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This kind of story shouldn't be read by anyone who shouldn't read this kind of story. No exceptions! Perfect by Vickie Tern i. I was in love with her, there's no other explanation. I still am, I think. That's how come I agreed to all this! I'm not sure I would again, knowing what I know now. But maybe. Probably. I think so. I know so. Who am I kidding? Especially when I look at the alternatives, the other paths I might have taken, or the places on this path where I might have drawn a line and called a halt. But then I'd have regretted all sorts of lost opportunities, one after the other. And this is so much lovelier! So perfect! How did I get here? I'd squandered my adolescence with computers instead beating out other guys in sports and bedding down girls like other guys. Well, there was this one girl, but after a while she got tired of me and took up with a big beefy guy, an ox, which I definitely am not. Anyhow, I'd just gotten my MBA and my first real job, and summer was ending, and I was new to the city. No friends yet, and no girlfriends, still looking. Work was challenging during the three weeks it took me to learn it and then it got boring. And the people at the office mostly'd been there a while, and they did their own things. Office talk was mainly sports or sly insulting of each other, and neither of these things were ever my things. So I was pretty much alone. To keep busy and maintain an edge I took a short course at the local community college, Inter-Personnel Management, how to talk to employees, set them at ease so they'll tell you their problems, so you can decide whether the real problem is their situation or them, so you can fix one or the other. Faking friendship for fun and profit. The Japanese do it all the time, the boss goes drinking with the "team" and they all pretend to be drunk and squeal on each other, and the boss listens. I sat in the front row, and the few times I didn't come up with the right solution for some casework problem, something tactful that would do the job, this marvelous babe in the back row came up with them. I remember the first time I turned to look at her. A stunner! One of those gorgeous girls with cool gray eyes and a doll's face, the kind that almost makes you wish you were a little girl so you could play with her. After a few days I got the impression she was checking me out in her own way, that she'd decided she'd set the class straight only when she saw I couldn't. Set me straight too, that way, demonstrate how she could match me step for step when she chose, even step a little ahead of me. I liked the competition. And that's how it happened that we already knew we liked each other, respected each other too, when we finally met. It was by accident in a nearby coffee shop after class one evening. I was draining a latte and gloomily contemplating my boring work at the office. "Hi, I'm Gayle," she said, standing over me. "Spelled with a Y. It's time we got to know each other. You?" "Allie," I replied, suddenly cheered by her presence and attention. "Spelled without a Y. 'Alan,' really, but if I tell anyone that then I have to spell it out for them. Care to set for a spell?" God! The dumb up-country quip was out before I could bite my tongue! She didn't seem to notice. Maybe she was used to guys turning stupid in her presence. And I've got to confess it, as she lowered that pear-shaped rear onto the little wire chair at my little formica coffee table, never taking her eyes off me, I could scarcely breathe. Then, all the while we talked about the class, and the professor, and whether women solve problems different from men, stuff like that, and all the while she held her little espresso cup to her perfect red lips and sipped, she watched me. I was hopelessly smitten. And after a few more after-class sessions I could sense real interest, maybe even affection on her part too. A meeting of hearts as well as minds, maybe. Mine with hers, anyway. I wanted to follow up with a meeting of bodies the worst way. Sometimes she'd come dressed direct from her office in a business suit, her large breasts subdued into a bulge under her gray pinstripe jacket, all very proper. But sometimes she'd show up in a leotard fresh from some kind of dance exercise, supple, her skin rosy and glowing, each breast waving in my face like a plump flag. I was dying to bury my face between them. But I was shy about pushing the relationship. She appreciated that, I think, so we built our friendship slowly, and she took all the initiatives. Eventually we made a date to go jogging in the park, four miles first thing Saturday. She turned up slender and lithe and longlegged in teeny running shorts, the lower curves of her cute tush exposed, wearing a cutoff satin slipover, no bra, those breasts now bulging with nipples that poked through the satin like pencil stubs. I'd done track in college but I'd gotten out of shape, a little, so I ran the whole distance behind her with my mouth open, watching her legs churn, following that bobbing round rear end. Her whole body beckoned as she ran on, and I tried but I couldn't close on her. She stayed ahead all the way until toward the end, when for some reason she dropped behind me, then finally pulled alongside. We finished together in a dead heat, me utterly winded. She'd barely broken a sweat. "Nice ass," she commented while my face was still buried in a towel and I was bent way over trying to hide the fact that I was struggling for breath. "It sure is! God, Gayle, I couldn't take my eyes off it!" I gasped. When I lifted my face off the towel I saw her staring amused at me. She'd meant my ass! I would have flushed an even deeper red if it were possible. "I'm glad you think so," she said. "A girl should feel proud of her assets. How about you show me yours more often? Three times a week from now on? First thing before breakfast? It's easy for me, I live right over there." She pointed at an apartment building fronting on the park. "Deal!" I said, still breathless, from her compliment if from nothing else. A girl's assets? Hers? Mine? A vague thought evaporated before I could grasp it. I learned later that immediately afterward she'd gone home and broken up with a guy she was seeing at the time, quite clear in her mind that I was to become his designated replacement. Her friend Gretchen told me much later that the guy she'd been "turning" just before me was "unpersuasive, so it wouldn't have worked out anyhow." Which made no sense. But I didn't want to know what she meant, so I never asked. We ran together a few times the following week, and each time she showed up in cutoff short shorts and a satin elasticized top that wrapped snug around her thin waist and slim chest and held her extended breasts and long nipples way out from her chest. An incredible girl! By Friday I'd recovered enough of my old track meet shape to pace her whenever she tried to pull ahead, but only just. So when we finished we were both soaked. As I blotted myself I couldn't help but stare at that figure of hers with its protrusions. There they were, those curvacious boobs, her shirt so wet she might just as well have been naked. Though she was still breathing easily! "You're lucky girls weigh less than guys," I said stupidly, thinking that maybe I had to use more muscle to push