The Second Book of Jobe

Part 4 of 4

By Babs Yerunkle

The shower was much less frustrating this time around. I carefully re-applied the yellows and reds of the flame-hair dye and spiking mousse, pleased to see that the grooming lessons from the salon really had worked.

I dressed in the guy uniform, fixed my nose and skin, and met up with Darcy, who had finished her own prep. She was looking particularly languid. In the privacy of her own room, she apparently felt no need to guard her tongue.

“God, girl, you really have that ‘just been laid,’ look,” she told me.

I tried to scowl, and nearly succeeded. “I thought that, dressed like this, I wouldn’t look quite so feminine.”

Darcy shrugged. “Yeah, the nose is a good choice. Any real girl would be fleeing to a plastic surgeon.”

In other words, she confirmed the masculine nature of the Wilkins profile.

“But … I don’t know,” she continued. “After sex, guys and girls are so different, you know? Guys have a sort of happy strut, an ‘I just marked my territory,’ or a ‘guess where I was’ look. Girls just have this relaxed glow. The cat that got the cream. That ‘spaced out and feeling good’ look. The look that makes you enraged when you see it on another girl, because you know that she’s getting some, and you’re not.”

“I… see.” Clearly there were nuances to female behavior that still escaped me. “So, without that, would I pass?”

Darcy peered at me, cocking her head back and forth. “Eh, it’s kind of a long shot. Maybe it’s just me. Even with that… nose, it’s hard to look at you, and not see you writhing and screaming like that, and then in my mind I see you all naked and pink-on-black. Which is so weird that I can’t get the image out of my mind. So it’s hard to pretend that you might be a boy.”

I checked the mirror, to see how much of my blush was showing. Then I was reminded of the fake skin, which hid everything. Thank goodness.

“So, if you didn’t have those images polluting your mind…?”

“I guess. We’ve got enough weirdoes here that who’s going to notice? Hell, Scott can see me hanging with another guy, I guess. Not like I haven’t poisoned my chances there.” She had another thought. “Why are you even bothering? What’s the point in dressing like a boy?”

“I am a boy.”

Darcy snorted at that, then guffawed. “Whatever you say, pinkie.”

She led the way out her door, toward dinner.

“Seriously,” I continued. “I’ll fix all this, then go back to being a boy.”

“Why bother?”

“It’s what I am,” I said.

“Didn’t like the sex?”

“Uh…” I decided to allow her a bit of honesty. “Actually, that was pretty fantastic. But of course it would be. I foolishly designed this body to be an ideal companion, and part of my requirements included a girlfriend who really, really enjoyed intercourse. It’s natural that things would feel much more intense and powerful in this body.”

“Right,” Darcy agreed, sarcastically. “You’d have to agree though, if anyone was an authority on whether sex was better as a man or a woman, it would have to be—”

I nodded, ready to accept the decisive authority she was about to grant me.

“—a telepath.”

“What?”

“Well, sure. They can watch both sides impartially, can’t they? They’d know. And I’ve been around when a couple of them got talking…”

Damn. How had I spent so many years growing up, without learning any of the really important stuff?

“Tell me!” I finally begged.

“Well,” Darcy drew it out slowly, smugly. “You have to know by now that there are differences. A guy pretty much always gets off. If he doesn’t, it’s like ‘start a new drug company’ news. It’s like ‘end of the world’ or ‘where’s my psychiatrist?’ Really, guys are such babies. That’s something you’ll have to learn about.” She shrugged. “So if a girl isn’t handled right, maybe she doesn’t get the fireworks. Doesn’t mean the ride isn’t nice. I think I know where you’re coming from, don’t I… Jobie?”

I tried to pretend that I didn’t understand what she was getting at. “Don’t call me that. Too much like Josie.”

“Okay, Jobie. But we were talking about telepaths, and the truth. See, I figure that even when a girl doesn’t get off, she still has more fun that the guy has with his five seconds of high-voltage pleasure.” She rubbed her hands down the side of her body in a way that should be illegal. “He gets five seconds at 100 volts. I get ten minutes at ten volts. Do the math. And when it gets there just right—” Her shiver would not be allowed on broadcast TV “—wow!”

I started ticking off points on my hand. “First, there are techniques to help guys last more than the ‘five seconds’ you claim. Second, if you’re only getting ten minutes, you’ve been dating the wrong guys. Third, any guy with even the most rudimentary education should be able to make it ‘get there’ for you, nearly every time. So I discount all your evidence.”

“Even if you don’t believe me, you should believe the telepaths. They can see enough to survey a lot of people. And let me just say that the guy telepaths tend toward a bit of depression in some subjects. Some of them get a little down, if their girlfriends won’t let them ‘listen in.’ That give you any clue?”

“You’re kidding.”

She raised her hand, as if swearing on a bible. “Scout’s honor!” Then she leaned in closer, confidentially. “And the girl telepaths… they offer to share with their guy. It pretty much guarantees a simultaneous, you know? And I think it’s like a drug or something, because once a guy is dating a telepath, he hardly ever breaks up with her.”

“Of course not,” I agreed, marveling at her naiveté. “First, she’s conditioning him. Second, she knows all his secrets.”

“You’re so cynical!” she accused. Then, almost giggling, “Hey, what do you call two telepaths in bed?”

I knew that one. “It’s not really the greatest sex, they just think it is.” I countered with, “What do you call two exemplars in bed?”

“Just fucking perfect.”

“Oh, you’ve heard it.”

By now she’d finished filling her tray, and I’d followed Darcy to her seat. She didn’t sit at a small, empty table like I usually did, she sat on the far end of a table already filled with people. They waved vaguely at her, then returned to their own concerns, while leaving her to hers.

It felt strange to sit with someone who wasn’t a member of the Bad Seeds. It was bad enough that we couldn’t finish our jokes. (I was still waiting to learn what you call it when you find yourself in bed with a cyborg.) Worse than that, though, was that the dinner crowd was clearing out, and while they joked around, someone at our table brought out a radio and tuned it to the imbecilic Whateley Academy Radio Station.

“Hey Greasy?”

“Yes, Boss?”

“You figure dinner is over yet?”

As the inane voices chattered on the radio, I began to have a bad feeling. What was I forgetting?

“It’s pretty much over, Peeper. Why?”

“Well, I think it’s time for this week’s Super Shocker Mutation Moment!”

A drum roll began in the background, and I suddenly realized what was coming.

“We have to get out of here!” I said to Darcy.

“What are you talking about? We just got our food!”

In the background, I could hear Peeper leading up to it, drawing the audience out with clues and hints.

“All right, here’s another hint. Who is it that makes everyone on campus sick?”

“Uh… I don’t know. How about Nikki Reilly, because they’re either jealous or suffering from sudden, painful swelling?”

“No, no, no, I mean sick in a bad way. Like tossing your cookies sick.”

“Gee, the possibilities are endless. I’d name names, but I don’t want to get beat up again.”

I leaned forward and whispered. “Peeper knows!”

Darcy’s eyes widened. “He what?”

But it was already too late. The radio conversation was reaching its crescendo. “…with that infectious wit, JOBE WILKINS!”

“Jobe? You’re kidding. Hey, Peeper, aren’t you worried about pissing him off?”

“Weren’t you listening to last month’s super shocker? Jobe’s been drinking his own sauce. His formula for the perfect girl bit the hand that feeds him! Yes, as reported in last month’s WARS, Jobe has continued his slow and desperate transformation into the ultimate black babe, the world’s first, only, and sexiest drow. And my sources guarantee – Did you hear me, guarantee! – that Jobe has finished his transformation into the dark doll of desire, that darling drow of our dreams, the one, the only, black-skinned beauty of the buxom bosom, she’s sexy, she’s stacked, and she is one hundred percent female, JOBE WILKINS!”

I sat there, shock still, waiting to see if someone was going to call me on it.

“So, what’s she look like, Peeper?”

“Hard to miss, Li’l Buddy. First, there’s the black skin.”

“Lots of black girls on campus, Peeper.”

“Not like this. She’s black like the night sky. Black like a banker’s heart. She’s so black that when she falls into a coal mine at night, she’s easy to find. Just look for the dark spot.”

“You’re saying her skin’s dark?”

“If you’re willing to go that far. Second, there’s her hair. Hard to miss hair that is as white as the driven snow.”

“Ick. You mean, old lady hair?”

“No, my child. Think platinum blonde, only whiter. And don’t forget the eyes. Picture Fey’s eyes, only lavender. And pointed ears, too, just like Fey. Only black.”

No one even glanced at me. I gradually realized that I was wearing false white skin, hair that covered my ears, glasses that covered my eyes, and hair dye. Still, you’d think they’d notice the lab coat.

“Fey and Jobe? Light and dark? Good and evil? Girl on girl? What would it take to get them together?” Peeper wondered aloud, over the airwaves.

“I’m guessing more than a single six-pack,” Greaser suggested. “But if you had Fey that drunk, would you hand her over to Jobe? I mean, come on!”

Darcy looked over at me. Her mouth quirked in a half-sympathetic smile. “Interesting.”

“What?” I wondered, dully.

“I would have half-thought you’d be getting off on their whole conversation. Instead, you look kind of nauseated.”

“I’m just realizing what I am to them.” I didn’t fully understand the words until they were out of my mouth. “I mean, I’d heard the term ‘meat market’ before, but I hadn’t quite realized how … seriously degrading it is. It’s like I’m just a big fuck-bag to them. So long as they can poke it in me, it doesn’t matter to them what happens to the person on the inside, does it?”

We spoke quietly and confidentially, so that the people on the other end of the table wouldn’t overhear.

“Are you any better?” Darcy asked. “You have to admit, you went seriously over the top.”

“How can you say that? I’m nothing like them!”

“Oh, really. Let’s talk about your ‘dream girl,’ shall we? How long were you obsessing over her?”

“Well… a few years,” I admitted.

“And you tweaked her body, and probably her bust size, and all sorts of intimate details. How much time did you spend thinking about her personality?”

“Well… that was the beauty of my plan. I’d find someone with a good personality—”

Darcy nodded smugly. “Riiiight. And by the time you finished your formula you had …pardon me… how many candidates?”

“Er, well, that was Phase 2, you see. Beginning the search for the perfect mind, to go with the perfect body.”

“Ah.” She pretended to jot something down. “I make that… zero. So in other words, you’re the guy that stares at my tits through the whole conversation, not hearing a word I say, but just wanting to (how’d you put it?) ‘poke it in me.’ Is that about right? And how does this make you different from the radio clowns?”

I drew myself up proudly. I could sense that I wasn’t faring too well in this disagreement, and decided to give the point to her. “In that case,” I decided, “perhaps I’ll take this as one large learning experience. After all, you can’t expect me to be a genius at everything. Once I return—” I lowered my voice drastically for a moment. “—to being a boy— I will have learned the lesson, and be ready to move on to bigger and better things. And in my own defense, I must say, they are really nice tits. I should know. I’ve been all over them.”

She noticed how I was staring at her and gave a huff of disbelief. She may have even said something like, “Boys!” That pleased me immensely. I also noticed how she changed her posture, so that she was now sitting with her chest ever-so-slightly thrust forward. The lesson was clear. So long as I remembered to look her in the eye and listen to her occasionally, it was just fine to appreciate her chest.

The venture back to manhood would not be a quick one. I had been screwed over (figuratively, thank you) by the demon princess. Even an intellect such as mine would need time to recover from such a setback.

My excellent and effective disguise seemed a reasonable first step. Despite the temporary …suspension… of my manhood, I decided that lately I’d been very much off my game. It was time to retire to the old bio-lab, return to work in a field where my strengths were undisputed, and begin the long, hard job of fixing my problem.

In line with that, the quickest and easiest solutions seemed to lay in the cosmetic realm. My spray-on skin had been a godsend. (I say this with all due modesty, since it was me, rather than god, who ‘sent’ it.) My foresight in easy-disguise hair was also proving to be a useful boon. I still required morning touch-ups. Even a normal shampoo removed a bit of color, but that was a work in progress.

Breasts … these were an issue. I didn’t want to get rid of them, exactly. Darcy had demonstrated the ample pleasures associated with owning a pair of breasts. On the other hand, they weren’t exactly masculine, particularly a large and shapely pair like mine. I decided to continue with the disguise-wrap, unless inspiration struck.

There were various issues of curves and style that I would deal with eventually, but for the moment, the most notable of my problems was my total lack of penis. It’s hard to claim that you’re a man, while missing the prime organ of male-ness.

This was a task I could deal with. I looked at the box containing Dad’s prosthetic organ. It had arrived the day before.

No, Dad was a fan of hardware. My medium was biology. I tossed the OmniSqueal up on the top bunk and sat down to design myself a masterpiece.

I’ll spare you the highs and lows of the creative process, the false starts and blind alleys, the moments of sparkling inspiration, the sheer toil and sweat that goes into my craft. It was a lengthy, complicated, arduous project that occupied me fully (aside from gaming breaks) for the next three hours. But then, at long last, I was done. The first prototype was grown and decanted. There on the desk in front of me was the coal black prototype of my very own sex-change solution.

My creation began life as an air-breathing variant of the earthworm. I’d expanded the tiny lungs and extruded them externally. Cosmetically, they took the apparent place of the scrotum, save that a normal scrotum does not inflate and deflate through the breathing cycle. The attachment area combined aspects of the slug and millipede, although I had re-formulated the extruded “slime” into a soothing crème that also prevented yeast infections. Hygienic and freshening. If I succeeded, no girl would want to be without one of these!

I studied the thing closely, watching its small lungs inflate and deflate. The air spiracles were near the “scrotum” area, so I’d need to wear boxers, lest the creature suffocate. The mouth should derives some nutrition from my own fluids, but I’d need to bathe it in nutrients nightly. And the waste opening – that should be obvious. The hot-pink tip of the creature was only barely visible, since this drow-style prototype had been created “with foreskin.”

The vaginal siphon would be extruded following attachment. No more moisture problems for me, except that I’d have to pee more often. Or so it would seem.

