throws some semen at it.

But that time, as the guy sprayed cum on the roof of her mouth, I thought about the way it hit her palate, and the way if felts, and my legs shuddered and jerked, my toes curled, and I came in tandem.

The orgasm lasted nearly 10 seconds, and I felt my whole body flush. When it was finally over I collapsed on the bed, suddenly feeling too relaxed to move. I managed to stay awake long enough to put my things away and crawl under the covers. Finally all the dirty thoughts were out of my head, and I could rest easy and think about the next school day.

Somehow my sheets were fluffier, and my pillow softer then, and I snuggled, really snuggled; like in the fabric softener commercials; into my bed and went to sleep.

I rushed out the door thirty seconds before Bruce rolled to the curb. Autumn already had a cigarette lit, and we took off.

As we got on to Mississippi and headed for Englewood she cast me a side eye, “So,” she took a drag, “you rub one out last night?”

“What?” Yes. “No!”

Another side eye, “Well I did. Watching Rachel in action got me hot as hell. Trust me, she is very talented.”

Whoa.

“I think it’s because she plays the bassoon.” She caught my confusion, “It’s a double reed instrument, you know? It’s like lifting fucking weights with your tongue. Oh, you’ll like this,” she turned the radio up.

We stayed quiet as the song played. It was about building the robots in order to take over the world. After that was a song about a toy designer who was fired for his designs, then destroyed the toy factory in an act of revenge. The music was… fun. That was the best description. A little metal, a little rap, and something entirely different. It had an energy too it that was equal parts in-joke and rightous fury. Like some kind of mergence of hip hop and opera. Hip hopera, if you will.

“What is this?”

“Doctor Steele 2: Electric Boogaloo.”

“That’s the name of the band?” That could be the name of a band.

“No, it’s Doctor Steele. He’s going to take over the world.” She turned onto Hampden, “At least he was. He retired in 2011 and took all his stuff offline. No one even knew his real identity. He always wore machinist goggles and deepened his voice in his shows and videos.” We turned into the parking lot, ten minutes early, and Bruce started the search for a parking space that would fit. “See he had a forum for his fans, who he called “The Toy Soldiers.” It was an in-joke, but from what I can figure things started getting a little out of hand.” She shut Bruce off and threw her second cigarette out the window. I got out and waited while she came around the car.

“Like plots for a school shooting or something?”

“Well remember Obama had been elected, and there were all those right wing crazies around? My guess is he got a visit from the secret service that chilled out his publicity a lot.”

“There are still a lot of right wing crazies around.”

“Yeah, but it was all new then.” She opened the door to the school for me, “I love your boots! Are they steel toe?”

It was hard, but I kept myself from getting shy, so I tried to just grin instead, “Yeah.”

“Nice, you’ll have to tell me where you got them. I’ll see you at lunch.”

So. That’s what having a friend is like. Okay. I found my way to history, took my chair, and waited for the teacher to be late.

I got out of the class without falling asleep once. An hour and a half class could really wear on you, but I was looking forward to an extended drama class. With Regular Dave, whose dick—you can’t spend the whole class with erect nipples Ash.

I sat next to him anyway, then we all stood to play “machine” and then a couple other warm up exercises. Curtis got detention again.

The lesson to learn that day was just how long two minutes could be. Everyone pulled a topic out of a hat and then had to improvise on a hypothetical for two minutes.

Regular Dave got “The world has run out of cheese, what is your plan?” He had the class in stitches explaining what a simple matter it would be to go get cheese from the moon. The problem, he said, was that the moon, like Earth, was flat. A spaceship had to be careful landing on it, or it would flip on it’s axis and fling you out into space. He was getting into the logistics of harvesting moon cheese using hedge clippers when his time ran out.

There were a few people in between his turn and mine, and after watching the rest of the class I began to get really sick of the words, “Look…” “Okay, so…” and “What you have to do…”

Mine was “You were turned into a vampire a hundred years ago, how do you get a driver’s license?”