myself the same distance she'd practically flown over. "Usually girls weigh less," she said, unbinding her hair to shake it loose, blot it, then re-tie it. "But not where you're looking. Jealous? You'd like a pair like these?" In my hands and mouth at that moment? You bet! But I was too embarrassed to say anything. Jealous of what? What had she said? Again an insubstantial thought faded out of sight. Then she continued, "Of course I weigh less. So should you! Maybe you don't eat right? Let's have dinner tonight and talk about it." I nodded, "My place?" she pointed. I nodded. "Want a cup of coffee right now?" she asked. I nodded. We went there. It was a neatly furnished two bedroom apartment on the ground floor, lots of space, the other bedroom her workplace, an office of some kind. Soft stuffed chairs, stuffed animals sitting in them, an overstuffed sofa in the huge living room, and a dinette set in the kitchen. Two mugs were already set out on the table. Here I was on familar ground, formica and coffee and chatting while seated. We talked about my job, how quickly what had seemed exciting had become dull. "Work doesn't have to be dull," she said. "I have an idea." "What?" I asked. "In due time!" she said, glancing at her watch. "Time to shower and get to work. You OK now?" "Yes, couldn't be better!" I meant it. "Good!" she said. "Let yourself out then. Seven tonight. Bring a suitable wine, it'll be sea food." And she disappeared. I heard her turn on the shower, and imagined her stepping under it, naked, water splashing off those protruding ripe globes, spraying her jutting nipples and then in rivulets running through her tuft and then trickling below her thighs and down her legs. Fluids trickling down her legs! I wanted to lick up every drop! My dad had fancied himself a wine expert, and I'd picked up some of it. A Brut Champagne wouldn't impress her, I sensed -- too obviously always correct. So I brought over a chilled Graves from a good Chateau, a better choice I figured than a bone-dry Chablis, something with body in case she was planning something spicy. She nodded brightly at me when she saw it -- it was just right for the scallops in garlic butter she'd prepared. "Weren't we talking about losing weight?" I asked when I saw the fat scallops glistening in their rich yellow butter sauce. I was finally feeling at ease with her. "The secret is portion control," she said. "Look at me. Do I look fat?" "No way, Gayle!" "You can look like me in no time." She mused to herself a moment. "As thin as I am, even in the waist, and still eat well. You have a slender figure. I bet you'd end up real cute. A charmer! No problem. Want to?" "Maybe," I replied. I wasn't much into cooking, and I ate a lot of high-carb junk food. "I'll arrange it," she said. "Just put yourself into my hands." I couldn't refuse that offer! And then the most marvelous thing happened! The bottle of wine was empty and we were dawdling over dessert, an incredibly rich low-fat mousse, and I was feeling no pain. And this incredible girl suddenly asked me to move in with her. Just like that. In a calm, low voice. "Would you like to live here? With me? I can shape you up easily, I'm sure! I've been looking for someone like you for a long time." She was staring straight into my eyes as she always did, as if she saw something there even I didn't know about. She was serious! "Yes!" I said emphatically, as mindless as ever in her presence. "When?" "Wait!" she said. "There's one condition. You have to agree to it first. It's absolutely essential. Don't say 'yes' just yet." I just stared at her. What condition could possibly affect how I felt about an offer like that? "I'll regret it if you say 'No,'" she continued. "A lot! But I'll understand why, and I'll still respect you, no hard feelings. In some ways maybe I'll respect you even more than if you tell me 'Yes' and agree to it. But if you aren't willing to do this, we'll have to go our separate ways! Even jog separately. I don't want to get deeper into a relationship that's going nowhere." Her perfect doll face was staring solemnly at me, those gray eyes shadowed to look even larger, wide-eyed, those delicate red cupid's bow lips pursed speculatively. I knew from our coffee talk that she'd deliberately cultivated that blank little-girl expression, knowing that it hid her thoughts and masked her intelligence. "Give nothing away," she'd told me was her personal management mandate. "Keep 'em wondering. Then surprise them with a gift, something just perfect for them, and they'll love you for it. Even if it's something they didn't know they wanted. Or more than they bargained for." Her face registered nothing, and her body held utterly still. She was serious, intent. She meant every word. Agree or end it. I looked back at her dazed, elated, absolutely entranced. Just looked. Her full blonde hair was curved over her forehead and then gathered at the nape of her neck, tied back with a huge velvet bow that matched her velvet jacket. There was a simple silver chain around her neck. And no blouse anywhere I could see. She could have been naked under those velvet lapels. I was simply blown away. Again, breathless! The curves of her breasts parted in a deep, shadowed cleft. I wanted to unbutton that jacket the worst way! Face the bare truth of her! "I agree already," I said. "What condition?" There were no problems. How could I not agree? This girl was glorious, a prize beyond anything I'd ever dared desire. Anything! "I have parents," she said. "So?" I replied. "Who doesn't?" Again, dumb! Me, for one, and she knew it. Mine were a memory. They'd died in a car accident a few years earlier. Knowing I'd be alone in the world if something happened to them, no brothers or sisters or aunts or even distant relatives to gather round me, they'd put considerable money in trust for me to use to complete my education and then reserve for emergencies. The trust produced substantial income, I didn't absolutely have to work. But I wanted to. I like feeling useful, and I like doing things I know I do well. Computers and personnel management are two of them. We'd joked before about how I was an orphan, a waif. Little Orphan Annie, she called me sometimes. "No, you don't understand, Allie. My father's a minister in a small town, very staid, very proper, very visible, a leader in the community. Very old school. And my mother's a pillar of social respectability and reponsibility in that town, even more proper than he is. You know the kind of thing, she's on every social and charity committee. The two of them impeccably respectable!" "So?" I asked. If she wanted to keep me out of sight when they visited the apartment, that was OK. "They're apt to call me here at odd times. Maybe some time when you're in and I'm out." "So?" I asked again. "They'd never understand why a man's voice was answering the phone. Never! They'd be here as fast as the speed limit allowed, upset, outraged, terrified, devastated, and they'd never quit trying to drag me back home with them, trying to redeem me from this city, this cesspool of vice." "So?" I said earnestly. Here was an opportunity to play the man. To counsel her! "You're an adult. Tell them it's time they became the parents of an adult who lives her own life." She smiled so sweetly at me that my heart melted straight into my shoes! I was