As it breathed, it gave a faint squeaking noise, not unlike a dog’s chew-toy. I probably need to increase the size of the breathing spiracles. Call me a soft touch, call me tender-hearted, but I always had a weak spot for my prototypes.

Eager to test the thing, I quickly undressed and reached for the long creature. It looked like a black flatworm crossed with a kielbasa. As my hand approached, it curled (a pretty strange thing to see), flipped onto its legs, and began to scuttle away. I grabbed it firmly by the, er, meat.

Once my soft, feminine hand touched it, it calmed right down. I flipped it so the legs and slime pad were facing up.

Ugg. Definitely less than appealing, I thought. We’re going to need a MAJOR sell job, if this ever goes to a public trial.

Gulping, I spread my legs and … lifted it into place. I felt tiny little feelers ruffling through my intimate folds, then it sort of squinched up and sucked into place. That was a feeling like I’ve never before imagined. You haven’t felt goosebumps, until you’ve been freshly changed into a girl and then sent a slug and millipede to feud through your privates. And if that wasn’t enough, the claws finally clicked closed, as it secured its hold on my anatomy. I don’t think I jumped more than twenty feet. Thirty feet, tops. I’d have to work on that for the next model. Fortunately, the unanticipated and surprisingly intimate sensation of stinging soon faded to a rather comforting pressure of being covered and protected.

“I think I’ll have to call you prickles,” I said aloud to the creature. Not that it had a brain. More of a programmed ganglia cluster, really.

There was a little more squirming down there as everything settled into place, then I looked down at myself.

Normally, I couldn’t look down and see my sex. By “normally,” I meant the last day or so, which I’d spent as a girl. Looking down I would immediately see the enormous swell of my breasts. Between the legs was nothing. I couldn’t see even a hint of my own labia, unless I bent way over. So there was just … nothing. Smooth flesh, curves, shape. I have to say, it was rather attractive, really, and I was fighting to keep from getting used to it.

Now though, beyond the valley that lay between the black hills, across the plains of tummyland, I saw a sausage. A big, black sausage, slowly drooping down limp.

It shouldn’t have felt so weird, it should have felt normal to have a piece of meat sprouting off the front of me. There was nothing freakishly alien about it.

I examined myself in the mirror. A perfectly normal black girl, sporting a fairly substantial dick. Nothing odd at all.

Stoking the thing, of course, relayed the sensation to the homologous structures in my vulva. This did strange things to my mind. Stroking an erect penis and feeling stirrings of sexual sensation was a normal experience for any male, and my mind remembered this. It should have felt normal.

Instead, I was feeling pressures and movements like a blunt tongue probing about my privacy. That did feel right and normal, but it shouldn’t have.

After considering the problem for a moment, I solidly put it aside and decided never to think about these issues again. I would be a boy, that’s all there was to it.

I spent some time cleaning up my lab work, puttering, and putting things in place. I didn’t want to say that I was worried, but it was now far past dinner and my “daughter” still hadn’t returned. It wasn’t that I had feelings for Belflab-bore’s little drow-spawn, but I was technically responsible for her. If something went wrong, I’d be held accountable. Besides, her body was my work, my creation, my … masterpiece. I was just interested in tracking my own goods.

Thus, it was a vast relief when the knock finally came at a bit past ten, which was past the curfew. I rushed toward the door to answer it, but caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My naked, black self, all girl except for the limp sausage that seemed to dangle off the front of my mons.

Eeek! I wasn’t emotionally ready to show prickles off yet. They thought I was still a girl.

Double-eek! They thought I was still a guy, in transition!

Triple-eek! They didn’t know I was fully drow yet!

I gave my head and hands a quick spritz with the skin spray, then grabbed a tasteful dressing gown to wrap around myself. There were definitely times I was glad I didn’t need a bra. I checked my hair – still the red-and-yellow flame-head look. I had a last moment to realize that my eyes were showing – beautiful, but a definite give-away. I snagged my ray-bans, then I hurried to the door.

It was Jadis in front, of course. Her father’s pushy, too. She came bustling in, waving a train of girls behind her and directing them to dump their load of fashion booty on my bed. Good old Jadis, with never a bit of apology for how late she was, or worrying me half to death about Belphoebe. She looked about as if searching for something, and I realized that she was examining the equipment that I’d set up. That seemed like days ago. Weeks ago.

“So, Jobe, how much did you get done? Oh, nice work!” Then she spotted my dressing gown. “What’s with the Hugh Hefner get-up? Are we interrupting a hot date? And what’s with the almonds?”

Doubtlessly a side effect of attaching of Prickles. A girl can’t be expected to do something like that without having a little reaction. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I gave a stern eye to my “daughter,” though she probably missed it through the sunglasses I wore.

“Young lady, do you know what time it is? As your putative mother I must say that I do not approve of you staying out to all hours with hooligans like these.”

From there, things went just fine until Jadis (curse her!) noticed something.

“Jobe, what’s the matter with your voice?”

Whatever it was, I denied it.

“No, and it’s not like the contralto that I remember hearing the last time that I saw you…”

Contralto? What was she talking about? I was a tenor!

“And, come to think of it, what IS the deal with the sunglasses at night?”

I stuttered another hasty denial, while trying to think of something clever to fob her off. But she was too quick for me, snatching the glasses off my face.

“What the hell…?”

She reached out, as if to stroke the cheek beneath my newly-revealed eyes. Instead, she dug her fingers in and pulled my whole face off.

And then she got mad, thinking Counterpoint had beaten me to a pulp, so I had to correct her, and before I was really quite aware of it, pretty much the whole story came tumbling out while the girls stood there watching and listening.

Throughout it all, Belphoebe was slowly unpacking. In retrospect, I was quite proud of her. It was like the whole, “I’ve been transformed into a drow girl” story was old news to her. The other girls stood packed themselves into the doorway to listen in on the whole unbelievable truth. When Jadis started in on the “why did you” and “how could you possibly” line of conversation, I was forced to pull open my top and show her just how far the transformation had gone.

“You call this ‘getting off light?’” I demanded.

It finally penetrated. She finally began to realize that this was a big deal for me. If I couldn’t figure a way out of this, I’d be spending the rest of my live taking it, rather than giving it. That was fine for natural-born women, and even for people like Belphoebe. (I’d always felt that Belphegor was actually a slug, trapped in a man’s body.) She reached forward to offer me a hug.

What I’d forgotten was that my dressing gown was still open. Jadis doesn’t have all that much, up top, but she’s still fairly decent looking. As my assets squished into the front of her sweater, the compression and the slight friction across the front of my nipples definitely woke a sensation that I was unable to obtain through my own ministrations. I shifted slightly to enhance the sensation.

Jadis’ eyes went wide. “Jobe… are you rubbing your tits against mine?”

Why was she asking, when the answer was so obvious? But thinking about my time with Darcy, I was puzzled. “That’s what girls DO, isn’t it?”

Chicks – who can figure them? Jadis abruptly pulled back, and I was thankful for having the foresight to give myself regeneration. From the look in Jadis’ eyes, my response hadn’t been the correct one. Her reply looked to be painful.

Fortunately, Jadis’ dim-but-hyper roommate, er, Superchick, came bumbling in to unwittingly save the day.

“Oh Jobe, don’t be so down! We’re here for you!”

Her smooth blouse didn’t give any of the same interest that Jadis’ sweater had. I had some over-eager nubs that were disappointed, but discretion seemed the better part of valor. After accepting Superchick’s chaste hug, I belted the gown shut.

“And you would be SO PROUD of Belfy!” the airhead yammered on. “She was absolutely awesome!”

“Awesome?”

“Yeah! Just like in the comics! Whack, slash, boom! Of course, the knife in her side had me scared to death, but she was all, you know, just like Arnie, with the ‘Is that the worst you can do?’ I mean, she didn’t actually say that, but she might as well!”

I paused to admire Misty, who is obviously a master at her art. She went on to describe an entire combat incident of some sort, along with details of shopping, food they’d eaten, and something about the linens in their bedroom. And throughout the entire high-speed, rambling exposition, never once did she part with a single piece of actual information! Why, if this could be perfected as an anti-interrogation technique our troops would be invincible! Hell, there were politicians that would pay to learn this.

She fumbled a bit at the end, as she began to run out of momentum. She actually said something. It wasn’t so much as a complete thought, but it did amount to almost half an opinion.

“And she looks totally hot in the stuff she got! I mean, for someone who’s supposed to think that she’s a guy, Belfy is really getting into it.”

You see? Actual data. Belphoebe is adapting, psychologically, to being a girl. Yes, she ought to adapt, shouldn’t she? I mean, it’s not like she can ignore it, with those huge hooters leading her around. Also, we learned, Belphoebe has made some appropriate clothing selections. At least, in the view of a girl who was such a hick that she’s probably dumbfounded by the novel concept of wearing shoes. None of it was what you’d call actionable intelligence, but it did represent an iota of data. A tiny gem of signal in an ocean of noise.

“It’s true,” Feebs agreed. “I’d never – that is, the Pater would never admit it, but you are the very best, Jobe.”

That perked up my pointed ears.

Belphoebe looked down at herself, obviously pleased with the view. “This,” she waved a hand, indicating her own body, “is a true masterpiece.”

I appreciated the compliment, believe me. But it was hard to forget that the body she wore was supposed to have been gracing the form of my girlfriend. It was hard to look at her without wanting to have relations. Unfortunately, Carson had made her my daughter. It might have been little more than a legal fiction, but I took my responsibility seriously.

Despite the fact that I’d spent years designing that body to meet my every dream.

It was hard not to be bitter. “If you’re going to steal, steal from the very best, eh?”

“I mean, looking back, I am sooo glad that Pip didn’t try to build this all by himself!” Belfy continued. “Can you imagine the cock-up that he’d have made of it?”

Once again I demonstrated my nearly superhuman restraint, as I didn’t follow that comment with the reaming her “father” truly deserved. Still, I was tempted not to share the secret of drow virginity with her until it was a moment too late. But… I couldn’t help loving that body. She was right, she was a masterpiece. And much as I hated Barf-a-gore, I could see that Belphoebe was slowly growing into a real person. I couldn’t, wouldn’t, shaft my daughter by hiding that vital secret.

Instead, I took a breath and reminded myself that I was the good parent, and I needed to show her some support. Besides, we were the same size, so anything she could wear, I could wear!

“Well, as I remember, I sent you out three days ago to buy clothing. So let's see what you got... yourself.”

“Ooohh... well, maybe I'll show you a few. Now don't peek.”

Darcy showed up, partway through the fashion show. As I am coming to expect from her, her eye for clothing is still keener than my own. Belfy was showing a light blue silky thing that went particularly well with her dark skin. It hung delightfully from her cantilevered top gallery, showing no pink, but clearly demonstrating the bodily contours beneath. I was struggling with an improper desire to show off my new invention, Prickles, which was still in place. Fortunately, unlike the genuine item, Prickles didn’t change shape based on the owners internal mood, but rather based on conscious contractions of the pelvic floor muscles, in the exercises popularized by Dr. Kegal. I was struggling (manfully, if I may say so) not to contract those new and intriguing muscles, and thereby reveal Prickles prematurely. Fortunately, Darcy spotted an important point, distracting me from my difficulties.

“Hmm, could be a touch snugger in the waist, couldn't it? Can't say I'm that impressed with their fit. Who...?”

It took me a moment to understand. Belfy’s waist is delightfully narrow, emphasizing the shape and swell of her hips. The gown took advantage of this, but it wasn’t as close as it might be. It was like it had been tailored for a completely different girl. Or worse – perhaps not tailored at all!

I plucked up a box, looking at the label. And there was a label.

“It's got a ... size!” I revealed, in horror.

These clothes, probably all of them, were … off the rack! This was terrible! What was the point of sending my body-double to Boston, if she was just going to buy off-the-rack! Would they expect me to shop the same way? I’d never done that in my life! I didn’t even know how to shop for clothes! That’s what tailors and consultants were for! When I was on my own, the best I could manage were school uniforms and itchy Malaysian panties!

“Where did you get this?” I demanded.

Darcy made a rude joke about middle-class fashion sense. That was enough to get Jadis’ beast up (fortunately, not literally). The girl was raised reasonably, but was never able to overcome her inexplicable egalitarian impulses.

“That's enough, Jobe! It's not about the labels or the PR; it's about the clothes. And we brought back some fabulous outfits.”

Fabulous outfits that wouldn’t show off either me or my creation. Didn’t she understand that it might be vital, life and death, for us to look our best?

“I'm sure the Sears collection is very … sensible.” I practically sneered it at her. Wake up, girl! What happened to the hellion that once ran rampant through Givenchy? “Please tell me you had a fitting for at least one of the outfits in here!” I begged.

The Asian girl from down the hall, Hazard?, broke in. “Oh, come on! It was a raid. Quick'n'dirty. In and out. That's all we had time for.”

That’s when Jadis started up with that “I know better than you,” tone of hers. One of these days, I’ll prove her wrong. I’ll prove her so wrong that she’ll never forget it and it will shut her up forever! But for now, I bided my time…

“Jobe,” she said in her grating way, “nobody, and I mean nobody wears straight of the rack. We bought these with the explicit idea of taking them to Rogers in Dunwich for alteration. And nobody does better at fitting and alterations than Mrs. Rogers.”

I massaged my forehead. “I blame myself.” I’d have to teach Belphoebe how to assert herself better. “Well, there's no help for it. You can wear these things until we can get something decent. Afterward, perhaps I can use some extra rags in the lab.”

Belfy gasped, “But this is a Versace!”

Darcy sneered and began to dish dirt on Versace. That give me time to lean back and consider the dress in question. It did look good on her. Even without exact tailoring, it looked good. Which meant … which meant that my creation was so good that she could make anything look good. Which meant…

“Hey, what do you think of Feebs as a model?” I turned to Darcy for backup. “You were talking about Donatella Versace – think she’d be interested? Bel would need training of course. A ton of training. But still... I'm thinking, ‘Black is the new black.’”