“What people don’t seem to understand about vampires, is just how advantageous mind control is,” I started. “Got pulled over by a police officer? Force wave him away. Need to get through customs? ‘These aren’t the imports you’re looking for.’ That’s not the real problem of course. The real problem is that the DMV is staffed exclusively by vampire hunters. That’s why it takes them so long to do anything. They’re in league with the cops as undercover agents. They keep tabs on anyone who doesn’t show up on camera (because some vampires are young, and stupid enough, to try to use an ID), and then they hunt the vampires down during their breaks. The parking lot of the DMV is littered with vampire ashes. They have street cleaners come in every night. DMV employees get to keep the trophies, any jewelry or money still on the vampire when they turn to dust. That’s why the lines move at a crawl, only one window open, despite the fact that there are twenty people in the office.”

I looked around the class, and could see the rebuttal on everyone’s face, “Some of you are thinking, ‘well vampires can’t go out in the daytime, and the DMV closes at five. Do any of you really believe that myth? Vampires burning in sunlight? Don’t make me laugh.”

The conclusion got guffaws from the class and after a round of applause I sat down, and took a fist bump from Regular Dave.

The only other monologue that sticks out in memory was from a girl who answered the hypothetical, “You are the coyote and the road runner is chasing you.” She did it without addressing the incredible philosophical underpinnings of Chuck Jones work, got riotous laughter, and pissed me off.

Regular Dave watched my expression, “She played the lead in Chicago last year. Let’s call her… difficult to manage.”

I gave him a heartfelt smile and felt better.

“Phone number.” Regular Dave told me as we left Drama and headed toward the cafeteria.

“You first.” Are you flirting with him? How would you know if you are? If you are, stop it.

Regular Dave handed me his phone, and I made a contact and put in my number. “You spell your name wrong.”

“I spell it right. Everyone else spells it wrong. Why are you heading away from the cafeteria.”

“We are going to the secret entrance.”

“Oh that’s good. Is it a secret entrance to somewhere, or is this a sexual euephamizm?

We came to the door to the pottery studio, he winked at me and held the door. The studio was empty, the damp lockers closed, and the wheels bare. Everything was as clean as a clean pottery studio can be, which means there was a thin to inch thick film of dried clay on everything. “If we had your number you would have gotten the text. There’s never anyone in here during lunch. Usually someone is using a lunch hour to throw, but a half hour is too short.” We went back into the kiln room, and to a door in the back with a warning sign to keep closed and locked at all times. Regular Dave unlocked it, and turned on the light inside.

“I appreciate the thought, but I’m gay, so I’m not playing ‘seven minutes in heaven.’” There you outed yourself. And you’re confused. Or a liar.

“Noted, but the principle use of this closet is not sex games, but the ladder inside.”

I looked past him to see a red painted ladder leading into the ceiling, “Oh.”

At that moment we heard the door to the studio open, and I rushed inside the closet, while Regular Dave quietly closed the door.

Oh! There was barely enough room in the closet for one of us. Regular Dave was chest to—no way around it—breast with me. I felt my nipples sproing to life, and cursed my gender and my psychology.

Regular Dave grunted an apology, he wouldn’t have understood why he needed one, but it was polite; and moved to the ladder. “Ring it once for on ladder,” he smacked the bars and the gave a little clanking ring, “Twice for off.” He started up.

I waited until I heard two clangs from the ceiling and came after him, feeling more sure on the ladder as the rungs caught the dip in my boots.

At the top I rung the ladder twice before being surprised to find myself on the grid. Regular Dave leaned on a rail and cocked a grin at me, “Secret entrance.”

Sarah, Wee David, and Bree were in the Loft already, Wee David on his phone. “Autumn and Big Davey can’t get in. Mister Berger is in the pottery studio showing someone around. They’re watching to tell us when it’s clear.”

“Sucks to be them,” Bree said, “Do we have time for a game?”

“Aisling has a sixth period. After that.”

Hey wait a second. “Why can’t I play a game?”

Bree looked at me, “What game do you want to play, hun?”

On the spot, I searched my mind for games I liked to play, “Lunch money was fun.”

“Big Davey has the deck, and he’s off fucking Autumn.”

I looked at Sarah, “I thought he was your boyfriend?”

“He’s everyone’s boyfriend,” she said, “why do you think we call him ‘Big Davey’?”

It was rhetorical, but I answered, curious, “I thought it was ironic. He is quite small.”

Sarah and Bree laughed, “Oh no kiddo,” Sarah told me, “he’s very big.”

“What—oh.” In the red light no one could see me flush. “That’s cruel to Wee David.”