trying! And that smile built in intensity, sustained, irradiated me until I glowed! She was so utterly utterly beautiful! "God, Gayle! You are so utterly ...!" I burst out before I realized I was off topic and shut myself up. She saw, heard, and understood anyhow, and she reached over to clasp my hand in both of hers, pleased. Then with my hand still enclosed in hers she went on. "Allie, I know your parents are both gone, and I'm sorry for it, and maybe that explains why you don't know it doesn't work that way. My folks are too old to learn anything. Too committed to their small town proprieties. Too old-fashioned in their thinking about boys and girls and marriage. I'm an adult now, yes, grown up, so they expect me to be married soon. They'd approve of you, I know they would, if you and I were ever to get that far in our feelings for each other. Though understand, I make no promises or demands -- this is strictly an arrangement for living and loving, for getting to know and enjoy each other's company. No more than that." She paused. "For now," she added. "I understand that," I said solemnly on cue. "Nothing assumed or implied by me either." "No way would they ever approve of us or anyone living together before marriage. Their own daughter? Can you imagine the hassles? The crying, the lamentations? I know my father, he'd feel honor-bound to preach to the whole town about his family's depravity. He'd deliver some anguished sermon about a prodigal daughter or a Jezebel or something, and then he'd fall to his knees and resign his ministry. The disgrace would crush him. And my mother? Don't even ask!" "I see," I said gently, being mature about all this even while my heart was still beating wildly. I took my hand out from under hers and grasped both of hers instead. "How can I help?" I asked. "What can I do?" "Just one thing," she replied. "It shouldn't be too hard. It's simple, but it's absolutely essential. You have to be willing. Can you sound like me whenever you answer the phone?" "Just like you? No, Gayle! Your voice is the original magic flute! It shames songbirds into silence!" A little flowery, but I'd prepared those remarks way in advance and here was an opening for them. "Oh, Allie, you are a love! I know I'm not making a mistake! But really, I'm not joking, either! No, I mean can you make yourself sound like a girl when you answer the phone? Not like yourself." "I don't know," I said. But I did know. When I'm nervous my voice gets tense and rises a full octave. Sometimes in college when I had to ask a question in class but was afraid to sound like a fool, I'd chirp out the words and the professor would have to look closely to see if the voice had came from me or from the girl sitting next to me. "I guess so. I could try." "Let me hear!" "I guess so!" I said again in falsetto, like Minnie Mouse. "Same idea, but lower," she said. "Like this?" I asked. "Better!" she said. "But with more tonal range? More highs and lows? More delight, more enthusiasm? There are reasons why girls squeal sometimes, you know." I looked up. She was looking straight into my face and her eyes never wavered once. "And why girls moan!" she added, in case I doubted my own ears. She still didn't look away. Oh God! This marvelous woman was telling me that if I could just get past this one entrance exam I'd be set! We'd head straight for her bedroom and she'd squeal and moan all night! "Of course, Gayle!" I squealed in a high, tense, melodious crescendo, extending the vowels of her name by rising to a squeak and then sinking deep on the last sound. Then I almost sang in a rich, lilting, reassuring contralto, "Anything you want, Gayle! Anything!" She grinned. "That's perfect. Perfect! To whom have I the honor of speaking?" "Allie," I replied mellifluously. "This is Allie, Gayle's roommate! Her dearest girlfriend! May I take a message?" "Yes, dearest girlfriend," she said in an urgent voice almost as low as my former masculine voice, but steady and tense. "Take me into the bedroom and get rid of those clothes! I want you! Now!" It was fabulous. Beyond any wild fantasy. Our clothes flew off. She opened her legs and arms and heart and mouth and gave me access to all of her, any part, everywhere, eagerly, wherever, insisted on it in fact! Smooth and warm and soft and slick and wet! I was still sucking, licking, kissing, stroking, plunging into her and embracing her with my lips, tongue, cock, and fingers as the first morning light revealed what a shambles we'd made of her bed. Finally we simply grinned at each other, then fell asleep still tangled together. When we woke again and were still drowsily, snugly hugging, she asked me sweetly if I'd mind speaking only in my new "Allie" voice from then on. So it would be instinctive, habitual. "I need to feel secure that it's always there. That it's as natural to you as breathing. No forgetfulness or slip ups ever." "Always? No matter where?" I asked, pitching my tones high and sweet, like some girl delighted to be given a new party dress. "Everywhere, lover. Always! I love it! That voice is you! It needs to be you from now on! It's so beautiful! So seductive." This took a little thought. I hesitated. She wriggled her hips as if she were remembering the sound of my voice in the silence, as if it were a penis moving deep inside her. "Promise? For me?" I stopped thinking. For more nights like this last one, anything! "Yeah, sure," I said in that delicious girly crescendo. "As long as you're seduced, I'm seduced! I promise!" "Not 'Yeah, sure', Allie. That's too manly. Too butch. Say 'Why, I'd love to, Gayle. I really would! I'm so glad you think my voice is attractive!" I did. Whatever! It was a strain at first, until I added a hint of southern belle breathiness to it. All day she kept giving me other little hints to enhance the effect, mainly about what to say. Never to tell people what I want, but instead to ask if I might have it. To be sure people know how dear, how darling they are whenever they offer me anything, and how precious whatever it is they're offering! Stuff like that. All day we practiced when we weren't in each other's arms finding new ways to appreciate each other. She was the dearest, most darling, precious girl imaginable! And she thought I was absolutely adorable! By the next day, when I moved my things into her place, my femme voice had become the way I spoke routinely to everyone. I simply stopped thinking about it. The building superintendent looked at me oddly as he helped me carry down the few books and bags and boxes I'd accumulated, and he stepped back when I smiled and told him he was a dear man, refusing both the tip I offered and the handshake. I realized why afterward, and had to grin. He thought I was making a pass at him. No matter, I'd never see him again anyhow. ii. A phone test came almost at once. One of Gayle's girlfriends called and I happened to answer. A simple, sweet "Hello?" produced immediately, "Oh yes, you must be Allie, of course. I'm Gretchen. Is Gayle there, please?" Surprisingly, Gretchen wasn't in the least surprised to hear my voice, and she knew my name. I wondered what else she knew. When I asked Gayle, she told me "Why, everything, lover! Gretchen's my closest girlfriend, next to you, and I hope you'll soon be hers!" Though Gayle's words didn't quite chime, my heart rose. I'd never had a