That would be positive publicity for drow, show off my masterpiece, and make us into the ultimate high-status spectacle. It would also mean that I could fill my closets with perfectly-tailored gleanings, all one-of-a-kind runway specials.

Darcy thought about this. “Donatella is bound to like the hair. Hers isn't quite that white. But if you offered her what you offered me…”

That was a good point. I was beginning to realize that the fractal lace was bigger than I’d considered. Any woman would… ANY woman…

The visions began unfolding in my head. An exclusive medical site. The publicity gained from a high-profile recipient. Why pay for advertising when the gossip columns can do a better job than you ever could? Maybe combine in a fashion show, double up on the clientele somehow.

I realized that we need a trip to New York, at the very least. Perhaps Paris or Milan. That would probably have to be over spring break.

“I'll need photos and biometrics of everyone going,” I muttered, already thinking of the initial trip, to New York. “We’ll need someone who can train Feebs to be a model. Darce – can you contact Gianni Versace? I'll get the jet from Dad—” He’d just need a good sales pitch, but what about an entirely new business, status symbol, and point of influence with the movers and shakers? “Yeah! We could open a clinic in Karedonia! This could be BIG, couldn't it?”

Jadis, as usual, couldn’t wait to puncture my bubble. So many beautiful plans, up in smoke! “Jobe,” she maliciously informed me, “Gianni Versace is dead.”

“WHAT?” How could he be so inconsiderate? How could Jadis?

“He was murdered in Miami’s South Beach.”

“This is an outrage! When did this happen?”

“1997.”

Jadis reached over and shut my mouth. I like the irritating, flat-chested little psycho, really I do. She’s one of my best friends. But she’s got this lunatic desire to be in total control. I swear, I can’t begin planning a single thing without her interrupting me with some inconsequential point and derailing my genius. Then she steps in and takes over, and before I know it, it isn’t my plan at all, but hers! How does she do that? Is it a girl thing? If I stayed a girl, could I learn how to do that?

“Look, Jobe, I know that all this has been very hard and very trying for you. Fortunately, I know JUST the thing to get you into the swing of things.” She pulled out her cell phone and called someone. “Glor? Jadis. Do you have anything planned for next weekend? Well then, pencil it booked!”

And just like that, my beautiful plans for conquering the world of fashion were derailed. For all I knew, she’d be like her nutty father, and go off on “space fashions” or “smart clothes” or something stupid like that. I start with a simple plan for creating the ultimate spa-clinic-fashion center, and gradually using it to conquer first the world of haute couture, and then the entire world! But before I know it, Jadis is tagging along and inviting her stupid superhero friends!

“No, we’re not going to Boston. We’ve done Boston. Like they’d let us back in. Nope, there’s nowhere to go but… NEW YORK!”

I sighed, and began planning the next call home. At least I’d get something out of it.

“That’s right, Fifth Avenue, here we come! Why? Well, Glor, hold onto your hair, wait till you hear THIS ONE!”

I suppose power and influence should be enough to tide me over until I was a sophomore. It wasn’t conquest, but it would have to do for the moment.

Most of the girls had dispersed. I was helping Feebs unpack, and sorting which items could go directly into the drawers, which must be hung, and which would need to go to Rogers’ for fitting. I’d never expected to find myself helping a girl stock her underwear drawer. I’d never expected to feel jealous helping a girl stock her underwear drawer. But Belfy had soooo many fine styles and cuts and colors. High cut panties in lace and transparent pastels, wispy bits of gauze that were decidedly see-through, sheer body-hugging satins.

“Remember,” I instructed, fiercely. “if there’s even a hint of dirt or soil, straight into the bag! Dresses and items that need to hang, you put this clip on them. Leave some things in your drawer, so that they’ll know how to arrange things when they bring them back.”

“About that,” Belfy began, nervously, “there aren’t going to be any problems, are there?”

I raised an eyebrow, inquisitively.

“See,” my mal-educated daughter continued, “most of the things we got, they can’t be washed normally. We’ll have to send them out or something. Jadis said that shouldn’t be a problem, but I was wanted to check before something got ruined.”

Jadis poked her head into the open door. “Did I hear my name?”

I grimaced at her, then turned to face my daughter. “I don’t know how your father, Belt-too-far, handled his things. I presume he trudges down to the basement and dumps his wardrobe into a big ol’ metal washtub, along with a can of soap flakes. Afterward, he doubtlessly heaps everything in a cardboard box or something, and stuffs it in his closet so the wrinkles have a chance to set.”

I tried to keep the scorn out of my voice, but I’m afraid I didn’t completely succeed. My daughter, typical teenager, just rolled her eyes at me.

“In this family, you’ll find that we handle things a bit differently. While you were out, I used the time to good advantage. With Darcy’s gracious assistance, I’ve secured a pair of servants from the floor below us. They’ll be picking up our things twice a week and taking them to Dunwich. If you have anything which doesn’t require dry cleaning, let me assure you that it won’t be harmed by the higher-quality laundry service.”

“Wow,” Belfy breathed in awe, clearly inspired. “I momentarily forgot that I was a new-minted toff now. Servants! How spiffing lovely, mater! And plainly, I’ll need lessons in riding, fox hunting, and arse-holery.”

“Those last couple aren’t actually necessary,” Jadis mentioned. “Consider it an evolutionary weakness. Unemployed assholes often die out. Rich ones survive to pass it on to the next generation.”

“Oh! So I don’t have to act like…”

“Like the Inquisition with PMS? Naw, that’s just Jobe.”

“Ho ho,” I pronounced carefully. “Jads, since you feel the need to butt in, make yourself useful and give me a beast hand.”

She complied, her hand rippling and changing into a monstrous clawed thing. “Got a pickle jar you can’t open?”

“Your wit underwhelms me. I need you to pick up each of these test tubes. I’m looking for a resonance.”

“Like this?”

“That will be all, thanks.”

“So you did do something useful while we were gone.”

“Mock me if you wish,” I told her. “It’s easy enough. I certainly don’t have time for frivolous clothes shopping. Instead, I’m left behind to set up the household. I didn’t even get any nice things. Instead, while I’m arranging the difficult issues, I have to wear cheap Malaysian panties that have been seamed with barbed wire.”

“Hey,” Belfy said, “that sounds just like the problem I was having with synthetic thread.”

I peered at her intently. “What on earth are you talking about?”

Jadis began to laugh. At me. Again. “Jobe, you do know that elvish types are allergic to most synthetics, don’t you? It drove us nuts shopping, trying to find stuff for Belfy that only used natural dyes and stitching that was either cotton or pure silk.”

Belfy sniffed. “All those pretty bras in Victoria’s Secret – and they were all so itchy. Thank god you found that place…”

“Synthetics?” I repeated, slowly.

“Oh, mater dear,” Feebie sighed with an exaggerated, overly dramatic manner, “don’t tell me that you swiped us a womb-full of sidhe genes, without researching the mystic implications. You wouldn’t do something like that, would you?”

I tried to restrain myself. “Belphoebe, I know that your father,” wow, it’s amazing how much scorn you can dump on one word “is a superstitious twit who still believes in all that new-age claptrap. But if you’re going to make progress in the world of real science, you need to be able to differentiate between soft-headed fairy tales and hard-nosed fact. I know that everyone speaks as if magic is real, but the fact is, that’s just a convenient shorthand. Any real researcher in the field will tell you that there is no magical effect, not a single one, that can’t be explained as a combination of mutant and psionic abilities, channeled through the imperfect medium of the human subconscious. There are no such things as ‘mystic implications.’ There is just a racial subtype with a predilection for psychic abilities, and a culture that glorifies bones, rattles, and witch-doctors!”

“Wow,” Belphoebe realized, in wide-eyed wonder. “I didn’t know that anyone could be that ignorant!” She turned to Jadis. “He doesn’t really believe that, does he? He’s just pulling my leg, right?”

Jadis appeared to be struggling to maintain a straight face. “Oh, he believes it, alright.”

“Occam’s Razor,” I pronounced. “I challenge you to find one single mystic effect that can’t be duplicated by psychic and mutant powers.”

They tried to defend their point. Jadis had a bit of the witch-doctor leanings, too. For a girl who has such an intellectual father, it’s sad to see. It’s a weakness in my friend that I do my best to overlook, but occasionally the reality must intrude on the little fantasies that we craft for ourselves. I made a note to myself to check (privately) on whether she believed in Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny, as well.

Although the discussion continued on for some time, I won’t bore you with it. Scientific American covered the same points, in their special issue last year. The only interesting aspects came as we were finally getting ready for bed. Jadis was still hanging around.

“Can’t get enough of me, Jads?” I asked, in my usual sweet tones.

“Naw. I’m just enjoying the double-team on you. Besides,” she admitted, “I roomed with Misty on the trip. She’s nice, but I can use a break every now and then. Also, I want to see your face.”

I gave her my finest scowl, indicating my intolerance for her cryptic comment.

Jadis just laughed at me. “You know, Jobie, that expression doesn’t work at all on your new face. It’s more petulant and pouting than anything else. You really need a set of girl-lessons, like we’re giving your daughter.”

“I won’t be needing them, because I won’t be remaining female for long,” I coolly informed her. “In fact, I’ve already made significant strides in that department.”

“Oh, really?”

“Can you shut the door?” Belfy called. “I need to get changed, and I’ve definitely seen guys wandering down this end of the hall.” She tossed some items on the bed.

“Top bunk,” I informed her. “The bottom’s mine.”

“Of course, mater dear,” she answered back, with a touch of irritation. “I was keen on the top bunk anyway, but I wouldn’t have minded having a choice about it.” She climbed up holding – I had to look twice – stuffed animals! A black spider, a green snake, and one of those ocean-bottom fishes with the enormous mouths. I had to admit, they were all rather cute.

“Hey, what’s this?” she called, lifting up another box.

“Oh, Dad sent that. Grandpa, to you. It’s the base and remote unit for an OmniSqueal 5000, in case one of us wants the loony thing.”

When they both gave me blank looks, I was forced to explain, which led to Belphoebe’s wide eyes and Jadis’ failed attempt to remain standing during a crippling attack of amusement. She finally wiped a tear from her eye.

“Oh, Lord,” Jadis finally got out, “I’m not even going to try to explain that one to Misty!”

Belphoebe, meanwhile, was examining a remote unit with a gleam of wonderment in her eye. “So, the ‘base unit’ is entirely internal? You wouldn’t even see anything?” She flicked the remote unit on. “Aw, look at that! It’s telescoping! That’s… that’s just too cool! Talk about the best of both worlds! Next time Bel-naught bugs me about his equipment, I’ll just show him this!”

“Bel-not?” I asked.

“We sort of came to an agreement between ourselves,” she admitted. “He’s Belphegor-naught, I’m Belphegor-prime. And next time he bugs me, I’ll just point out that he’s only got one, while I’ve got three!” She glanced my way. “Unless you really wanted…”

“No! Absolutely not! That’s just sick!” I told her. “The idea of implanting some artificial machine to … oh! It’s just sick!”

Jadis nodded. “Wow, for once I actually agree with you, Jobe. Nice to know you can be reasonable about something—”

“Exactly! Pure biology is the only reasonable approach.” I swept open my dressing gown and thrust my hips proudly forward. “Behold, the Prosthetic Urination and Sex Solution, Passing Anterior to Labia!”

They both stared at me, stunned.

“Chicks with dicks,” Belphoebe finally breathed.

Jadis was, blissfully, unable to speak. Her jaw worked and her mouth moved, but no sound came out.

“Puss-pal?” Feebs finally figured out. “You named it Puss-pal?”

“Actually,” I said proudly, fingering it, “I named it Prickles. Er, long story. But unlike my father’s twisted mockery, this is hygienic, comfortable, and entirely non-mechanical.”

“Uh, it’s also limp,” Jadis finally observed.

“No problem!” With a sequence of squeezes, I triggered the change. First half-mast, then a position I call “Up and at ‘em!”

“It’s official,” Jadis said. “I want to gouge my eyes out.”

“Dibs on the gouging spoon, once you’re done,” my traitorous daughter chimed in.

Despite her grand theatrics, I thought Jadis was probably quite impressed with prickles. Still, it had been a long day for everyone. Jadis pled the excuse of needing to overcome dry heaves. For whatever reason, she fled, and I was left alone with Belphoebe for the first time since her “birth.”

It wasn’t an awkward silence, and it wasn’t a comfortable one either. I helped my “daughter” sort her new acquisitions.

“Why do you keep looking at me like that?” she finally demanded.

I sighed. I decided to be honest with her, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. I’m not used to sharing my private thoughts and feelings.

“How can I help looking at you. You’re so unbelievably beautiful.”

“Oh. Uh, thanks. I hadn’t expected a compliment from you.”

“You’re also frustrating as hell,” I admitted.

“Huh?”

“Well, look at you. Beautiful, graceful, confident. This outing was a good idea. I can see how your confidence has grown, just in the last few days. It shows in your movements, posture, everything about you.”

“And exactly how does that make me frustrating?”

“I designed your body,” I reminded her. “I built you to be my personal fuck dream. Oh, I had broader and more noble goals, as well. A life-long companion, a body that would be a worthy gift for my mate, a sovereign remedy to many of the ills of the human condition. But remember that you were crafted by a horny adolescent boy who was fixated on creating the perfect girlfriend.”

She ran a hand down her side, obviously not realizing how sensual the move looked.

“Yes, well, as I told you, mater, you do good work sometimes. So I frustrate you, do I?”

“Carson’s lunatic judgment does have some logic to it,” I admitted. “For the moment, you need to settle in, to become whomever you were meant to be. You need protection, and a nurturing environment. I … I know you’re not Belphegor. You think you’re him, you talk like him and remember being him, and have all his mannerisms. I won’t lie. I hate that. And seeing his mannerisms in my dream girlfriend, it’s driving me nuts. But… I can see changes coming already. You’ll always be your father’s daughter, but more and more, I see bits that might reflect my contribution to your creation.”

“You still look over and want to fuck me,” she decided.

“Well of course I do! You’re my god-damned dream girl! How could I not? But I’m not exactly equipped for it at the moment, am I?” I hefted my breasts, in demonstration.