“Oh Wee David is fun, but in,” and she rubbed his crotch and looked at him like a coquoette, “other ways.”

Thank god my tits stayed flat at the news. Then I shifted and felt the tiny wet spot on my panties. Goddamn it!

Bree got back to the thing I said, “It was a figure of speech, hun. If she says they’re watching out for us, they’re watching out for us.” She shuffled the cards, “Prolly making out though. Games.”

“I have Exploding Kittens,” Wee David said. “We can play ‘daisy chain’.”

“Oooooh, second,” Sarah raised her hand.

Regular Dave (I was both disappointed and relieved at his nickname for reasons that would go unexplored) cleared his throat, “Let’s let Aisling learn to walk before she runs.”

Thank you. Wait what does that mean? How am I in this deep?

Sarah put her hand down, and lay her head in her chin, “Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.” But she gave me a smile.

“‘Go fish or dare’?” Bree said.

I could figure out what that meant, and made an educated guess, “How ‘bout ‘truth or go fish’.”

“Second,” Regular Dave raised his hand.

“Lets do it then,” Sarah got off the couch, “We barely have time as it is.”

Bree shuffled a last time and started dealing, “Seven cards, or eight?”

“Eight,” Wee David said.

“I thought ‘go fish’ was with five cards,” I said.

“We deal more so that people don’t have to ‘go fish’ as much,” he replied.

I found my place in the circle, between Sarah and Regular Dave, and picked up my cards as I got them. Trips 8s and trips Jacks. I put the pairs down in front of me and waited for Regular Dave to go.

“Sarah,” he went, “Do you have any sixes?”

She threw him a card, and then put her head on her fist. Regular Dave thought about it for a long moment. “Well?”

“I’m trying to think of something I don’t know about you. When was the last time you masturbated?”

She thought, “About two days ago, I guess. Hard to say.”

That made me next, “Bree, fives?”

“Go fish.”

“Aisling,” Sarah asked me, head still on hand, “Do you have… any fives?”

I handed her my card, heart in my throat.

“How often do you buff your muffin?”

Okay. Time to lie. They clearly wouldn’t accept ‘never.’ How often do girls masturbate? Remember how I can’t admit my ignorance? Well it makes me a fantastic liar. “Every week. Sunday afternoons.”

“‘You gotta get those numbers up,’” Bree said, “‘Those are rookie numbers.’”

I gave her a ‘fuck you’ smile.

And so we went around in a circle. Bree had never done any drug harder than pot. Regular Dave had walked in on his parents most recently last month. Wee David had never given a foot job. And as I took a seven from Bree, “What kind of porn do you watch?”

“Lesbian-anal-strapons.”

Come on tits, that was arousing, right? Wait, no. They couldn’t get any harder if they tried.

At this time everyone but me got a text. “Mister Berger is gone, and you have five minutes to clear out.”

Wee David and I threw down our cards, and Sarah kissed Bree, and the Wee David and I were on the ladder and I was heading off to math, with him beside me. “What do you have?” I asked him.

“Algebra two.”

“Algebra one,” I said. “How do you play ‘daisy chain’ with Exploding Kittens?” A perverse sense of curiosity was compelling me to ask questions that were going to get me horny.

“It’s one of the only ones we can. First one to explode has to go down on the second one, and so forth.” He brushed his hair out of his eyes, “I play to lose.” We got to the math section and he opened the door when I came to my room. I really can open my own doors, guys. “Hey,” I turned in the door and then had to step aside for other enterying students, “I’ll see you after school.”

“Where?”

“We all hang out outside the auditorium after school. That’s kind of our place.”

“Sure. See ya.”

He nodded his head and ducked toward his own classroom.

I took my seat and tried not to imagine I was sitting in a puddle.

We miss you, Doctor. Wherever you are.

Bookstore

At the auditorium, Autumn was holding her keys, and everyone was sitting around and waiting. I came up and said “Hey,” and everyone said “Hey,” and Bree gave me a hug, and I didn’t know why. They were waiting for me.

They were waiting for me.

“Sarah wants to go to Cornerstone,” Autumn told me. “Do you want to come or go home?”

“Oh, I can just take the train home, it’s not a problem.”

“Don’t be such a little bitch, come to the bookstore with us.”

Wow, okay that hurts. Wait, bookstore? “It’s a bookstore?”