girl for a friend. Some guys called too, and I merely took their messages and passed them on. One tried to come on to me, and I hesitated whether to lead him on in order to embarrass him or just cut him off. In the end either way seemed complicated, so I was properly polite, no more. It was a little unsettling though, hearing that man's ingratiating voice inviting me to tease him back. In fact I did, a little. I figured that much would be expected of Gayle's roommate. A little daring, a little jesting playfulness. I felt strange yet self-assured. It was like playing a hooked fish. Then one day came the anticipated call. Gayle was out shopping, and it happens I was in a cheery mood when I answered. Baking low-fat cookies as a matter of fact, to surprise Gayle with when she got back. "Hellooooo?" I said, making the word into five luscious syllables chanted across a full tonal scale. An older woman's voice declared immediately, "Why, how lovely! You must be Allie! I'm Gayle's mother, you know, Gayle has told us so much about you! How nice to hear your voice! And how good of you to keep her company, look out for her, help her with her computers and everything, she tells us. You must be such a lovely girl! And all alone in this world -- Gayle told us that you've lost both your parents, you poor dear." She paused. "Yes, I'm afraid so," I said, even more afraid of what might be coming next. "But that was some time ago." I remembered that I was speaking to a minister's wife. It was corny, but it couldn't hurt to say it. "I'm sure they're in a far better place now." "I'm sure," she said, pleased. "And I'm sure they're still looking after you where you are, keeping both you and Gayle from temptation. Gayle's father and I pray as I'm sure they do for your safe passage through all those iniquitous things we hear about in that city you're in. Are any of them troubling Gayle, do you think?" She was asking me to squeal on Gayle, just as Gayle had anticipated. "No, ma'am," I replied. "No iniquities. Your daughter is just fine! She's an angel! I love her already." I did, too. "We take good care of each other." We did, too, sometimes all night long. "Yes," her mother said, a little disappointed that I wasn't dishing dirt but gratified that maybe there wasn't any. "Well, you be sure to keep well. Tell her I called. I'd like for you to think of us as your family now, Allie, and for you and Gayle to think of yourselves as sisters, not just friends. Sisters watch out for each other, don't they?" "Yes, I imagine they do," I replied. "Thank you, that's sweet of you." She hadn't quit. Instead, she'd promoted me to family spy. Well, I couldn't find fault with the impulse behind her tactics. Gayle was right. Parents worry. "Goodbye now then," she said. "I'll see you both this Thanksgiving, in just a few months. We're all looking forward to the big event. Everyone's coming! All of our family! It'll be wonderful to meet you then finally." Thanksgiving? Meet her family? How could I go to a Thanksgiving family celebration with Gayle ever, as Allie? Allie's supposed to be a girl! One look and they'd know what we were up to, and I'd have to move out! It was all over! "Yes," I said. "Wonderful!" "Tell Gayle Chris sends his love! He's looking forward to it the same way she is!" "I'll tell her that." My mind registered that her father's name was Chris, and that they considered a family Thanksgiving a big event. I supposed it was. But mainly I was overwhelmed by the terrible realization that we'd be lovers for only a few months more! A moment later common sense returned, and I realized that no such exposure was necessary. I'd invent some relative with a prior claim on my presence for Thanksgiving and send regrets to Gayle's family. That was all I needed to do. No problem. Maybe I could even come as a different Allie, the guy Gayle knew from her night school class. "Her father sends his love too!" her mother said. "I'll be sure to tell her, " I said automatically, not yet recovered from the crazy scare that Gayle and I might have to split. Her father sends love twice? Who was Chris? She didn't have a brother, I knew, and until a minute or so ago no sister. We had a lot to talk about. "Allie dear, I'm so pleased you're now part of our family. Welcome! We'll talk more before Thanksgiving. B'bye!" She hung up. "B'bye," I said to myself, staring at the phone for a moment before clicking it off and setting it down. I told Gayle everything when she got home. She was amused but unconcerned. "Don't worry about anything, you sweet darling!," she said. "I can handle it! So now you're my sister? We're in an incestuous lesbian relationship? If only they knew!" She wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed close to me, and kissed me so very sweetly. "You can be my girlfriend any day of the week, all week, baby," she said intensely. "I'd like that!" "I like whatever you'd like," I said, not really paying attention. "I love what we are. But who's Chris? And Thanksgiving's a 'big event' at your house?" "Big for Mom, I guess," Gayle replied. "She's an arranger! But don't worry about it, honey! Parents always make problems. They aren't our problems. Mine once, but not any more. I've got it all worked out! Are these scrumptious cookies really low cal? You are such a dear!" That night, since we were incestuous lesbians, she proposed that we try making lesbian love just for fun. "You can be my girlfriend for real tonight," she said. "And I'll be yours." So she sucked my 'clit' and I licked her pussy, and we fondled and kissed and tongued each other's breasts, that was all. But over and over, and then again. Each time either of us woke up, that's what we did to get back to sleep. In the morning we each declared that the night had been altogether satisfactory, serene but passionate. We did it now and then afterward too, often in fact. I couldn't have been happier. It was odd, though. Clearly it pleased and amused her to think of me as her girlfriend. It was so much less problematic than having a boyfriend with her parents looking over her shoulder. Probably it helped ease some of the guilt she felt that we were living together, knowing her parents could never approve of it. Of course! There'd been all those little allusions to me as a possible girl, even the first day we'd jogged together! I remembered them now, references to my wanting a bust like hers maybe, or about showing off my ass. All part of a little game she liked to play. Now she did it routinely, and I realized I'd been taking it for granted. She'd compliment me on my grace when I jogged with her, and she'd warn me to watch my figure when we were dining together ("a girl's excess calories go straight to her hips, honey"). And as girls do, we'd touch and hug often, and press our cheeks together when we met and parted. Whatever, I thought to myself. What she needs to imagine about me doesn't change me. I felt complimented. At work though everyone was looking at me peculiarly, from the moment I first arrived and said "Good morning, everyone" in my new voice, just as Gayle had requested as a gesture of my devotion to her. It was sometimes embarrassing, talking that way in the office. But I'd remember her ripe breasts cupped in both her hands and offered to my mouth, amd my lips closing on those long nipples, and then I'd have no problem