“I can tell you that you’re not coming anywhere near me with that vile prosthetic!” She slammed her legs together like a proper girl, and put out a hand to fend me off.

“Oh, forget the prosthetic!” I squeezed to trigger Prickles to release. Then I pulled him off and dunked most of him into the beaker of nutrient solution.

After regaining my breath, I started over. “Look, I’m just saying that if you were my daughter – for real, I mean – well, I’d still hate your father. But I wouldn’t hate you. I don’t want you to think that. I look at your beautiful face and body, and bit by bit I see you growing into the kind of woman I dreamed of. You’re growing into someone who is much more than Belphegor could ever be. No, don’t worry, I won’t consider making a pass at my own daughter. I won’t be someone who abuses their power over their own dependent.”

Phoebe looked at me blankly. “But… that’s what you do, isn’t it? I mean, Bad Seed, child of a supervillain, the whole bit?”

“Hardly.” I laughed. “Is that how you see it? Look, if I wanted to vent my power on society, I’ve got some germ warfare agents that will curl your hair. No, I could care less about that. In fact, I expect that I’ll do far more good than harm, in my career. FAR more. You and I have gifts. Mental gifts that set us apart from the teeming masses. The rules they make were created for those mobs of sheep, and in many cases, I feel those rules are nothing but a hindrance to gifted inventors like ourselves. Beyond that, I tend to be pragmatic, a bit greedy, and unwilling to put up with bullies. None of these are crimes. In fact, many of these characteristics have been lauded as the highest ideal, at some point in our society.”

“But,” Belphoebe sputtered for a moment, trying to come to terms with this new view of me, “…ah, got it! The orc mines of Karedonia! Mutating citizens, horrid conditions, transformative viruses… how do you explain all that?”

I shrugged. “Look, when Dad raised the sea-bed, the magma bubble offered abundant resources, if we could only get close enough to mine the cooling shell. The orc miners were designed for that. Initially I tested on the condemned. Convicted criminals and the like. Eventually I broadened that to include volunteers. And I’ve solicited for volunteers a few times.”

“Volunteers? To be an orc miner?”

I smiled. “It’s like a Darwin Award – their chance to contribute to the human gene pool, by removing themselves. Who am I to deny such a gift?”

We’d almost finished putting away the clothes. “Oh,” I remembered. “I got some school uniforms in your size. Our size, I suppose. I hung them all in this wardrobe, but you’re welcome to them. If they get damaged or torn, here’s the boxes to send them back to Rogers’.”

Phoebe looked into my wardrobe with an odd touch of moisture at the corners of her large eyes.

“Um… thank you.”

After a moment, she straightened. “I got you a gift, too.”

That was a surprise. “Really?”

“Well, Jadis insisted. It was going to be a bit of a gag. Teasing you about the whole ‘turning into a girl’ thing. But I guess the joke’s on us. Anyway, sometimes the sheets are a little coarse feeling. This looks like it would be stiff and scratchy, but it’s actually really soft on the skin. And no allergic reaction. It’s really nice to sleep in, believe me.”

She opened the last box and pulled out a diaphanous gown. It was a thin, transparent piece of nothing.

“What is it?” I wondered.

“It’s a nightgown, obviously.”

“I can see that! I mean, what kind?” I clarified.

“It’s called a ‘teddy’.” She began to undress and slipped it on. “See? It only comes down to your thighs. Then there are these little panties to go with it. I think they’re mostly for modesty, and maybe to hold sanitary things. Without that, they’re pretty breathable, which is good.”

I gulped, feeling a rather intense tightening at my tips, along with a corresponding warmth deep in my tummy. I had to repeat to myself, over and over, injunctions against sexual relations with my daughter. Her gauzy outfit hid nothing, and accentuated everything. There was a hint of sapphire blue to the outfit, matching her eyes perfectly. And the outfit clung to her curves as she moved and turned, accentuating a curve or a swell here, clearly marking a protrusion there.

“Here,” she continued, “yours is lavender, to match your eyes. Say, where are you hiding those almonds? I could go for a handful or two.” She licked her lips in anticipation.

She’s my DAUGHTER! Must.not.be.TEMPTED! I told myself firmly, as I began to prepare for bed.

“Well… there are perhaps a few details of your new body that I haven’t mentioned yet…”

“Wow,” she said at last, gathering her toothbrush. “So we really taste…?”

“I think so,” I said. “I mean, I can smell it. And, I have to admit, I sort of… er…sampled the wares. Just a lick off one finger, but it wasn’t bad. It did sort of taste like a watery essence of almost. Like dipping your finger in almond extract, perhaps. There wasn’t much, because I told you about the demon’s frustration curse. I had to just imagine things.” That had been a Scott fantasy, as I recall.

“Oh, mother, you can’t even touch your own breasts, can you? How horrible!” Feebs rushed forward to embrace me in a hug, a clear sign of her increasingly female behavior. Another sign was the way our breasts squished together, since we were leaning slightly crosswise. My own went above on one side and below on the other, and I could feel her warm, round flesh pressing mine in a way that was delightful and inviting and not the least bit innocent. I very much wanted to explore more of this, but manfully stuffed my perverted impulses back down the hole that they’d issued out of.

“I’m half-tempted to do you myself, just to see,” Feebs shot out, playfully.

“Please don’t tempt me anymore,” I ground out, between gritted teeth.

She pulled back. “Oh, mater, don’t be silly. Not that you don’t look simply yummy in that teddy. Now, come on, it’s time for bed.”

I grabbed my robe and toothbrush. I noticed that Belphoebe had several bottles and crèmes. One trip with the girls and she already had her collection of ointments and face goop.

The girls in the lavatory gave us both looks of sheer jealousy, which cheered me immensely. I didn’t even taunt them by pointing out that I would be returning to manhood soon enough, but would carry memories of all of them in various states of undress.

Back in our room, I cranked the bolts and prepared for bed.

“Say… mater,” Belfy asked softly, “I don’t suppose… er…”

I looked over. She was holding the box with that revolting OmniSqueal in it.

“You aren’t serious.”

“Well, uh, yeah, really. I mean, it’s the one thing I kind of miss from my old memories. The thought that I could, you know.”

“I could loan you Prickles,” I offered generously.

She seemed to choke on something for a moment. “Ah, thanks anyway. It’s probably too long and involved – major implant and all.”

I sighed. “You’re a regenerator. Putting in the base unit is about a five minute job. And I suppose it could be worse. We can correct this mistake in about five minutes more, when you change your mind.”

“Really? Oh, please?”

And there was nothing to do but go through with it. I lay her down on my bunk, and began to prepare scalpels and a nerve-deadening poison, for use as an anesthetic.

Afterward, I waited another five minutes, then pulled the stitches.

Belphoebe stood up, running a hand over her mons. “But I don’t look any different. I still look exactly like a girl. I still feel exactly like a girl.”

“There’s a switch on the base unit,” I explained. “Honestly, doesn’t anyone read the manual anymore?”

Belphoebe pressed her fingertips over the gentle swell of her own flesh. “Oh, there it goes.”

“They didn’t say, but I can guess,” I confided. “Mom has a temper, sometimes.” I gingerly plucked up one of the remotes. “She probably got mad at Dad and dropped this into the garbage disposal. After that, I’m guessing that he installed an off switch.”

“Give me that! It’s mine!” Belfy took the “remote unit” – this one incongruously covered with my white spray-on skin, and placed it at her loins, as if it were a real penis.

“Hey, it sticks! Look at me, I’m a guy!”

“Magnetic linkage,” I explained, picking up the manual. “How’s it feel.”

She struggled, trying to get it to disattach. “Just like the real thing. If I can … just get it … off again. Oh, there. How odd, I can still feel it.”

She giggled to herself. “Oh, I’m going to have fun tonight.”

I just sighed.

Laying down in bed, I was already enjoying my new gift, admiring the way it tented and flowed across the prominent swells of my flesh.

Belphoebe clicked off the light and climbed into her bunk.

“Feebs?”

“Yes?”

“There’s one other thing I didn’t tell you about drow girls.”

“Worse than the other stuff? Oh, this’ll be good, then.”

“Hmmm, yeah, that’s about right. It’s about being a virgin.”

“No worries there. Between the twins and the new toys, I’m happy as a clam. Which in this case is perhaps a delightfully appropriate Americanism.”

“Good,” I said. “Because it’s possible that the first time you sleep with a man… he’ll own you.”

“Say again?” Her voice dropped into almost a growl. “You’d better explain that one.”

It was a secret I’d been sitting on (literally) for several days now, but I owed it to her. “Well, see, this was supposed to be my dream girl, right? Naturally, everyone else would be attracted to her, too. I wanted to be able to give her something that no one else could give her. But I don’t believe in mind control.”

“None of your words are comforting me,” Belphoebe warned.

“So I fixed it. I’d just need to sleep with her once, see? Then she couldn’t resist me.”

“Get to the point!”

“You can trace the sexual nerves for human women. There are two primary concentrations, in the clitoris, and about half-way up the vagina. The so-called ‘Gräfenberg spot.’ Then there are secondary sites – the nipples, areas of the skin. I increased the nerve endings, increasing the sensitivity of all of these regions. You’ve probably noticed that yourself.”

“What did you DO?”

“Modified nerve cells,” I explained. “Like the scent detectors, in the nose. Only, these aren’t in the nose. They form a tertiary sexual concentration, more powerful than any of the others. They’re sensitized to the chemical structures in semen, and the exposed nerve endings surround the cervix.”

“So,” my daughter ground out, “whenever there’s semen spraying over my cervix, I’ll, what? Come like you wouldn’t believe?”

“Well… yes and no. I mean, we’ll always be able to sense true semen down there, and it’ll definitely bring pleasure, but the chemical detectors will form a special bond with the first type of semen encountered. As you know from bloodhounds and the like, everyone has their own unique scent, and that’s what we—”

“Mother, SHUT UP. Just tell me what this means.”

“Well…” I gulped. “The first man… the first semen… that will sensitize you. Permanently.”

“I thought you didn’t LIKE mind control!”

“I don’t! This isn’t mind control! It’s just… a little extra. A special gift.”

“That does WHAT?”

“Uh… the first man who, um, has his semen on your cervix, I can’t be sure, I haven’t tested it, but… you’ll come.”

“Yes? And?”

“I think it should be pretty mind blowing,” I admitted.

“That’s it?”

“Yes. But I don’t think you get it,” I said. “I mean, really mind-blowing. When he’s inside you, when he comes, you’ll taste it. You’ll feel it. It will feel like it’s going right to all your most sensitive spots at once. Whenever he comes inside you, you’ll instantly come so powerfully that you won’t believe it. But only for him. Your first man. You’ll lock onto his scent, and then he’ll be the only one that ever does that for you, for the rest of your life.”

“Oh, that’s just fucking lovely.”

“But, on the good side,” I pleaded, “think about it! Every time your man gets off, you do, too! Simultaneous orgasm, every single time. Not only will you be happy, but you’ll make him feel really good, too. Men like to believe that they’re keeping their women happy, and he will be, won’t he? Heck, by my calculations, you’ll be spasming so hard that it will be like a first-class workout, just by having sex.”

“But only for the stupid wanker that fucks me first.”

“Yeah. So… pick someone that will stick around. And be a good father. And someone who will live a long time. And,” I realized that I was whispering this last part, “someone who will love you forever.”

“Fucking wonderful.”

“Because even if you come to hate him,” I realized, “I mean, hate him as much as I hate your father, you won’t be able to stay away from him. You’ll always want him back there inside you…”

“Great. Stay a virgin for the rest of your life. Your first boyfriend better be The One. No pressure, it’s just eternity.”

“What have I done…?” I asked myself.

By morning, I was feeling more refreshed than I had in several days. My new physiology was settling in. I have to say, a well-designed, regenerating body feels good. These last few days, there had been all sorts of subtle shifts and alterations occurring. I was only aware of them in retrospect, by virtue of their absence. For the first time in weeks, I was physically set and comfortable. It made the prospect of my journey back to manhood a bit more daunting, but that has ever been my lot in life.

I stretched, admiring the look and feel of my diaphanous covering as it pulled tight across my body. My daughter had been correct. It was more comfortable sleeping in a soft, materially compatible sheath.

I prepared to head for the lavatory, to take care of the morning needs and take my shower. Before I left, though, I grabbed Prickles out of the nutrient solution. It was time, I decided, for some early market research. Belphoebe’s actions last night made it perfectly clear: women wanted a dick. And that confirmed my own thoughts on the subject. My new invention should be appealing to the female market. The only question was: how appealing?

Pulling my panties down and squatting, I flipped Prickles legs up and slid him into place.

“Yeowtch! Note: Must work on the attachment process!”

It also felt a bit weird as the various tubes extruded into me.

Since my panties no longer fit properly, I stepped out of them, but still wrapped a robe around myself. After all, there were boys in this hall.

Inside the girls’ room, there was the usual line at the showers. We get the occasional girl coming down from the higher floors, since the more senior classes don’t have the new showers yet. One of these was at the end of the line, talking to Jadis’ roommate, Misty. Misty is a complete newbie at Whateley, still awed by the people and powers she now encounters on a daily basis. That was never more clear than in this case, as she spoke to Conjure, from the next floor up. Conjure’s real name is actually Randa Van Dusen. She’s an exchange student, with only the slightest accent. She was displaying a European casualness in the shower that demonstrated to me that the russet-red of her wavy hair was not actually her natural color. I wasn’t sure whether this casual near-nudity was a Dutch thing, or just her own eccentricity. In either case, it indicated to me a certain openness and experimental attitude that might translate into a person receptive to my new creation.

“So, I am just blown away!” Misty was chattering. “I mean, I’ve been here, what, a week? Not even! And I’ve already fought a major, I mean major supervillain, saved a friend, seen more weirdness than most people get in a lifetime, and had the ultimate east-coast shopping spree! Like it? I’m in heaven!”

“Yes, but you haven’t actually gone to any classes, have you?”