“Used books, snacks, new books, snacks. There’s ice cream next door.”

Be cool Ash. “I like ice cream.” And books.

“Great,” and we all headed for the doors. I went for Bruce, and Autumn went for Bruce, and Sarah went for Bruce, and Regular Dave went for Bruce, and then Autumn said, “I have a kitchen sink in the back, I can only take four,” and the others went for Rachel’s car.

No one told me I couldn’t ride in Autumn’s car, because I wasn’t cool enough. No one brushed me off. I was going to a bookstore because I wasn’t a little bitch, and I could do stuff with these people because they wanted me to.

Autumn lit a cigarette on the way out of the parking lot, while I got tired of the competing smells. Then Regular Dave lit a cheroot, and it got worse. Only it got better, because the thing smelt heavenly.

I was sitting in the back with Regular Dave, and watching things go by as Autumn got out onto Hampden, and took us west. This was a part of Denver I’d rarely been in before. Sort of downscale homes mixed with dirty pavements, and high rises.

Bruce’s back had van seats, and yes, there was a kitchen sink behind them. Big and stainless steel, with a faucet attached. Also back there was a kennel cage and a fifty gallon drum, half full of water. As we drove I put my hand down straight between the seats, and accidentally brushed Regular Dave’s knuckles. I felt his hand turn at the contact. The way you turn it when you might take hold of someone’s hand. Before he could reach out, I moved my hand away, and set it in my lap. Don’t jerk away. Don’t hurt his feelings. Why was that important to me?

But something about the brush against his knuckles stayed in my head, all the rest of the ride. Human contact maybe? Maybe I wanted to hold his hand. That was stupid, of course I didn’t. And yet…

At University I put my hand back between the seats. He had his elbow resting on the arm rest then, pointing and saying to Autumn “Pull in here, lets check the gym.”

There was a small park, with a gym in the center, being held by Mystic. There was only a Magicarp on it, down to 150. Everyone in the car pulled out a phone and started attacking. I had my phone in my hand, watching and waiting.

When they’d got the Pokemon down to 20 CP, I made my move.

There was stunned silence in the car and then Sarah said, very quietly, “What. The. Fuck.”

That released a damn of emotion, and Autumn and Regular dave started shoulting. Things like:

“Where the fuck did some Instinct cocksucker get a shiny Snorlax?”

And, “It has a cee-pee of five thousand?”

And, “It was Mystic before, who the hell around here is Instinct?”

And, “They’re right beside us!”

Everyone started craning their necks around to see who had taken the gym for Instinct, while I put my phone away and crossed my arms.

Sarah caught on the fastest, “Aisling, what team are you?”

I smiled at her, raised both fingers, and flipped off everyone in the car.

Regular Dave leaned forward and put his head in his hands. “Well that’s fucked. We invited a little Instinct bitch into our midst, and she has a shiny Snorlax. We’re never taking another gym again.”

Hey. “First off, you invited me here. Second off, if you want to raid with my Snorlax you’ll never denigrate Instinct again.”

There was a long moment in the car. Then Autumn put Bruce into gear and pulled back out onto the street.

Cornerstone Books sat next to an ice cream shop (as promised), in tiny dilapidated little parking lot. Autumn found Bruce a parking space next to Rachel’s car, a red sedan that had seen better days. Some people wanted ice cream first, some people wanted books first. Because we couldn’t bring ice cream into the bookstore, books won.

Cornerstone Books smelled like a bookstore. Not just a bookstore. A used bookstore. Where all the books have fermented to just the right smell and are hoping you’ll open them up and smell the pages and bring your mind back to all the great times you’ve had in used bookstores.

I didn’t notice that I had ditched the others, until I was deep in the back wandering through the sci-fi/fantasy section, and looked to see that no one was around me. They’ll find me if they need anything. I picked up a couple of old Star Wars novels and tried to remember if I had read them. Timothy Zahn just runs together in your head after awhile. There was a big Dragon Lance collection that I skipped right the fuck over.

After awhile I found myself in a cartoon books section, on the bottom of the shelves. I sat down, and started to look for something I hadn’t seen before. I sort of lost time when I felt a hand rubbing my back, just under my neck. I smelled Regular Dave’s cheroot, and leaned way too far into his hand.

Way too far.

“Need some help up?” He asked, looking down at me.