with it at all. Or I'd remember that sweet smile on her face when she came down from an especially deeply satisfying orgasm. So even though I knew what the whole staff was thinking when they heard me lilting and lisping breathily, I didn't care. Gayle called me at the office each day that first week, just to remind me how she was looking forward to the evening, to being together, just the two of us, or just to tell me how she'd bought an exquisite satin nightgown "just for you" as she said. I knew she was really calling to make sure I was using my feminine voice whenever I answered the phone. And she never failed to appreciate it. "Lovely Allie," she'd say, "You sound so wonderfully girly, my sweet sexy-voiced darling! From the way you sound, no one would dream you weren't a girl!" No, I suppose not. A few customers who knew my old voice thought maybe I'd developed a cold or something. Maybe I overdid the gushing -- one asked me point blank what the hell was wrong with me. He didn't pursue it when I told him things couldn't be better. But I noticed that everyone at work began to avoid me. I'd never been one of the "in" crowd at the office, but now I sensed outright hostility. I began to overhear nasty cracks. I did my work and turned in my reports, but by the end of the week I realized that I was coming back to my new home with Gayle as if to a sanctuary. That first weekend Gayle held a housewarming party for me. She invited all her friends to meet me and hear my new voice, so there'd be no deception when they called and I answered. Besides, they all wanted to meet her new "precious" boyfriend. They all thought I sounded just wonderful, unmistakably feminine, and they admired me for it. It had to be true love, they said, for me to be willing to do this thing for Gayle. "Not every guy would go swish for a girl," one of the girls at the party told me. "You're really something else!" "Oh, Allie has a long way to go yet," Gayle told her. "This is just going girly a little. He hasn't begun to swish! But you're right, as a guy he really is something else! I'm proud of him." I finally met Gayle's closest friend Gretchen, who turned out to be a stunner in her own way, tall, domineering, sultry, and dark-haired, head of the Art Department of a major advertising agency with lots of talented people working under her. "I wish I had someone like you to live with," she told me. "Then my boyfriend would never know I've got another boyfriend at home, someone I keep as a spare." She smiled at Gayle, who smiled enigmatically back. Now what did that mean? Well, they go back a ways, I thought to myself. Gretchen was once caught two-timing someone, I'll bet. An earnest girl's voice behind me disagreed. I turned to see. "Oh, Gretchen, Allie's fine on the phone, I'm sure. But the moment your real boyfriend saw him I'm sure he'd know there was something wrong! I mean, Allie looks like a boy! You know?" This from a short, earnest blonde girl named Evelyn who had come to the party with an old home-town boy friend who had just moved to the city to join her. They were engaged, Evelyn had announced on arrival, showing everyone the ring he'd just given her. Gayle thought the announcement and the ring were both tacky. "Oh, I don't know," the boy friend said tartly. He sounded pissed. Maybe a little jealous that I was getting all the attention? Maybe resenting it, thinking that by changing my voice's gender just to get laid I'd let the male side down? He sounded disgusted. "Allie here looks like he'd be pretty safe with women. He looks a lot like he sounds. Maybe he's already one of the girls?" That last he said emphatically eyeball to eyeball with me, a direct, man-to-man challenge. More gay-bashing crap, like what I was starting to overhear at work! Well, I'd had it! I squared my shoulders and glared back at him. Then hesitated, wondering whether to punch him out right now or to call him into the corridor first. Gretchen stepped between us before a decision could lock us into a mean-spirited brawl. "You're right! Allie does look as good as he sounds!" she said. "A few touches here and there and I bet he'd look exactly the way he sounds! So what? Should he be ashamed to look like a girl, someone like me and Gayle and Evelyn, like half the human population? Does he have to look like an asshole Lord of the Universe like you? He isn't ashamed at all, and I think that's to his credit! I admire him for it! He's not a chauvist pig like lots of men! And anyhow, what Allie sounds like or looks like is Allie's business and Gayle's, not yours. Isn't it?" Evelyn's fiance glanced at Gretchen while she stared wide-eyed at him, and that broke our eye-combat duel. I looked at Evelyn, who looked apologetically back at me and then annoyedly at her fiance. She quickly led him off toward a snack table in another room. I flashed her a rueful grin, signalling no offense taken. "Do you think so, Gretchen?" I heard Gayle's voice ask behind me. Gayle had witnessed the whole incident! I was glad of that! She'd seen how manly I was, how quick to defend my honor. But she'd also heard testimony from Gretchen about how admirable I am, how free of male chauvinist superiority. Score two points for me. "Think what, Gayle?" Gretchen turned attention toward her. I stepped back so they could talk face to face and I could listen. "That Allie here could look the way he sounds with only a few touches here and there if need be," she said. "Because that could solve a problem I've got at work." The warmth of Gayle's smile stifled any embarrassed objections I might have to all this talk of me being touched here and there, made to look more girlish. For the moment I was a bona fide hero to her, a rare man, altogether unashamed to be thought a girl. I smiled back non-commitally. "Because fair employment practices and all that to one side, we have a job opening that needs a woman. We advertise that it's an 'equal opportunity' position, but it's definitely an 'affirmative action' position. What do you think, Gret? Could Allie qualify if he had to? If the front office ever checked up on us?" Gretchen not only supervised mobs of photographers and artists and beautiful models for her agency, she'd taken beauty salon courses to help design the chic hairdos they wore. She was often called on to advise about make-up before they were photographed for picture spreads. She knew. Gretchen glanced at me again. "You mean make Allie really look like a girl, not just sound like one? So if some vice-president came through expecting to see an office full of women, Allie'd be wearing his blush and lipstick and the usual protective coloring, like all the others? Sure, I see no problem. His features are regular, and his nose and chin are small for a man, rather cute in fact. He has plenty of his own hair, so he wouldn't need a wig. Pin it up like so, and a few dabs here and there, and I bet that in ten minutes I could hide Allie in plain sight among any group of women. He'd never be noticed. But Gayle, he has a great voice already! Why wait? Why not fix him up right now and be done with it? He'd be passably pretty with the right hairdo and the right morning make-up routines, I'm sure. His figure isn't too bad even now, compared with some women I've seen. We could do things with it. No problem!" "Allie? Do you think you'd be willing?" Gayle was