“Well, there were these classification tests on Friday. And I was busy on Thursday, too, so, no, not really.”

“Classes and tests will bring you back to earth,” the Dutch girl promised. “Powers Theory? The most potent sleep spell known to man. And the tests? Some of them, you just hope to survive. I mean that for real.”

“Oh, well…”

“Ladies,” I said, making my introduction with a style and smoothness that would have been the envy of any door-to-door salesman, “may I have a moment of your time?”

“What’s up, Belfy?” Misty chirped. Then she peered closer at my eyes. “Oh, wait, it’s Jobe, isn’t it?”

“Jobe? ‘Mr. Backstab?’ ‘Doctor Death?’ ‘His Supreme Sickness?’ That Jobe?”

“Yes, yes, we’ve all heard the aliases,” I tried to sooth conjure.

“Majestic told everyone to leave you alone for a week, while you set up.”

“And it’s good that she did!” I announced, grandly. “Let me assure you that my hands have not been idle! In fact, if you’ll permit, I’d like to show you exactly what I’ve been working on.” With that intriguing leading line as my ‘hook’, I swept open my robe to display the product. “I can pee standing up!” I informed them, to the amazement of all.

I was receiving a better reception than I’d hoped for. The girls, one and all, stared at me with wide eyes. Particularly Misty, the naïve young freshman. She stared at my prosthesis with eyes so wide they threatened to escape her face entirely.

The only exception was Jadis, who had covered her face in horror. Still, even she peeked through her fingers. I realized what it meant: This product was simply that appealing.

“If anyone here is interested in experiencing the feel of this marvel for themselves,” I continued, magnanimously, “let me announce here and now that I am willing to give out free samples! Yes, you can have for free what women all over the world will soon be paying for! Just watch!”

With a few deft and concealed squeezes, I triggered Prickles into an upright position. I knew that in this position, his external lung sacs (cleverly disguised as a scrotum) might be visible, gently expanding and contracting as he wheezed in air. I truly hoped that wouldn’t detract from the product. The only ones who would really see were Misty and Conjure. Of the two, Misty seemed focused with an intensity that was both surprising and gratifying. I saw perhaps the slightest glimmer of concern in her eyes, so I focused the rest of my presentation directly on her.

“If you’re worried about fit,” I said, speaking directly to her, “then don’t. I’m willing to work with you until the fit is perfect! And comfort – I’ll admit, you might experience the merest, slightest pain initially. But that will soon be swept away in the soothing relief that follows. Yes,” I was moving toward a crescendo in my presentation, “once you feel this mighty muscle between your legs, you won’t want – you won’t even think of sitting to pee, ever again! So, what do you say?” I began a series of subtle pelvic motions, which had the effect of waving Prickles in a figure-eight pattern. A pattern that had captured Misty’s attention the way a flame captures a moth. “If you’re even curious, I urge you to come back to my room for a totally free, no obligation fitting!”

Misty’s cheek gave the slightest tik. The type you’d see on an insane person.

I performed a slight hip thrust, displaying the product to better view.

And then, Misty went completely insane. For no reason that I could understand, she screamed. It was a completely girly scream, both fists clutched up over her chest, head shaking back and forth, scream. Then, before I or anyone else could ask what her problem was, she reached out with her left hand, as if to push Prickles away. Her right hand she shoved out, palm open, against my chest.

And she pushed.

Actually, it was probably some sort of mutant ability, but it had the effect of hurling me against the far wall. While Misty’s left hand remained wrapped around Prickles, holding him.

Needless to say, Prickles and I parted company rather violently. I made a mental note to provide for a breakaway decoupling procedure (for emergency separation situations) that would be less… excruciating. Fortunately, I could regenerated small cuts. Unfortunately, I had a wealth of nerve endings down there. I clasped my hands to the wound.

“Owwww!”

“My God! You ripped his dick off!”

Misty looked down at the thing in her hand and screamed again, flinging it wildly away. By chance, it landed on another girl’s shoulder. She screamed, flinging poor prickles to the tile floor. Whereupon, he immediately righted himself and began trying to scuttle away.

“It’s moving!”

“It’s coming right toward me!”

“Kill it!”

I saw a room full of women descending on my creation.

“Girls! Stop! STOP! That’s an irreplaceable prototype!”

But, between bathroom slippers and mutant powers in action, by the time I managed to get there, Prickles was breathing his last. I gently scooped up his battered body, his little scrotum-lungs inflating and deflating with a wheeze.

“Why?” I asked tearfully, “why does every woman have to rip my penis off?”

“What is that thing?” one girl asked.

“You mean you don’t know?” came the snide reply.

“It’s a bio-prosthesis,” I tragically informed her. “The first… and last of his kind. A creation to let women stand up to men as equals, and more. And now, his too-brief time with us is gone. Let us mourn. Mourn for Prickles.”

“That’s it. I’m swearing off sex forever.”

“The lesbian life suddenly seems a lot more appealing.”

As I sadly carried away my rejected creation, I heard Misty speaking softly behind me, calling out to her roommate with a ragged voice.

“It’s not going to be like this every day, is it?”

“Lord, no,” Jadis replied. “Sometimes, it gets weird.”

In my grief, I found I had no wish to present myself as female. As I had been prone to do, for these last few days, I once again donned the male uniform/costume that had been created to conceal my current gender. I’ll admit that the wrap was constrictive, but so long as I didn’t take any deep breaths, I thought everything would work out. The red tint fixed my eyelashes and eyebrows, and combined with a bit of mousse, produced a nicely spikey hair-do. Not my normal style, but distinctly masculine. I suppose I could have gone without the pink-skin spray-on, but I wanted to avoid the notice my black skin would attract.

Even so, my newly-feminine figure was noticeable through the disguise. The lab coat, left hanging open, provided the last element, concealing some curves and distracting from others.

My feminine voice was in a low enough register that by speaking gruffly, most people took me for a male.

I regretted the loss of Prickles. Alas, he was obviously ahead of his time.

I attracted attention in class, but it was mostly of the “new kid?” variety. I didn’t deliberately identify myself, unless necessary. I used the boys’ lavatory, heading into the stalls.

At noon I made my rendez vous with Belphoebe. I had to say, she cut a magnificent figure in the Whateley girls’ uniform. Her pure-black skin made her like an icon, a living silhouette. Her contrasting stark white hair seemed to symbolize innocence and purity, while effectively highlighting her already-amazing eyes. Her figure was magnificent, her curves lush, her face demure, her attitude spoke of a nascent sexual energy just waiting to erupt into an all-consuming flame. She was more than hot, she was my dream girl made real. She made my nipples so hard they hurt.

“What’s up?” she wondered, as I sauntered closer.

“Since you’re officially related to me,” I decided, “I think it’s time to introduce you to the others in a similar situation. There is a group of us – second generation to the world’s boogeymen and dragon ladies. We call ourselves the Bad Seeds.”

We entered Shuster Hall and stepped into the elevator that normally descends to the underground. It began its normal descent, but stopped partway down, and then jogged to the side.

“What? It’s never done that before!” she cried.

“We don’t bring guests here,” I explained. “It’s only us. This place was created by our parents and grandparents, and given over to us, to inspire us to follow in their footsteps.”

The elevator door opened, and Belphoebe gasped. We were in space, in geosynchronous orbit. Out from the elevator door, a red carpet stretched forward sixty feet to heavy, imposing door of an armed and armored orbital space platforms. Huge, destructive turrets focused in every direction.

I’d seen it before, so I stepped forward with little concern.

“But… space? How did we…?”

“It’s just a hologram. We call this the Mood Corridor. This looks like a Dr. Diabolik design. I’ve thrown in a few designs of my own. My favorite is the one I call, ‘down the throat of the beast.’ It’s all to help set the mood. Get you thinking big. That sort of thing.”

“I… see.”

The actual door was a four-way steel-and-rivets affair. Each panel opened simultaneously, sliding left, right, up, and down. The effect was intended to be a modest security measure, and more importantly a reminder to always defend in depth, with multiple layers. To me, it just seemed reminiscent of the opening to the ancient Get Smart TV show.

We stepped through into the main lounge.

“Hey, everyone. Wanted to introduce my new daughter!”

As soon as we entered, I saw my mistake. Nephandus and Thrasher were both pushed up against the wall. Cheese didn’t look any different, but you have to wonder – does anything phase that kid?

Floating in the middle of the room was a clear plastex globe, with a pulsing brain inside it. I don’t know how (or why) he makes it pulse, but it’s a cool effect. Sort of 1950’s retro. The brain rotated to face me, with glowing yellow energy-eyes shimmering at the front of it.

Your thoughts identify you as Jobe, and not a copy or download, but the original. Your body, however… would seem to be identical to the newcomer.

Feebs cringed. Psike has a tendency to do that to both newcomers and girls. Also, I suppose it’s a bit odd if you aren’t used to having thoughts shoved into your head. There’s also the cool way his energy-mouth seems to appear and distort as he speaks. It’s not a visual effect – it doesn’t show up on cameras. The viewer’s mind just imposes that mental interpretation just past the surface of his globe.

“Nonsense!” I bluffed. “I’m a regular guy. She’s a drow girl.”

Your pot and kettle are both black.

“Whatever,” I said, desperately waving him off. “I’m still Jobe 1.0, now and always. So I admit, I had a little accident with a bio-conversion serum. Also, someone stole a little of it, that still makes me mad, and cloned up a copy. Long story short, Belphegor, you’d probably scan him as an ambulatory gas giant—”

“Hey!” Feebs protested.

“—got his brain copied into the clone. Carson decided I was the ‘mother’, Bore-fart-more was the ‘father’, and my new daughter would room with me at my new home over in Melville.”

Your inefficient chatter is wasteful, when I can simply pluck the relevant information from your mind.

“Feebs, this is ‘Psike.’ He has issues with mental privacy and mind-rape. No offense, Psike.”

Information wants to be free, and I will be the one who frees it!

“Yeah, you’ve mentioned that. Belphoebe, Psike, and likewise. Psike is one of the older seeds – he’s a senior. Lost his body in a tragic accident, yada yada, and now he’s both insane and insanely powerful. So, how’s it going with you, Psike?”

I need a meat-puppet body, to pass easily in human society. You will make me one.

I scowled. “Ooo, not a good time. Lots on my plate. And those bodies don’t come cheap.”

The funds will be transferred to a Karedonian numbered account. With a 30% bonus to expedite. Will that suffice?

I considered, and dug through my backpack. “I need a favor, too. Do your hardest TK squeeze on the liquid inside here, and hold it for thirty seconds.” I felt the metal capsule heat in my hands. “Good. Okay, let’s talk specs and schedule…”

“You can’t do this!” Thrasher broke in.

“What? Make a clone body to help Psike?”

“Who cares about that?” He thrust a finger toward Feebs. “The newcomer! You can’t just bring someone into the group! You know the qualifications! One or more parents must be a recognized super-villain or figure of global domination.”

I split my attention between Thrasher’s tirade, and Psike, who has a bad Schwarzenegger fixation.

“Mister Olympic physique and black leather is not ‘inconspicuous,’” I said to one. To the other, “I’m her parent. Does that count? And her father is destined for life as … a petty shoplifter.”

“Hey!” Feebs protested. “Bel-naught is gonna be rich someday, if I don’t rob him blind, first!”

“Look, if you want inconspicuous, I’ve got a Don Knots that I can offer for half price. And I think having Emperor Wilkins as grandfather should count for something.” Not that I meant to link those two thoughts.

“I agree,” Nephandus oiled, appearing at Belfy’s shoulder. “Has anyone ever told you that you have beautiful eyes?”

“Just out of curiosity,” she asked him, “were you hoping to keep that hand?”

“Timothy Dalton it is,” I agreed. “Or a reasonable facsimile, for anonymity. Done! Good choice, too, if I may say so. Serious, professional, could be either naughty or nice, if you catch my drift.”

Excellent! Once my puppet is ready – let the world beware!

“I like her,” Winter decided, casting her vote in. “She has a good attitude toward Nephandus.”

“Hey!”

I leave now. Your delicate animal sentiments fatigue me.

As Psike wafted away, Cheese finally joined the conversation. “Good disguise,” he told me. “I’d almost believe you were a guy. And I’d never guess that you were practically a twin for your daughter.”

“Huh?” Nephandus is a bit slow, sometimes. “He is? What did I miss?”

As we left, Belfy was obviously impressed. “Your meeting room is practically right under Shuster! How’d in God’s name did you ever manage to get space there?”

“Legacy,” I told her, smugly. “The Bad Seeds date back to some of the Whateley founders. So, what did you think?”

“…Interesting group. What’s-his-name, the brain thing—”

“Psike?”

“Yeah. Scary guy. Was he serious? Is he really insane?”

“Yes. Yes. Yes.”

She shivered a bit. “Creepy.”

“He tends to leave women with that feeling.”

She looked at me sideways. “Oh? And you didn’t feel any of it?”

I ignored the goosebumps that were finally fading. “No, not at all. I’m a guy, remember?”

“Suuure you are. Hey, so what’s he offering for the old clone body?”

I told her.

“Bloody Hell! I should have undercut you! Is that for real?”

“Too late, it’s a done deal. Besides, while I know you can handle a clone,” I gestured toward her body, as proof, “he wanted special design work.”

Belfy got a sly look on her face. “You’ll need a cloning chamber…”

“Of course, but I know how to build my own.”

“I know where to get one already assembled. Complete and tested. In fact, it’s one of yours.”

I scowled. “That’s blackmail. Besides, your father has it locked away somewhere new. Even if we could find it, his passwords are thirty digits long.”

“Yes, but I know the locations and the passwords.”

I thought for a minute. “Twenty thousand,” I offered.

“What? You thief! One hundred big ones.”

“Fifty,” I countered.

“Sixty-five.”

I considered. How much was mother/daughter harmony worth? “Fifty-one.”

“You bastard.”

“Technically, no. You’d be surprised how many people make that mistake.”

Belphegor’s new secret lab wasn’t too far from the devisor bays. Less distance to carry his ill-gotten booty, I suppose. But now the knife was cutting both ways.