No. “No. I’m fine. I meant to do that.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to knock you over.”

“You didn’t I just…” I just leaned into your hand, and you smell good, and you feel good, and I’m thinking way too hard about this. “I just fell over.” I grabbed my book and hauled myself to my feet.

“What’s this?” He gestured to the book.

“Think Good Thoughts About a Pussy Cat. It’s George Booth. He drew for the New Yorker and Playboy.”

“Is he funny?”

“Yeah!” I leafed through the book until I found ‘Ip Gessa Gul’ and showed it to him.

Regular Dave moved his lips as he read it, and guffawed at points. “This is great. Where did you find him?”

“Down here, that’s the only copy.”

“Can I have it? I want to get this one.”

“Not on your life, I saw it first.”

He gave me a pout, “Please, I’ll ea—nope, gay. Sorry.”

Stupid nipples. Life saving bra. Stupid puberty brain. You don’t want him. “How ‘bout… why don’t you buy it for me.” I put my hands behind my back, and twisted the ball of my foot back and forth. Then I rushed out, “That way… that way, it’ll kind of be… like, ours. And then I can pay you back when I want it.”

Regular Dave gave me an appraising look, and there was something in his eyes that I loved—no hated. Definitely hated. He took a step forward. I didn’t give ground. “I can think of ways for you to pay me back.”

I met his eyes, and tried to still my heart from beating, and tilted my chin up—

—“What did you find back here?” Bree said.

I don’t know if that was a moment, but it’s definitely ruined. Regular Dave took a step back, and still had a Han Solo grin on his face. “Aisling found a book, that she will let me buy for her.”

“Fucking fantastic. Buy me a book too.”

“No.”

“I’ll—”

“You have braces, Bree. Stick my dick in a woodchipper why don’t you.”

She flipped him off, and grabbed my hand, “Come away from this loser, Aisling. You don’t need his gaff.”

She took my hand and I, goddamn me, reached out my hand and almost brushed Regular Daves chest. But Bree was laughing, as she took me behind another book case and whispered, “My braces come off in a week, and he’s the first guy I’m gonna blow.”

I couldn’t help but giggle, really giggle. Then she giggled as I said, “Turn his world upside down.”

“Right?”

God I wish I had a dick. She’s so cute. No, Autumn first. Then Bree. Then Sarah. Then Regular Dave can ea—stop it! I was so confused.

She pulled me out of the book cases toward the counter, where Sarah was buying a paperback novel. I realized what I needed, and asked the second girl at the counter, the one who wasn’t ringing up, “Do you have a copy of The Odyssey? I need really good footnotes.”

She went to her computer, “I recommend Fagles translation, let me see if we have a copy.” Typety typety type, “We have one.” I followed her into the back. “It’s versed, and everyone I’ve talked to who read multiple versions loves it. Is it for a class?”

“Yeah, I read the Barnes and Noble version, but I think it wasn’t the best, and I’m looking for something better than the teacher recommended.”

She handed me the book, “Come back and let me know what you think of it.”

Everyone waited for me, the last one to check out. Minutes later I was ordering chocolate chip cookie dough, and we were laughing, sitting on the cars in the parking lot.

“Why did you get The Odyssey?” Rachel asked me.

“We’re reading it in AP English, I have to get through the first five books by next week.”

“Yech. Why not just watch the movie?”

I looked down at my cone, trying not to brag, “I’ve actually already read it.”

I’d like to say that everyone looked at me in shock, but no one did. Dammit, now they’ll think I’m a loser. Backpedal fast. “When I was eight, I found a copy of Greek Myths for Children on my father’s bookcase. I must have read the thing millions of times.”

Autumn said, “That’s pretty hardcore. The Greeks were into some fucked up shit.”

I hit the first part of the cone, and got icecream on my nose, “The book tried to tone it down. Like the bit with Persiphae and the creatian bull? It said she got a wooden bull to ‘see it up close.’”

“Is that the one where—?”

“She gets in the wooden bull, covered in cow piss, so that the Cretian bull will fuck her, and knock her up with the minotaur? Yes, it’s that one.”

Everyone looked at Big Davey, and nudged him, and laughed about it, and I laughed with them.

“I gotta get back to my car,” Sarah said.

“I have to go too. Aisling, finish up. You can’t eat the ice cream cone in Bruce.”