looking directly at me. Not smiling. She was actually serious! She was making some sort of administrative decision." I was suddenly frightened, but also annoyed. At work I was being hassled for giving away a big piece of my manhood, and now these two women wanted the rest of it. "I just don't know, I'd have to think about it!" I said evasively but firmly. Speaking in my now-habituated girl voice, I realized I sounded as if I'd just been swept off my feet by a proposal of marriage. Gayle was satisfied. "I'm just thinking about it too, honey, right now. There's no hurry. I'm not sure yet about a few things. So I'll just take that answer as not a 'No!' and we'll just see." A week later things at my office suddenly got much more serious. My boss called me in and glared at me silently for a full minute, then asked me what the hell I thought I was doing. I explained to him why I was talking like a woman, about Gayle's parents and so on. He was unimpressed. "You're telling me you're pussywhipped, that's your excuse? You've gone queer just so you can shack up with a piece of ass? Well, people are complaining. The women in the office think you're mocking them, and the men are all mocking you! It's bad for the business. I can't let you near the phones to talk to customers, they're all asking me what flouncy new product line we're selling these days. Maybe you better take the rest of the week off and think about whether this job means more to you than some asshole promise you made to some dumb broad! I don't want to lose you, but if you can't shape up you're gone!" And he turned abruptly away. I felt flayed! It was infuriating, and for a moment I considered whether to quit right there or to wait and continue to torment everyone by talking in my lovely feminine voice, to force him to fire me. Just for the way I was talking? Outrageous! When I told Gayle, she immediately advised me to quit and accept the job she'd had in mind. "Gayle, you said the job required a woman." "Well, maybe not necessarily! Maybe just a woman's voice and the right attitudes." And she explained. Gayle oversaw Corporate Acquisitions for her firm, really a holding company with lots of smaller firms. There was a Phone-Marketing startup they'd acquired last year, with a three person office supervising several hundred part-time "associates" who worked from their homes all over the city, networked as if they were all together in cubicles. The firm needed someone with exactly my background to be the third person. Someone to modify the main record and book-keeping systems and set up sales analyses, and then to walk new associates through the different computer procedures. And along with the other two supervisors, advise the home associates whenever they had problems with their customers, telling them how to keep their sales pitches tactful and informal. That sort of thing. Personal advice too. Exactly what we'd learned in that Inter-Personnel course where we'd met. I could begin by working at home myself if I felt uneasy about it, she said. But it would be better if I worked alongside the two other adminstrative supervisors from the outset. To get their input before I changed systems around, and also to learn from their example how best to deal with the associates. "You'd be perfect, honey!" Gayle told me. "You have exactly the right background, and you have exactly the right voice, too! It's not at all like the job you've got now, where it's boring and they don't appreciate your gifts." "Why might I feel uneasy?" I asked. "And what do you mean, the right voice?" "Because this time you'd really need to act like a real girl, not just in the way you talk but the way you think and feel too. The associates are all women. To understand their problems with their customers you'd need to make all sorts of girl talk with them all day long, and really enjoy it, the way women do. You'd hear a lot about all sorts of things women only tell other women. And you might feel uneasy about that, abandoning your male reflexes and personality altogether all day long, really being one of girls on the phone while the other two supervisors listen in. They'd have to listen at first, to help you sound more authentic. In effect they'd be teaching you how to be a woman in everything but appearance. You know, I think you'd enjoy it!" "I see," I said. "Why are the associates all women?" Gayle grinned. "They have to be. It's a specialty marketing firm strictly for women's products. Pantyhose, sanitary napkins, lingerie, make-up, fashion magazines, you know. Things only women use. The associates' customers are all women. Women don't buy things like that from men." She smiled to herself, then said, "I think with your empathy you'll do just fine! It's a stretch maybe, but you can imagine how a girl feels when she's wearing her new hot-'n-sexy panty-and-bra set for the first time, can't you, and then advise our associates how she'll feel, how to advise their customers. You'd be better than most women at it, I'll bet. Because it would all be new to you, a fresh challenge! And you come at it with no set ideas of your own!" "Let me understand. The associates are all women who advise other women, their customers, who call them to find out what to buy or how to use something they've already bought, how to use it in some imaginative new way? It isn't just that they take orders by phone?" "Exactly!" Gayle replied. "The associates provide a kind of a fashion and feelings help line, with flair. They pitch their sales while they're being helpful. They're big sisters and wise aunts and best friends. They're Ann Landers to the lovelorn and they're Eloise and Martha Stewart to the housekeepers. They do all the work with customers, and you work with them. Apart from maintaining the accounting systems, you'll be a kind of clearing house for whatever they need to know. And a morale booster. You'll design their in-house reporting and ordering protocols and so on, of course, but mainly you'll keep them motivated, and share any good advice you get from other associates about what works especially well. Things like that!" I still didn't see why I had to be a facsimile woman when talking with the associates. "I can see why you need women at the base level, working with the customers," I said. "But why do all three supervisors have to be women?" "Because of the kinds of associates we've got!" Gayle sighed. "Well, strictly speaking, not all of them. For some a male supervisor isn't an issue. They're the women who do our work but also take care of elderly parents, or babies, or want to be home when their kids get home from school. Or want to schedule their own time. Or want to work bare-faced in blue jeans -- a girl can save hours out of her life for herself each week if she doesn't have to set her hair and make up her face for downtown office work. Not to mention the time and money women spend shopping for 'career girl' outfits suitable for business. Lots of those associates are college grads, smart and under-employed. They're not our problem." Gayle smiled, then added, "We direct-deposit a lot of their earnings into bank accounts with names different from the names they use at home. So they're likely to tell you all sorts of things about their lives they don't want their husbands to know! Some of it gets pretty racy!" "All right," I said. "Then it's the