The hardest task was finding a rolling cart. The small mechanics people had fixed up every cart so that they trundled back on their own. Checking one out (if they were even available) required a school ID, a thumbprint, and a Kirlian impression. Cracking a secret lab? Easy. Borrowing a cart? Hard.

“You sure he won’t be there?” I asked.

“It’s gym class,” Belfy said. “I – he likes to watch the girls’ aerobics.”

“On him it’s disgusting,” I told her. “On you, it’s cute.”

“Hmmm,” was all she said.

We trundled down the hallway, with a cart checked out to Belphoebe.

“You ever notice,” Belfy began, “how all the corridors down here look like underground sets from the original Star Trek? Even the fake texture on the rock?”

“Oh sure, but there’s a reason for that,” I explained.

“This should be good.”

“Well, it’s simple, really. Whateley was started back in 1966, right? And the underground was initially constructed by devisors and other geeky types. At the time, Star Trek was just beginning its run.”

“You’re telling me they did it on purpose?”

I shrugged. “At least they had good taste.”

The black girl beside me snorted. “If they’d had good taste, they would have found better things to copy than Star Trek.”

I quirked an eyebrow at her, in my best Spock impression.

“Dr. Who, you nit!”

I couldn’t resist. “What?”

She looked at me like I’d just shat on her family bible. “Don’t even pretend that you’re a devisor, and you haven’t watched Dr. Who!”

“Okay, okay. Dad was a gadget devisor, he forced the whole family to watch when I was growing up. He even made some Daleks for the local Karedonian police force.”

“Gee, I’m liking grandpa more and more!”

“Yeah, he made up a couple for special effects and gave them to the BBC, as a gift. And he offers free shooting rights, whenever they want to film in Karedonia. He’s a little loony on the whole subject. But that’s Dad for you.”

We arrived at an unmarked section of wall, and Belphoebe whistled a short tune. A moment later, the wall fell inward, revealing a short passageway.

“That clever bastard!” I couldn’t help saying.

“Thank you!” Feebs answered.

“And now… a looting we will go! About time I got my cloning chamber back!”

“While I’m here,” Belfy decided, “maybe I’ll just pick up one or two useful items. Like my MultiGun.”

I smiled broadly at her. “We really need to have more of these mother/daughter outings!”

Our larceny was done, the restored cloning chamber was returned to its rightful place and already working through a diagnostic cycle.

Belfy and I strolled back toward Melville, cutting the first afternoon class, but pleased with ourselves.

And then, everything changed. In an instant.

We walked along the normal path. As I have often mentioned, they were heated, ice-free, and dry, instead of ice-crusted snow drifts to be found off the paths. I was to the right, Belphoebe to the left. We had just rounded the corner of Shuster when he struck.

I’d been trained most of my life to deal with assassination attempts. I’d been trained by professionals: accomplished assassins and ninja. A key point of the training is to be alert, aware of your surroundings, and ever-vigilant against a surprise attack. If you foil the surprise, often the enemy’s entire plan unravels. However… spotting and foiling the surprise is usually not possible, even for professionals. More than anything else, it requires luck.

Luck was not with us today.

One moment we were walking along, happily discussing projects to come. Then, without warning, Counterpoint appeared. He passed flying through the solid wall of Shuster hall and was on us. I later reconstructed it. He had spied upon us with some stolen psychic ability, allowing for split-second timing. Then, using TK-brick powers, he flew toward the wall. At the last second, he switched to phasing, passing through the wall, and switched again to speedster powers, giving himself full dominance of the situation.

For the two of us, it was overwhelming.

One moment we were unsuspecting, the next, Counterpoint was there, flying forward and moving almost faster than the eye could follow. I was kicked aside, a leg sweep striking me in the front of the chest and spinning me over backward. I had barely time to register a large figure spinning a staff over his head.

It was worse than my initial glimpse revealed. He had a round, metal shield slung on his back, and a short sword hanging at his left side, almost horizontally. He was dressed in the armor of a classical Greek hoplite – a bronze chest plate, bronze greaves, and a metal-imbued leather skirt. Classic armor was popular with many students at the school. Only a naïve idiot would assume that it was actually the bronze that it resembled. Instead, it was almost certainly an exotic alloy, lighter and stronger than the original by at least a factor of ten.

It was the spinning staff that was the main concern. Contrary to classical doctrine, Counterpoint used it two handed, spinning it like a medieval English quarterstaff, or a Japanese bo. And I saw, in the moment I had to look, that it wasn’t a staff at all. The butt end was a heavy bronze cudgel, and the opposite end looked to be a razor-sharp steel blade.

Counterpoint’s mid-air leg sweep had caught me in the chest. He spun, and his metal-shod shin smashed across my breasts with stunning force. My eyes flew wide in total shock, and I helplessly watched as that spinning staff came around toward Belphoebe, The blade struck her right arm, just above the wrist, severing her hand in one clean swipe.

I don’t think she’d even realized what happened, as the butt end swung round. That took her cleanly in the gut, doubling her over. And as she jack-knifed down, Counterpoint’s knee came up, connecting with her chin. With a sickening snap, my daughter’s head slammed back. She spun over the opposite way, and lay spread on the snow beside the path – black skin and uniform on the white snow, blood leaking slowly from her nose and mouth, as still as death.

Once, she was my dream girl. For years I had waited, perfecting every tiny bit of her.

And while Belphoebe’s personality might have clashed with mine, she also brought a fire and a beauty to the drow. I realized now, too late, that it was that very conflict that made her so enchanting, that reality of disagreement that turned a passive fantasy into a beautiful, living woman. A woman now stilled by the monster who had turned his back on me.

“Is that all you had?” he demanded. “I’d expected at least a hint of resistance from the one they call ‘Doctor Death’ and ‘Mr. Backstab.’ Feh. Clearly, becoming a woman ruined you.” He paused to spit on the corpse.

I had scarcely noticed it at the time. I had spent years on the drow design, perfecting and adding improvements. My breasts had been slammed with stunning force, but spinal pain-cutoff reflexes had dampened that to a wash of shock. Likewise, adrenaline and other chemicals now flooded me. Calling it rage would be too simple for the state I was entering. My entire world suddenly narrowed into a psychological tunnel vision. This monster would die, or I would. There were no other possibilities.

Unlike the more common biological rage, this sharpened my thinking rather than clouding it. I sifted through strategies rapidly, settling on a four-pronged approach that seemed to account for observed phenomena. I readied two separate contingencies, then took hold of a pair of poisoned kunai. I began with the silk, waited for it to drift, and then launched three kunai in rapid succession: head, kidney, thigh. His heart was protected by the shield on his back, and the thigh strike should hit the femoral artery.

I was surprised they hit. A fighter as well-trained as Counterpoint seemed to be shouldn’t let anyone get the drop on him in the middle of a fight. But, in my time fighting him in class, he’d shown many contradictory characteristics. In some areas, spear, staff, short sword, hand-to-hand grappling, he was better than nearly anyone, including Ito sensei. But then, he’d throw away an advantage to gloat or mock or engage in wanton cruelty.

So it was here. All three kunai struck dead-on, hitting, and clearly catching him by surprise. But they bounced off. Forget about alloy armor – he had a force field up.

Completely off-guard, Counterpoint spun to face me.

“Who are you? And why would you bother defending a worthless little worm like Jobe?”

“You great fucking moron! I’m Jobe!”

“Strike me if you are! Peeper reported the truth! She’s a black elven girl with white hair, and buxom.”

I paused to peel off my face mask. For once, it came away in one piece. A shrug and my lab coat dropped. I’d already retrieved the gear I needed. Another hand tore away my shirt, and I carefully stepped out of my pants. In moments, I was naked, save for my shoes, white panties, and a tight white wrap around my chest.

“Are you starting to understand now, moron?”

“But Peeper said you have white hair!”

“So I guess they never invented hair dye in whatever cesspool it was that gave birth to you.”

I said that my brain was functioning on a purely strategic level, and that was true. On the surface, it seemed that I was pausing to shed my clothes, to trade taunts, and to psychologically prepare myself. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The majority of my kunai were strapped to arm and thigh. Removing the clothes actually allowed for quicker access.

More importantly, while Counterpoint traded barbs with me, I must have appeared to be the black shadow in the blizzard. I had activated a thread sprayer, which shot silken strands into the air, where they drifted like wisps of pure-white cotton candy. I had done this before throwing the kunai. The blades had been a diversion, nothing else. I’d never expected them to be an effective attack, but along with my taunts and strip-show, they were proving a most effective diversion.

The wisps were a creation I’d been working on for several days now. Flexible, long-chain polymers, they stiffened and contracted when they came in contact with a telekinetic field. Following molecular selection, as indicated by work with Jadis, and a telekinetic tuning and charge, as provided by Psike, they now had an “affinity” for any telekinetic surface. That it, they were sucked in like iron filings to a magnet, and they clung like honey. To anything else, they simply slid away.

I’d been searching for an anti-superman measure. I was gambling my life that this was the answer.

As we faced each other, Counterpoint soon became coated in white, like a statue in a blizzard.

“It’s good that you survived,” he announced. “I was hoping for a bit more entertainment from you. Perhaps when I’m done subduing you, I’ll show you how we did things in the old days. Why women never dared to pretend to be warriors.” He giggled at his own threat.

By now, the “cotton candy” drifts had completely coated him.

“You’re too stupid to know when you’re already beaten,” I told him.

“I – I can’t move.”

“The field you stole adapts automatically and preferentially to defense. As the strands contract, your strength is entirely spent in keeping you from getting crushed. You can’t move. And when the field collapses, you’ll be twisted and crushed like a glass statue in a trash compactor.”

He couldn’t see, so I brought forth the next device. A complex grenade that I’d purchased. It had the effect of briefly resonating the inter-dimensional barriers.

“I – Aaaah!”

Three things happened in quick succession. The cottony statue abruptly shrunk by about an inch in every dimension, as Counterpoint’s force field collapsed. Suddenly, the white shell collapsed to the ground, as Counterpoint vanished. And I clicked the grenade in my hand.

A psi grenade goes off with an explosion of rainbows. There’s no visible emission, but any living creature will see stars and colors appearing behind their retinas. Proximity doesn’t matter much, within about a twenty-foot sphere. The more sensitive and unshielded you were, the worse the effect. And it’s a sovereign remedy for a whole host of “escape clauses,” such as teleportation, phasing, dimensional warps, macro-quantum tunnels, and probability skips. The only problem is that a single grenade currently costs just in excess of fifty thousand dollars, and its effect lasts for about five seconds. But any psychic in the area will be stunned, and anyone exercising the affected powers will suffer a burn-out that will keep them power-dead for days.

Counterpoint flickered back into reality, five feet from his last position. He’d lost most of his gear, retaining only the sword and shield, and a skimpy pair of shorts.

I shot forward and kicked his hand, knocking the shield away before he could slip his arm into it. Another spin almost got him with a kunai. He knocked that away, and all I managed was to scratch him across the cheek with my fingernails.

He shoved up onto his feet, recovering quickly. His sword snicked out, slicing a shallow gash from my left collarbone down to the underside of my right breast. It hurt like hell, but it wasn’t deep. A moment later, I felt my linen wrap come free and fall away, exposing me. In a way, it was a bit of a relief to take a full breath. I was now utterly naked, except for panties and shoes.

You’d think, given the snow, that I would have felt colder. In fact, I was moving so well now that I couldn’t even notice the temperature. The only thing I noticed was the opening in my target’s defense. I dove forward, flinging two kunai, and holding two more to fence with.

Counterpoint, amazingly, parried the thrown knives. You see it sometimes in movies, but even there it’s rare. You don’t see it at all in the real world – it’s just too impossible to perform the move.

While he was parrying, I was reaching around and under, trying to get a stick, or even a scratch. The knives had enough poison to put him down quickly.

One-handed, he intercepted each knife in turn, knocking them away. I leapt back, drawing another pair of kunai.

Counterpoint just laughed. “This is great! Better than I ever expected. I’ll have to try fighting more bitches. It adds a real zing to the combat, looking forward to the sweet ending.”

“I don’t think so, meat,” I told him. “You killed my Belfy! The most beautiful girl I’ve ever known. The most irritating and intriguing person, and you wiped her out in an act of sheer stupidity.”

Counterpoint laughed. “It’s called ‘collateral damage’ titty-babe. Fact of war. Whatcha gonna do about it?”

I made a feint. “I’m going to finish you off. For good.”

He blocked. “Oh, I’m so scared. These days, you’re all pussies.” His voice took on a mocking edge. “You’re all afraid of hurting people and doing anything permanent. But don’t worry. I’ll leave you some memories that will hang around until the day you die.” He lunged again, as if to emphasize his words. I caught the sword on my crossed kunai, but then I saw something.

On the snowy ground behind Counterpoint, Belphoebe had moved! She was alive!

Counterpoint twisted, and I countered. He dislodged my knives, but I pulled the sword from his hands. We had mutually disarmed.

He stood there in shorts and shoes, but otherwise naked. I was the same. He laughed, and flexed, as if showing off at a competition.

“It just had to come down to this, didn’t it, sweet stuff? Aside from strength, you want me to show you why women won’t ever make it on the wrestling mats?”

His hand flicked out in an open-palmed slap to my breast. I evaded most of it, but he still caught me with a stinging clip to the tip.

“Fuck!” I jumped back.

“Maybe I should leave, before security gets here,” he taunted.

I knew it was a taunt. There was no way he’d leave the fight. But if he turned away, he’d see Belphoebe, and she was still nearly helpless. I had to keep him focused on me.

“Superb idea,” I answered him. “Perfectly fitting for Aries the sheep.”

“What?” He turned back to face me, enraged. “That’s just a modern mispronunciation. You don’t even know what you’re talking about!”

“Greece,” I said, misquoting the joke. “Where the man are men, and the sheep are scared.”

“Fuck security,” he breathed. “I’m going to take my time with you.”

I moved my arms, taking hold of another pair of kunai. “Big words from the baaaad man.”