“Yeah, Bruce that has footmarks on the ceiling?” Wee David said, “You can’t—eat—in there.”

Autumn threw her napkin at him, got down from the hood and got in her SUV. I picked up her napkin and followed her.

Bruce pulled up outside my house, where my mother was outside on the porch, reading. Aumtumn seemed like she was about to say something, as I grabbed my backpack. I didn’t know what it was, but from the expression on her face I wasn’t sure I wanted her to say it.

“Why don’t you come meet my mom,” I held her off.

“Sure.”

We climbed the steps to the porch, “Mom, this is Autumn, she’s my friend on the tech crew.”

Mom looked over the rims of her glasses, appraised her for a second longer than Autumn was comfortable with, then said, “Pleased to meet you Autumn. Would you like to come in for some hot chocolate?”

Autumn hesitated and looked at me. I gave a shrug, “I mean… if you don’t have to get home and whatever.”

“Sure,” she said.

Mom got up, and I opened the door for Autumn. She stepped inside and I said, “Sorry about the mess,” reflexively more than anything. There wasn’t much of a mess, per se. There were just piles of books that my mom and I left everywhere, a very sofisticated computer my mother had built, a netbook, a laptop, and two tablets, strewn over a couch and two chairs.

“It’s nice,” she looked around, and I pointed to a chair.

Instead of sitting she followed me to the kitchen while I played host and found cups and filled the water heater. “Why don’t you just use the microwave?”

“For what?”

“Hot water.”

“Disgusting.” The machine started hissing. I had 48 seconds to get the chocolate ready, and got powdered chocolate with marshmellows into three mugs just in time to pour. While I worked I explained why the microwave made inferior hot water, and Autumn listened, skeptical. “Look, just trust me,” I finished.

“Sure, luv.”

I handed her the mug, and one to the mother who had come into the kitchen to watch us. Then we shuffled into the living room and sat. Mom asked Autumn about her name, and then her hair, and her eyeshadow. Autumn told her all about it, and then asked where she’d found the sweater she was wearing. Mom told her she knit it, and Autumn crocheted, and they talked about that.

I kind of let it wash over me, and at the same time I felt jealous. Here they were talking like… well like girls talked. Somehow I wanted in on this, and I didn’t know how to start or what to say.

Then my mom put me on the spot, alway ready to embarrass her son—daughter, “Aisling you should try makeup like her.”

“Mom.”

“What?”

I’m… to young? No, that’s loser Aisling talking. “You never wear any makeup.”

“Sure I do. I just don’t wear it around the house.”

Oh.

“I can teach you,” Autumn looked to me, and I bit my lip.

Rule no.2 was wavering, looking at Autumn and how striking her purple eyeshadow looked. I knew what my new face was like, when I remembered I wasn’t a boy. Maybe it was a little plain. Maybe makeup would make Regular Dave, or Wee David, or Big Davey, look at me differently.

Maybe it was another reason to spend time with Autumn. I really liked her. She was comfortable, and welcoming. And more than a little hot.

“What should I wear?”

“We can see what looks good on you. I don’t want to cover up your cute little freckles.”

My freckles aren’t cute, because I’m not cute. Wait, she thinks I’m cute? I blushed at the thought, and no one called attention to it. “Maybe,” was all I could say.

Then mom asked me about my design class, and I had something to contribute. When I talked about getting a new tablet, Autumn asked to see my work.

“Go show her,” mom said.

I hesitated at the top of the stairs, Autumn in tow behind me. There’s about to be a girl in my room. My room where I fantasized that a girl would kneel in front of me as I sat on my bed. Where she would take my dick in her mouth, and suck on me until she swallowed my cum. My room where I had masturbated as a boy and as a girl, watching blowjob videos. My room where a pretty girl was about to come in and be alone with me. My room where I didn’t have a dick to suck anymore.

And I gave up, and opened the door.

Autumn looked over my shoulder as I stood there, and then gave me a little nudge, and moved around me when I turned. She went to my bed, and lounged, in the Kitty Galore pose. I realized that her tank top was pulled down, and I could see the top of her boobs, and felt my nipples harden for the hundredth time that day. Stay in the moment, Ash. Focus on what is.

Then Autumn locked her eyes on mine, and ran her hands through her hair, lifting it up and spreading it in a wave, “Shame your mom is home.”