other associates who're the problems?" "Correct. The others come in two kinds. One kind is entry-level, recent high school graduates. They're young and they advise other girls their age what to buy and they do very well at it. Telling another young girl when a tampon's preferable to a napkin, for example, and which kinds of tampons. Even what their new boyfriend might appreciate by way of a birthday blow job! You can advise them how to do that part right, can't you, Allie?" I said nothing. "But they're young, and soaked in their own brand-new high-test hormones. Some are intimidated by men but most of them are ready to play the female seducer to any male behind a male voice. You know, they flirt instinctively. They can be all business when they talk to another woman, but they're easily distracted into silliness by men. If their supervisor is a woman, or if they think so, it makes for far greater efficiency." That rang true enough. In college I was a work-study aide on a University Computer help line for a while. I found quickly that lots of girls practice their girl tactics on any guys on the phone who don't know them. It can get pretty harrowing when one of them aims both full-bore barrels at you! And then if one actually does develop a crush on you, or on your voice, she can waste an awful lot of your time. Some of the girls were probably worth the time, but who knew? I'd often thought about flirting back, but I never did. I'd have been fired, they kept stressing that. On the other hand, one guy I know actually managed to talk a lot of girls into performing phone sex for his fraternity brothers. "They liked doing it, Al," he informed me. "Getting guys off! They'd challenge each other to speed and endurance contests, how fast and how often they can get a guy to cum with a single phone call. For how long they can string him along whenever he tries to hang up. They're unbelievable! I tell you, don't let the bitches of this world get the upper hand ever! Just try to think of them as pussies with tits, with mouths that talk too much and don't suck cock often enough! Then you'll get on fine." I couldn't do that. I wasn't raised that way, I guess. I respected girls. Maybe that was why I didn't get on too well with them. "And the other kind of associate?" I asked. "The other kind that can't handle a male supervisor, I mean?" "The second kind, right! They tend to be women returning to the work force because they've gotten rotten divorce settlements. Some of them are looking for another guy to get in bed with right away, so there's the same problem with them as with the high school girls. Only worse, because they know the score. A sweet guy like you wouldn't last ten minutes with some of them. They'd eat you alive." "Sounds good," I replied, grinning. "But I'm not that easy." "Coulda fooled me, Allie," Gayle said, grinning back. "Anyhow, lots of our divorced women can't tolerate a male voice of any kind, no matter how helpful! One of them put it to me this way: 'No male supervisors ever again, Gayle! Not ever! One mother-fucking son of a bitch-bastard telling me what to do day and night was one too many for me and still is, and will be, now, whenever, and forever after, Amen!'" Gayle paused, then said, "But you've got no problem that way, Allie. Your voice is perfect! Who'd think you weren't a girl, hearing you on the phone? With a little re-orienting you'd fit in perfectly." We talked some more, and the idea began to sound better and better. Challenging! And I'd get in on all sorts of women's secrets! So that Friday I called and told my boss I was quitting, that I was giving him my week's notice, that I'd been offered work better suited to my talents. "I'll bet you've got offers," was all he replied this time. "Resignation accepted, and don't bother coming in at all for your last week, Nancy! I'm happy to pay you to stay away. We're well rid of you! Your girlfriend put you up to this, huh? Give him a kiss for me!" And he hung up. That shook me! I'd never encountered a real bigot before. But it was done. I was well rid of him. iii. The next Monday I went to work at Gayle's Phone-Marketing headquarters. It was just as Gayle had said. The other two supervisors, Connie and Meg, were already there when Gayle brought me into the firm's spacious one-room office to introduce me. Connie was an older woman, the office manager, smart and chic, who'd been around the block a few times and was whimsically ironic about it. What she says goes, I was told. Meg was also quick and sophisticated, enthusiastic about each of her new relationships with any man or any woman. They looked me over, and then each gave me a sisterly hug. "Remember, you're strictly a woman when you work with us, Allie!," Connie told me. "Be sure you park your cock and balls outside the door when you come in." Both were impressed by my voice and my explanation how it got that way. "We'd wondered how some guy named 'Alan' could possibly do this job, when Gayle first sent us your papers," Connie said. "We should have known. Gayle has that effect on some men." She grinned. Meg nudged her and told her not to tease. They showed me various personnel forms for my signature. Some had been made out originally to "Alan" or "Allen" or "Allan," and then in all the spaces changed to "Allie." "'Allie' stands for 'Alice' if anyone wants to know, honey," Connie said. "You've just had your first sex change operation. I think it'll be fun having you here, Miss Alice! Let me show you the ropes." I looked over their systems that first day and made a few suggestions and designed a few changes, then settled in seriously and began to reshape all of them. Within a week I'd made their billing, shipping, receiving, and payroll far more efficient, practically automatic. They appreciated me for that. Then I began making calls to teach new associates the company's computer and reporting procedures, and tell the old associates about the changes I'd made. They were grateful. And Gayle was right. They immediately began to think of me as family, or as their new girlfriend. Some unburdened all sorts of intimacies on me while I made sympathetic noises. I tried to be helpful the way women are with each other. I heard all sorts of gossip about boy friends and hairdos and kids and their husbands' infidelities and kinks. I sympathized with them all about their burdens, their anxieties, their private demons. After a while they began to ask my advice about all sorts of things, and it could get pretty harrowing. One woman had been gang-banged three weekends in a row while her husband watched, that was how he got off. Now she wanted to watch her husband getting gang-banged just before she left him for good -- how could she arrange it? "I want to know cum is dribbling out of his ass the whole month I'm serving him his divorce papers!" she told me. I thought a moment, then suggested she trick him into letting her tie him up. Then she could invite as many men as she wanted to come in and use him for as many days as they wanted. "Maybe he'll want to see some of them again after the divorce," I said. "You never can tell." Another associate called because she had to exult to someone about a pair of red leather Napa shorts she'd picked up for a song, what it had done for her rear end. And what that rear end had then done to her boyfriend when he saw her in