He began stalking slowly forward.

“You think I’m going to just let you go this time?” I asked. “I don’t think so! Third strike, you’re out. No more chances, asshole. You just volunteered to become one of my experiments. What shall I do to you? External bladder? Face transplant? Maybe turn you into a drow? Or maybe I’ll just poke around in your brain, until I can find the part that controls your powers.”

In the background, Belphy had crawled, one-handed, to her backpack. She was extracting something from it, and I had to buy time.

Supposedly, Counterpoint was an exemplar-three. But I was now an exemplar-three, effectively. Maybe a little more. And I’d trained in martial arts for my entire life.

But Counterpoint moved like he’d been practicing for a thousand years. Smooth, confident, toying with me. He kicked at the downy wisps that littered the landscape.

“This stuff will probably stick to me again if I power-up, won’t it?”

I just smiled.

“And I’ve still got a headache from phasing.”

I tensed, ready for his attack. The scratch I’d given him on the cheek wasn’t much, but it introduced the catalyst for the airborne virus. Once he had enough of that in his system, it would put him down, even with his regen abilities. And if he tried to use his energizer powers for a blast, he’d get a particularly nasty surprise. But it took a while before it was effective.

“I think you forgot something,” he said.

He blurred forward, moving faster than humanly possible. His hand flashed in. I tried to block.

CRACK!

My left arm hung limp at my side, the bone snapped cleanly, six inches from the shoulder.

“Son of a BITCH!” I yelled.

“Forgot about my speed, didn’t you? I’m going to take you apart, and fuck every hole in your body, while all you can do is lay there and cry, little girl.”

And he laughed while he moved.

It was one of the worst fights I’ve ever been in. He didn’t just give me one disabling strike to a limb. Within twenty seconds, he’d broken my left arm in three different places. Then he started on the right. Just once I made a grab for a fallen kunai, but he intercepted that and left me with a broken wrist. In the background, I knew the Belfy was putting together her strange gun, but the one-handed problem obviously threw her off. She was still too vulnerable. I had to keep Counterpoint occupied until the virus put him down.

“I still win,” I bluffed. “Use the speed powers and you die. You won’t be able to fight off the virus I’ve been exhaling.”

“I don’t believe you,” he said. “Haven’t you used that bluff about ten times before? Sorry, cunt, there’s nothing you can do to stop me, is there?” He lifted his arms and gave me a double breast punch.

I screamed. Not from the obvious damage. I was truly blessing the shock-pain-cutoff circuit. I would hurt like hell later, but for now, blessed numbness. No, I screamed because it pushed me backward. I toppled onto my back and automatically tried to use my arms to stop the fall, and for that reason I screamed.

“Left leg…”

STOMP – snap.

I screamed again. There was no point in holding it back right now. I knew full well that Counterpoint was getting off on my screams. My largest terror wasn’t the pain, it wasn’t even the threatened rape, it was that he would actually inseminate me, stealing my virginity and physically locking me to him before the too-slow virus finally stopped him. The thought of secretly longing for this pathetic pig was enough to turn my stomach, and I allowed that to take full form, vomiting in his direction.

“Right leg…”

STOMP – snap.

Technically, I hadn’t stopped screaming. It was rather surprising that this was happening in the middle of campus, with no response by students or security. As I ran my mind over the details, I realized that things had happened pretty fast. It was possible that we hadn’t actually fought for that long. We were in the middle of classes, right now. Had it been only two minutes? Had it been as little as one minute? No wonder the virus hadn’t slowed him yet.

Counterpoint leaned over, then picked up his sword.

“Now, before we’re interrupted, I’ll just carry you away to a private little location for the finalé. Prepare yourself. This is bound to hurt. A lot.”

He stood there, towering over me and leering down. And in that moment across my field of vision, there snapped a bolt of purest white. At one end was Belphoebe, firing her reconfigured gun. The beam of energy was easily three inches in diameter, and it pierced Counterpoint straight through the chest, continuing on into the sky.

Without even a word to mark his fall, the thug toppled over face first in the snow.

“Nice gun,” I whispered. “REAL nice.”

“Yeah,” Feebs answered back. “But it’s a bitch to fire one-handed.”

“Quick,” I croaked. “In my backpack. The red-and-orange striped injector. It has biohazard warnings on it. Shoot him up before he comes to his senses.”

“What? I shot him through the chest!”

“I wouldn’t trust that to stop you or me. You missed both his heart and spine.”

“Oh, yeah, easy to critique when you’re just lying there.” Her words were harsh but I heard the tears in her voice and couldn’t help smiling.

Maybe it would be good rooming with her. We’d spend plenty of time hating each other, I was sure of that. But when it counted, Belphoebe and I had a lot in common.

Belfy limped over to Counterpoint and shoved the cylinder into his naked back.

Pshhhhtt!

“There. What’s in it?”

“Anti-regeneratives,” I said. “There are one, maybe two people on the planet that know more than I do about regeneration. That should keep him from healing up for… oh, about three months.”

Feebs peered down at him. “That hole is bleeding quite a bit. I think I shot straight through his lung.”

I smiled. “Good. If you have spare time, you might shove some cloth in it or something. I’d hate to have him die on me.”

“What? But you said…”

“Be a dear,” I continued, “and inject him with the yellow-green striped cylinder.”

“You sure?”

“Oh, believe me. It’s medically necessary.”

Pshhhhtt!

“Thank you … Belphoebe. Oh, there goes the shock!” I realized that I’d just bitten through my lip. My arms and legs hurt. They hurt BAD. But they were nothing compared to my tits. I felt my blood pressure dropping precipitously.

“Bel –“ I had to tell her. I struggled. “Don’t forget to hold your hand in place. It should … re … attach.”

And there in the white snow, the world went dark.

I woke again to aches. Nothing worse than that. Just aches and pains. My breasts felt … normal. There was a bit of overall numbness, but that was fading.

I was on my back, locked in a spread-eagle position, and I couldn’t move.

I turned my head. The Doyle Medical Complex, obviously. I turned in the other direction. Belfy was sitting in a chair, watching me. There were tear tracks on her face, but they were faded and old.

“How long have I been out?” Had it been days, or weeks?

“You missed dinner. You soft tissues healed up within an hour or two. The bones took longer. They have you in traction, to promote the bones healing straight. The scans indicate that you’re okay, but they want to keep you locked in there a couple of hours longer, just to be sure.”

“I see.”

I raised my head up to look things over. It felt like I was strapped to some sort of X-frame, with padded cuffs around my forearms and calves, pulling gently. I couldn’t see it directly because of the sheet over me.

“How’s Counterpoint?”

“Now that’s the oddest thing,” Belphoebe said. “His wound isn’t healing at all! They’ve even tried magical healing, which stopped the bleeding, but was only partially effective. And he’s suddenly showing a lot of other complaints.”

“Oh, really?” I said, perhaps too casually.

“Yeah. His testosterone level has dropped to about zero. His other hormones are behaving very strangely. And he has some sort of wrinkly skin condition.”

“No happy drow accident for him,” I predicted. “He should have quite the animal adventure! Just as a guess, of course.”

“What did you do to him?”

“Moi? Nothing at all. Unless… oh, I hope he didn’t get injected with my experimental serum! I may have been delirious, right before I passed out.”

“What did you DO?”

“Well, it’s possible that there may be a bit of animal transformation mixed in there, using the same technology that made us drow. And it’s possible that it’s a pretty freakishly ugly creation. And that both his testosterone and adrenal hormones have been completely blocked. That may make him less aggressive and less dangerous. And I suppose it’s possible…”

“Yes?”

“Well, I’ve been trying to isolate a pheromone that signals ‘delicious’ to any predator.”

Belfy began to laugh softly. “Any – heh heh – any clues on what type of animal?”

“Well, I sure hope I didn’t tell you to inject the yellow-green cylinder. That was a dog-sized thing. Sort of a giant, hairless rodent, but with tentacles. And lots of drool. Extremely slow and awkward, but it can sure thrash a lot. The good thing is that so long as they don’t manage to re-eneable his healing, he should barely transform at all.”

Belphoebe let herself laugh openly at that, and I lay there enjoying her voice. It was everything I had been hoping for, when I had designed her. And I was beginning to realize that maybe there was more to her being a beautiful person than just the physical aspects. The cast around her right wrist caught my eye.

“How’s your hand?”

“Well, like you said, it reattached. The doctors figured that saved me about two days. I kind of expected more of a … seam, you know?” She rubbed her left hand around the cast. “But they say there’s no scar, not even on the bone.”

I shrugged, then realized that the gesture was impossible, stretched out as I was. “I’d like to take the credit, but it’s really the regen-five system. Scar tissue and other oddities are progressively modified until the site returns to original form. I think it should eventually even straighten offset or crooked bone breaks, but obviously I don’t want to find that out the hard way.”

“I heard what you said about me,” she blurted out. “I… I thought you hated me.”

“I hate Belphegor,” I clarified. “You’re a completely different person. We don’t know who yet. None of us do.”

“So then, why do you hate Belphegor?”

I sighed. “Where do I begin? He steals from me. He’s ugly.”

“That’s pretty shallow.”

“I strive for honesty in everything I do,” I told her, nobly. I’m not sure why she snorted. “But to continue, he’s ugly not just in body, but more importantly in his self-image. He profoundly believes that he’ll never amount to anything, and then he does his best to fulfill that belief. He’s short-sighted and self-defeating, and never stretches or takes risks. He is routinely craven. And tragically, it’s a huge, massive loss of potential. I figure that my spite is probably the high point in his life, the one notice he gets from someone bigger and brighter. Ultimately, he’s destined to be the lackey of a real villain, or if he tries to go it on his own, I see him using gadgets to steal petty cash from shopping centers in rural Wisconsin.”

“And me?” she asked.

“Well, you look good, but that might be the least of it. You did things on your outing with Jadis that Barf-some-more never would have dared. You effectively defeated Counterpoint, after having your hand cut off. Could Quel-bedsore have managed that? And lastly, you argue with me. You actually stand up to me and argue. Naturally,” I tried not to look too smug, “you can’t expect to win very often, when fencing with the master. Still, you show more pluck than your memory donor. You are not a waste of flesh.”

“'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in,” she quoted softly. “The remembrance of her father never approaches her heart but the tyranny of her sorrows takes all livelihood from her cheek.”

“Uh, yeah,” I agreed, lamely. “Any other pithy quips in there?”

The beautiful drow girl gave a quirky smile. “My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late!”

“I think you said that at your birth, back in the lab. You might possibly be confusing love and horniness there,” I pointed out. “As I mentioned, the drow design seems to pump things up a bit. But I’m finding that regular attention—”

I stopped speaking because Belphoebe had locked the door. Now, she approached with a rather evil look on her face. That black drow face was extremely well suited to evil looks.

I tested my arms and legs, but I seemed to be absurdly well secured.

“So, um… daughter! We need to arrange for you to meet your new granddad. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to have another mech devisor in the family. Ha ha!”

I admit my laugh was slightly forced, but she was now pulling off my sheet, still with the same look. Even in the face of this coming threat, my body betrayed me. The sheet sliding across my top provided a quite noticeable sensation as it slid over the sensitive regions at the tip of each breast. The rapidly firming nipples only made the sensation more noticeable.

“Ah, Feebs, I don’t know what you…”

She bent her head down and licked me. I felt every bump and surface of her tongue as it lapped across my breast.

“What do you think you’re doing?” My voice had racheted up into a higher register.

“I was thinking,” she mused. “If I can get myself off, just by playing up here, can I do the same to you? This might be my best chance to find out.”

“This is completely immoral!” I told her firmly. “I’m too young to have a motherfucking daughter!”

She bent over, gaining access to the other side. “Just a legal formality. I intend to talk to Carson, right after I leave. I think we should be sisters, instead. I expect she’ll see my point. After all, no one with half a brain would put YOU in charge of a minor!”

“I—you—“ her fingers were doing this circling motion around the whole area.

“If you want me to stop, just tell me in the next thirty seconds…” With that, she bent down and went back to work.

I was just about to tell her exactly how wrong it was for the two of us to be doing this, despite the practicality and convenience, when her fingers began working on my other side, and I experienced a revelation about why women displayed their breasts to such good advantage. I had assumed it was because of the enormous ornamental appeal, but in fact it is a desperate cry for help, a cry to be touched in a way that feels so go that you really can’t help but—

“Time!” Belfy said, raising her head.

“But I… you… I was just…”

“Oh, no, you won’t get relief that swiftly,” she promised. “I’ve had several hours to think about this. You’re right, I’m not Belphegor. I’m beginning to believe that. I have my own needs and desires, and they are sometimes surprisingly different from his. But much of him survives inside of me. Much of him still is me. You know, I don’t really like it when you insult him. So I visited my… not father. Brother, I suppose I’ll have to say. Not quite twin brother. You know, he’s as fixated on you as you are on him. The constant insults, petty sniping, all that. I didn’t like it any better there, either.”

Throughout all of this, her fingers were doing concert pianist work, as they stroked and tickled their way down my sides, drawing nearer and nearer to an area that I didn’t dare consider.

“I’m not even really quite ready to be a girl yet,” she revealed. “I’ll grant you, there are some very interesting aspects to it, and I’m sure I’ll come to enjoy it immensely, particularly with friends like the ones I’m starting to pick up. But even now, I still can’t bring myself to touch myself… you know, down there.” She flicked my sheet the rest of the way off. “But I can sure as hell touch you. It’ll be like my own little feminine education.”

I realized, belatedly, that being strapped into an X-frame leaves you extremely vulnerable and exposed.

She walked around the frame, coming in from the foot of the bed. “Oh, I get it. Bedpans and hygiene are much easier with this design. And look! A catheter!”

I could feel, as she touched the medical relief tube. It was a very unusual feeling. If there is one thing that illustrates the difference between male and female, perhaps that’s one of the largest. Peeing is completely different, and it feels utterly different. A different spot on the body, different sensations, different amounts of flow…

“In. Out. In. Out.”