My breathing was heavy, and I could feel that my eyes had dilated watching her there. I gave a swallow, and tried to remember what I was doing. She rolled over onto her chest and kicked her legs in the air, while she stared at me from under her lashes, “You know, you’re cute when you’re horny.” I kept trying to breathe. My nipples were so hard they hurt. She laughed then, “Show me your artwork.”

I couldn’t speak, I just went to my desk and opened my laptop, trying to keep my hands from shaking. I worked to open up my Artstation account, with it’s paltry 15 followers. Laptop in hand, I swiveled in my chair to see her sitting up on my bed. Hands at her sides, arms squeezing her boobs up and out. Still at a loss for words, I handed her the computer and she started looking through the images.

“These are really good, what website is this?”

“Art Station,” I finally found my voice, “I gave up on Deviant Art awhile back. It’s great if you want anime or My Little Pony, but this site has better standards. In that there are any.”

She spent some time leafing through, and saying, “I really like this one,” and “You did her expression really well,” and then she got a text. “It’s my mom, wondering where I am.”

“Do ya gotta go?”

She put the laptop back down on my bed, “Yeah, shame. I wanted to see more of your stuff, luv.” She hopped off the bed, and adjusted her tits. I glanced away, because it seemed private, and because I couldn’t get any hotter right then. “I’m done, you can look now,” she ran her finger along my cheek, until I turned. “Really cute. Show me out.”

We went down the stairs, my mom had retired to bed, but the living room light was on. At the doorway she turned, and glanced doown, “I really had a nice time with you tonight.”

Oh my god, is she… is she getting shy? And before she could turn away, I darted forward, and kissed her on the lips. It was just a little peck, but it was enough to light fireworks in my brain.

Then I fled inside before she could say anything.

Eat Like a Boy

***TRIGGER WARNING: Eating Disorders***

After a very confused night, I wasn’t sure Autumn would be at my door, and took my time getting breakfast. Then I heard Bruce honk outside, and had to grab my bag, figured I’d charge my phone somewhere, sometime, and rushed out the door.

I piled in the SUV and Autumn took off for the highway again. “It’s your turn to choose the music,” she said, hanging her cigarette hand out the window. “Something I’ve never heard before.”

“My phone needs to charge.”

She pointed to the cable coming out of the cigarette lighter, and then to the one coming out of the stereo, “Aux line.”

I plugged my phone in and opened Spotify. “Beats Antique?”

“Bad-ass show. Really incredible. I don’t know what that chick does, but she is some fine-ass trim.

So that didn’t fit the criteria. “Nine Inch Nails?”

“Are you asking if I’ve ever heard of Nine Inch Nails?”

“Ye—no. How to Destroy Angels?”

“Love ‘Big Black Boots’. Guess again.”

We were fast running out of highway. This early the traffic jam on the junction of 25 and 225 was more of a slight slowdown. “Zella Day?”

“Who’s she?”

Right. I put on “Sweet Ophelia” which has a killer drum thing, and great lyrics, despite the fact that they make absolutely no sense.

About nine bars in Autumn said, “I do not like this.”

“Don’t be such a little bitch,” I told her, “she has the voice of a broken angel.”

“Fine.” Autumn threw her cigarette out of the window. “Your hair looks nice today.”

I touched it and cringed inside at the reflex, “Really? I didn’t do anything different with it.”

“I should say, ‘your hair always looks nice’. I love the waves, do you curl it.”

“No, it just sort of does that.” Say something a girl would say. “I like your hair up. It shows the highlights really well.”

“Thanks, I brought a hair tie for you, if you forgot again.”

“Nope!” I dug in my backpack and showed her the package of ties, in different colors.

“Hmmmmm. You should do the green, it’ll look great in your hair.”

“Really?” Stop saying that, Ash. I had planned on only using the three black ones at the bottom of the package.

Then we talked hair, and I learned hair, the rest of the way to school, playlist forgotten.

‘Health’ dragged on and on, as Mr. Provolt talked about the circulatory system. Occasionally I would jot a note, when he said something I had forgotten I already knew. This time I glanced around at Michelle and had a characiture drawn full portrait of her in my notebook by the time class ended and I could go on to real art.