“Please… stop that.” She was only tugging on it, but it felt damned weird.

“Ooo, how strange it is. Just a teeny little hole. Almost unnoticeable next to the large one.”

“Belphoebe, think! We can’t do this! Even if we weren’t mother and daughter, we’re still roommates!”

“And that’s precisely what makes it so convenient! No icky sperm to steal our drow virginity. But I could still pop your cherry, couldn’t I?”

“Belphoebe!” I started, “You’re my daughter! Listen to me! You don’t want to do this!”

“Nice try, sis. Clones of the same generation should be sisters.”

“I’m not the clone, you are!” I couldn’t help it.

“Uh huh. I’ll bet you just loved having authority over me, didn’t you? I hate to pop your bubble,” she snickered maliciously at that, “but I think it’s time we decided who wears the pants in this family.”

“Why are you doing this?” I pleaded.

“Oh, several reasons. I figure it’s time for me to make a break from Belphegor, and seize some power. This seems like a good way to do it. Also, you’re such a gigantic prick, I thought that maybe for once in your life, you’d like to be on the receiving end.”

I gulped. She almost sounded serious. I lifted my head to look at her. It was strange, seeing her between the pink-tipped black hills of a chest that I still hadn’t gotten used to yet. She reached out and placed a hand on each of my thighs, stroking her thumbs softly up along the inner flesh.

“And three, it’s a way to reconcile with who and what I am. Ever since I came home from my Boston trip and saw you in that lavender teddy, I’ve wanted to do you. The old me never would have had the guts. But the new me…? Maybe. And if there’s one place where Belphegor and Belphoebe agree, it’s that we both want to fuck you over. Just in slightly different ways.”

I shook my head. “You’re no rapist!” I pleaded. “You don’t want to do this!”

She smiled, and it was an evil, seductive, unbelievably sexy and dangerous smile.

“You’re right about that, mater. Well, let’s just remove this catheter.”

I felt a weird tugging down below, down there. It wasn’t a sexy feel, but because of where it was…

“Oops, one small drop. I’ll have to wipe that up.”

I felt another touch, a gentle stroking.

“Hmmm, getting a lot of moisture here. And that fascinating almond smell. I’ve never actually tasted it.” She seemed to think for a moment. "Was ever woman in this humour woo'd? Was ever woman in this humour won?"

“Belphoebe…?”

“So here’s the deal, mater-not. Once more, you will have thirty seconds. Give me fifteen seconds to make my case, and then I’ll give you thirty seconds to tell me to stop. A simple ‘no’ will suffice. A single word. Be honest. And if you don’t, I’ll take it as permission to proceed, and I will do my best to meet your needs, while also taking merciless advantage of your sensitive new flesh.”

“Belphoebe…!”

“Fifteen seconds, then thirty.”

Her head lowered and suddenly I realized that my nipples were not the most sensitive parts of my body. You’d think I should have learned this lesson with Darcy, but some things we learn anew each time. In this case, the attention had me straining forward to press myself even more strongly against her mouth. There were so many sensitive areas. Notably, there is a small hood of flesh up front, and attention there is at least as interesting as fellatio is to a man. Then again, that sweeping circle around my opening only forces me to strain to open all the more. Then again, the many paths that lie between those two destinations are filled with such fascination that I can never—

“Fifteen seconds.”

I intended to say something at that point, but her tongue was most insistent in gaining admittance to an opening which I considered too private and personal to even explore myself. And now this girl was using her tongue to attempt to probe inside me? I was about to tell her off, loudly, when her nailed scraped softly along my inner thigh, sending sensation racing inward. My breasts hurt painfully from the way she wasn’t touching them, and I had this dreadful feeling of emptiness. I inhaled to tell her off.

“Thirty seconds.”

“What?” My mind was restored, now that she was no longer … distracting me. “That wasn’t thirty seconds just now!”

“No, I was actually forty. I was surprised. The almond flavor is really quite good.”

I glared at her indignantly. “I’ll scream.”

“Yeah. Darcy warned me about that.” She walked around to the front of my “bed” and snapped open her purse. She pulled out a long, pink object. It was the OmniSqueal 5000! “Recognize this?”

My eyes went wide. “You wouldn’t dare!”

But while my mouth was open, she popped the vile thing in. The more I squirmed and used my tongue to push it out, the more it insistently pushed in. I tried to speak.

“Oo uh oo-eh!”

She withdrew the phallus briefly. “What was that?”

“Go fuck yourself!”

She shoved it back in. “Yes, well, I’m working up to that. In the meantime, I guess you’re safe, aren’t you? If I’m in your mouth – oooo, Dad does good work, that feels like the real thing! If I’m in your mouth, I can’t be elsewhere, can I?” She reached into her purse again. “Oh, wait! He said something about multiples, didn’t he?”

For a moment, she looked thoughtful. “Actually, I have three. Do you suppose I ought to use the third, as well?”

I shook my head frantically, No!

“Maybe later, then.”

As the moved back to the foot of the bed, she said, “You know, Jobe, I’m really going to enjoy doing to you, what you have done to so many. More than anyone else I know, you have really asked for this. Perhaps demanded it.”

Then, she began rubbing the tip of that thing around. Pausing to tease at my clenching opening, just to pick up a little moisture, she would then rub the tip of it up me, teasing the folds my clitoral hood, stroking over my labia, sliding back down to the hungry entrance. I noticed that each time it got particularly good, I was tonguing and sucking the object in my mouth with an intent passion. I shook myself and returned to my angry resistance, but her other hand was going up and down my thighs, my hips, stroking over my mons, teasing to top of my cleft, sliding up my belly to stroke the bottoms of my breasts.

I realized that each time it circled down, I was thrusting my hips downward.

“I almost think she wants it. Let’s see if you fit…”

I shook my head, No, no! That thing was gigantic! It barely fit in my mouth!

And then, I felt the tip poised. I have no words for this except to say that it was like my first time in freefall. Or rather, right before freefall, when you know you are soon to be flying.

It was too large! But it slipped in, just a bit. I bucked my hips down, trying to capture it all. This was so frustrating that tears were leaking out my eyes.

It pushed forward, just as insistent as I was. It was stretching me wide. And then it struck my hymen. It pushed, and I felt myself resist.

Despite the thing between my legs, Belphoebe was up at my head, speaking into my ear.

“This is it, girl. The two sides of my psyche teeter, observing how you react. Are you a true girl? Will you shove down onto that cock and lose your cherry? Or will you pull back and retain some claim of manhood?”

I tried to writhe, just squirming sideways, feeling it poised there. Belfy cheated, stroking my sides and breast and teasing my nipples until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

I shoved down, as hard as I could. With one great pain, I felt it come into me. It inched in, then a little more, then a little more. It was gigantic, and having it inside me was like being stretched open by a tree trunk. But as it slipped farther in, I managed to accommodate it. At first, my muscles screamed at the abuse. I could feel myself torn and bleeding, burning on the inside of me. But as the thing began to move within me, the burning faded. The intruder no longer scraped, it slid. And the burning became more of a heat. I couldn’t help moving in time to it.

Belphoebe was stretched out across my chest, her mouth teasing one breast, while her hand teased another. And her other hand played across my mons, the lips of my labia, and my sensitive hood.

I found myself caressing the thing in my mouth with my tongue, making love to it, and I didn’t even care. All that mattered was the movement, and the symphony being played inside my body.

Belphoebe raised her head. “You know, those things can be filled with fluid. I did remember to wash out all the sperm, didn’t I? Oh well, it probably doesn’t matter all that much.”

I shook my head frantically, begging her not to do this, but my hips couldn’t stop moving, bringing that device closer and closer to the climax that might signal my doom. And with the attention at my breasts, it was becoming nearly impossible to concentrate on anything but the looming conclusion. I ran my tongue up and down the thing in my mouth, coaxing it onward.

“Oh my god,” Feebs breathed. “Your father does great work!”

I reached it. A magical spot that is only allowed to girls. I had exited the plane, ready to begin freefall, but I didn’t fall. I merely hung there in mid-air, watching everything around me, suspended in the instant before…

Belphoebe gave one high pitched grunt, and my throat was filled with a refreshing broth, easy to swallow and satisfying. Inside, I felt the most amazing sensation as a warm fluid splashed against the door to my womb. It wasn’t semen, thank god, but the feel of it, the scent of it, drove me utterly over the edge. Spasms swept my body hard, as I thrashed helplessly in the throes of wave after wave of sensation.

Belphoebe lay on top of me, panting. “You want to hear something really odd, Jobe? I think I like the guy’s role, upon occasion. And in that same spirit, let me say, ‘You were a good lay.’”

I was only half listening. I’d noticed this with Darcy, too. Girls have an afterglow that is wonderful.

“Well, let’s have another go, then!”

My eyes widened, as the movement began again.

I chortled to myself as I finished the swarm. Each bee would inject a few micrograms of thallium into their target. If even a fraction of the swarm succeeded, I calculated that Sara Waite would receive a massive overdose, even for her alien biology. And the bees were all cued to zero in on her unique pheromones and none other. At last, Sara Waite would die!

Disarming the security interlocks, undoing the manual dogs, removing the pins, and unfastening the latch, I raised the window and released the swarm.

Just in time to hear Phoebe entering the room.

“More insects?”

“Her pheromones will trigger a swarming and a rage attack! And each sting carries a lethal dose of thallium! Sara Waite will die!”

Belphoebe sighed. “Right. Not like last time. Enough insects for a while, okay? People are starting to talk, and I… is that my dress?”

I glanced downward, noting how well the deep blue silks complimented my black skin. “Let me think… have I had time for any grand shopping excursions? No, Jobe,” I answered myself, “you’ve been trapped in the lab. Oh, then this must be one of Belfy’s little numbers, which I paid for!”

“That’s my Paco Rabanne! I haven’t even worn that myself! Not only have you stolen it, you’re wearing a lab coat over it?”

I shrugged. “Beautiful, practical. Unlike some, I obviously excel at the female arts.”

“Ah ha! So you admit that you’ve given up on the whole return-to-manhood thing?”

I sat down at the workstation to begin work on my tunnel snake. I would snatch from Belfy, that which she had so rudely taken from me!

“I said, you’ve given up on turning back into a man?”

“Hmmm? Oh, not at all. I’m just busy at the moment. And it would be inconvenient to move again. Maybe at the end of the semester.”

Feebs had pulled open her wardrobe and was rummaging through it. “Where’s my navy thong?” She suddenly looked up in suspicion. “Have you been stealing my underwear again?”

“You know,” I explained, “your definition of private property is really rather amusing, considering the name on the credit card.”

“You complete and utter bitch! That’s it. No sex for you tonight.”

I stuck my tongue out at her and wiggled it. It was half taunt and half offer to share. “That threat would mean a lot more if you ever managed to carry through with it.”

“Maybe I will. I’ve met this new girl, and she is hot.”

It had only been a few days, but I could see how drow culture would develop. A family unit, call it a pod, of co-wives. I suspect five to ten of us. That would be enough that everyone could find partners, even when there were arguments (which would be constantly). The co-wives would keep each other entertained, travelling off in pairs when necessary. At the center would be a man. We’d protect him and keep him safe from any harm, and use him mercilessly. Someone with the personality of Peeper might do very well. He should be happy, but utterly exhausted most of the time. I wasn’t sure that much education would be necessary. It’s not like we’d ever let him out. He’d be kept fully occupied, servicing his many enthusiastic wives.

Needless to say, this would be a matriarchy. Uninformed observers might even think it was an all-female society, but they’d be so wrong. I wasn’t even sure if I’d want to be the ruler, since it would detract from my time in the lab. One of my co-wives, perhaps…

“You don’t even care! After the things I let you do to me!”

“Hah!” I shot back. “Which is nowhere near what you did to me!”

“You cow! You unspeakably evil heifer! You loathsome despicable shagbag!”

“You’ll change your tune,” I predicted, “when you find yourself under the sheets alone.”

“Right. Two can play at that game, spunk bucket!”

And I heard the sound of a metal lid being popped loose, as if from an can of Pringles. Only, it wasn’t Pringles. A moment later, there was a crunching sound, as Belphoebe chewed something up.

“Mmmm, good.”

Despite my better judgment, I turned to look. Belphoebe had a small can of almonds, and was happily chewing away.

It turned out that there was a side effect to the tasting and consumption of drow… almond juice, as we’d come to call it. The recipient became “drow touched,” and soon came to share a heightened sensitivity to that particular scent and taste. The aroma was enough to trigger certain reactions, and cravings. Almost an addictive reaction, really. Oddly enough, chewing up the nuts themselves helped satisfy the craving. Belfy was just fine. As usual, I was the only one suffering.

“Gimme some of those!” I demanded.

She practically sang her reply. “I don’t think so!” She opened the door and skipped away outside.

A door down the hall popped open. “Do I smell almonds?” Darcy had a slightly haunted look.

“Darcy! Honey!” I called. “Belfy is torturing me again!”

“You stay away from me!”

“But honey…!”

“Don’t you dare, ‘but honey’ me!” she shouted back. “I ask for one tiny gift, just a simple hand warmer while there’s snow outside! OH!”

“You didn’t ask for a hand warmer,” I responded, in some confusion. “You asked for a fur muff.”

“That wasn’t what I meant!” And she slammed the door in my face. Hard.

I looked at the watching crowd. “Not my fault she can’t make up her mind. I thought it had a very pleasant purr.”

But the activity had filled me with new energy. I was working on a design to surpass even the female drow: the male drow. In my mind, I pictured Scott Emerson transformed into a well-endowed black-skinned man, with a sex drive that literally wouldn’t quit, and an insatiable desire for almonds.

“Oh well, no rest for the weary.”

I sometimes think that the world will always dump a disproportionate amount of toil and trouble upon me. I have accepted this as my lot in life. But, like my namesake, I retain an unwavering faith in something greater and more potent than any of man’s petty problems: My own determination and skill.

Life had thrown me curves, but as I was fond of saying, “Look in the lab, and you’ll find a solution.”

“Back to the test tubes! I feel new inspiration!”

-- the end --