Design let me sketch in colored pencil for a glorious hour and a half. I had been worried about using them, never having gotten a good result with them before. Then I watched my classmates grinding their pencils into the paper like they had a grudge. I tried going like that, and ended up with a technique that worked well, but was incredibly time consuming.

Then I went for lunch with butterflies in my stomach, ready for whatever that held.

Lunch held Bree, and Autumn, and Wee David, and Rachel, and Regular Dave, and no loft. There was a class in the pottery studio, and the music room, so getting above the stage was out.

Only the upperclassman had an open campus, so Autumn, Rachel, and Regular Dave could leave if they wanted. They opted to hang out until everyone got bored of not leaving campus and decided to ditch the place. Bree hung around until she had to leave, and then we were pilling into Rachel’s car and heading off to Chipotle to get some lunch.

Mom had given me the credit card from the bank with these instructions:

“This debit card gets two hundred dollars at the start of the month. You don’t get any more than that, so make it last.” She softened her tone a bit, “There’s a line of credit attached, in case of emergencies. If you run in to a problem you call me before you use it.

We headed for Rachel’s car which was named ‘Rachel’s car’. Autumn called shotgun before we even stood up from the tables. As a 4’5” girl, maybe 105 carrying a goat under either arm, I was told it was my place to sit in the middle. I mentioned that I didn’t have a ‘place,’ you sexist pigs.

That’s not what happened. What happened was Wee David said, as we were leaving, “Bitch!”

And Regular Dave said, “Like hell, Aisling’s the girl, she rides bitch.”

And I said, “Fuck you, you sexist pig.”

And Rachel, as owner of the car—and as such, independent arbiter—asked me to please sit in the middle, because Wee David was nearing six foot and 200, and Regular Dave was smaller and shorter, but not by comfortable margins.

I got into the back seat and did the scootching thing you do to get into the bitch seat. Then Regular Dave squeezed onto one side, and Wee David squeezed onto the other. I was stuck with no elbow room, and barely any shoulder room. I was glad I couldn’t fit anything into my pockets, because I knew whatever it might have been would be biting into my legs right now.

Both of the boys leaned away a tad, for which I was grateful, and…

And Regular Dave’s hand was on my leg.

Not really on my leg. He had draped his fingers on his lap, and his fingers had brushed my thigh, as he (apparently) forgot about them. I had no idea why, but the whole car ride, the conversation, the banter, compressed itself down beneath my consciousness. Because there was a boy’s hand on my leg.

I gave a deep swallow, and tried to deal with what I was feeling. Well first I was feeling his fingers on my thigh. They felt electric, and intimate. That was bad, because I was clearly reading way too much into this. It was a normal thing for him, and should be for me. It was a casual touch, because we were in such close quarters. He isn’t freaking out here, why are you?

Second feeling. Lust. Straight fucking lust. Not arousal, not horniness, lust. His fingers had a line to my insides. In that I wanted them inside me, despite knowing it would hurt. Maybe it’s good when someone else does it?

Third feeling. Violation. But… some kind of… good violation? That was wrong, right. That’s not a positive thing. Only it was a positive thing. He was in my personal space, not of my volition, and he was just there, and I didn’t want him there, only I badly, badly, wanted him there.

And while I was gulping, and feeling, and thinking too hard about the whole thing, until my entire world was just a couple of fingers resting on my thigh, we arrived at the Chipotle.

Then Regular Dave gave my thigh a rub with his hand and said, “We’re here, space case,” and my entire world exploded.

Okay Aisling. That’s what getting touched by a boy feels like when you’re a girl. But then I had to normal, and get out of the car, and try to imagine that the whole thing hadn’t happened.

It was surprisingly easy. And surprisingly hard. My body still did all of the things it was supposed to. It got out of the car. It stood in line. It stepped forward when the line moved. Meanwhile my brain was screaming Sombody touched me! And it was fantastic.

Then I was sitting down with a chicken burrito and a coke, and listening to Regular Dave tell everyone how I had laid out the gym yesterday, and people were asking me questions. I put it all out of my head, for fear of going mad.

We were halfway through the meal—well Regular Dave and Wee David and I were halfway through—when Rachel looked at me in disgust and said, “Aisling, you eat like a boy.”

Wow, that… hurts. Why would that hurt? I put my burrito down, and wiped my face with a napkin.

Autumn looked at me, and then at Rachel. “I have to go pee,” she said. “Rachel, you should come with me.”