them. "They're great!" she told me. "I can't keep his face out of my ass now," she said. I congratulated her. I thought about it some, and that night asked Gayle to let me burrow my face into her beautiful ass. She did. Another couldn't resist telling me about her Donna Karen silk charmeuse top, you know, the full-sleeved style that's coming back? She wondered how it would go with her A-line skirt and a bolero? I waved to Meg to pick up, and Meg whispered to me what to say. "A bolero's perfect with full sleeves, honey," I told her as Meg mouthed the words. "It'll give you a commanding look But the A-line would make your outfit much too peasant-ish. Better a long, severe, narrow skirt that puts your torso on a pedestal! You'll be surprised what happens!" She was. The next day, she called back for advice how a husband on his knees could give her head while she was wearing that long, tight skirt. "He dropped to his knees when he saw me," she said. "But the only thing his tongue could get at was my shoes!" She sounded disappointed. I told her on my own to open a side seam to the top of her thigh, for a glamorous slit skirt look. Meg, listening, was impressed. I was learning. Another wanted to know how to meet her customer quota despite severe monthly menstrual cramps, and with Connie's help I gave her some good practical advice ("Take a long, slow, hot, delicious, perfumed bubble bath, dear -- pamper yourself. No of course a tampon, not a napkin"). I also provided sympathy ("You poor dear, I know just how you feel, mine can be terrible sometimes too, it can go on for days and days"). A few weeks more and I'd learned a lot, and signalled for Connie's or Meg's help only occasionally. I began to have similar girl-to-girl conversations with Gayle -- it all seemed quite natural, and so much fun! She and Gretchen and I began to go out together as a trio, giggling and chatting and laughing and listening to each other's stories while people nearby marveled at the two women with one man who together sounded and behaved like three women. In fact people who spoke to me in the street or in stores began to address me as "ma'am," maybe because of a lilt I'd developed unawares in my speech, or my gestures, or because of the way I carried myself. Gayle was charmed that I now moved my head and hands gracefully, and held them at intriguing angles when I listened, and that I tended to lift my chin ever so slightly before saying anything. All things girls do on the phone and off, she told me. She was delighted I had such an instinctive feel for my new line of work. One day Meg overheard me handling an especially difficult problem, a married associate who was turning lesbian and felt so guilty about betraying her husband with her new girlfriend that she couldn't call her customers. "Just relax," I told her. "Let your girlfriend make all the moves. Enjoy them, and both of you meanwhile try to think of ways you can eventually include your husband! If you blindfold him when you're having sex, maybe you can get him accustomed to all kinds of things he won't even know about at first!" Meg congratulated me. "It sounds like you're all set to be a woman yourself now, Allie," she said. "You're on our side! There'll be no surprises! Have you ever thought about it?" I pointed out that nearly everything I knew was theoretical, imagined, by the book, books Connie gave me to read by day and Gayle by night. For example, I knew all the routine ways to blend the company's eye-shadows and to match them with lipsticks and blushes. I knew six ways to achieve a new Fall look, and several ways a girl can make a man excited enough to cum maybe without even touching him. But I could think of nothing practical to say one day when a young associate called to ask how she could persuade a young customer who never wears bras that she should own a few anyhow. I hadn't the foggiest. "You don't know?" Meg asked, grinning. "We should get you a pair of breasts, honey, then you'd know soon enough! It's because even young girls bobble when they're active, jumping around. And sooner or later we sag, sooner if we don't have good support. Shall I ask Gayle to arrange some implants for you, so you'll know at first hand? Either hand or both hands, however you want to hold them?" I didn't mind being teased that way. I liked it. It meant I was accepted, that the three of us were a team! I told Gayle what Meg had suggested, and she thought it a wonderful idea. She commented that it had crossed her mind that it was unfair that she couldn't enjoy my breasts the way I did hers. "You're mean, Allie!" she said. "Only giving me one thing to suck on when I give you two!" I wasn't altogether sure she was joking. The next morning Connie brought in a box full of panties and bras, the different brands marketed by our associates. All sorts of colors and materials, satin and cotton, nylon and spandex, wisps and pushups, front-hook, long line, and sports, and erotically lacy hi-legs, bikinis, and thongs. And some lines manufactured by competitors, I saw. "They're all yours, babe," she said. "Wear them in good health!" I lifted an eyebrow at her. "You know our inventory pretty well, Allie," she continued. "But as you said yesterday, it's all theoretical. Time to get a real feel for these things. Here are assorted undies mostly in your size, but some a little small and some a little large so you can get to know how these feel too. The bra cups are all too large for you right now, of course. But put on a panty and bra set every morning anyhow, here if you're embarrassed to show Gayle, so you know what it's like for a girl to work in harness all day." I stared at the strange garments uneasily. What did she mean by "right now?" I wondered. "Does Gayle know about this?" I asked. "I report to Gayle regularly. There's nothing she doesn't know. She knows how pleased I am with your progress so far, how quick you are to improve your strengths and correct your deficiencies when we point them out. I think she's very pleased with you too. In fact I know so!" I got the hint and nodded agreeably. "Try this undersized little bra first, and this matching thong. So you'll know from tomorrow's set how a properly-fitting bra should feel, that it doesn't have to bind. Also so you'll appreciate how a regular pair of panties feels, one that covers your cheeks instead of tucking into your crack so you waggle when you walk." I took the wispy things and dangled them from one hand. "Now?" I asked, a little anxious about all this. "I don't know why not now," Connie said. "You go, girl!" I went to the men's room by the bank of elevators and put them on under my suit and shirt. Nothing showed. The bra felt tight from the outset, and by the end of the day the band seemed to be cutting into my flesh! And all that day Connie and Meg grinned when they saw me moving about the office, twisting my hips constantly to ease the pressure of that elastic strap stretched deep between my buttocks, pressed up tight against my anus. "Very sexy moves, sweetie," Meg told me. "Has anyone ever told you you have a cute ass?" "Matter of fact, yes," I replied. I grinned back at her, but my face felt strained. I couldnt wait to change out of those flimsy instruments of torture when the day's work ended. But the next day's bra and panties were so comfortable I forgot to remove them and wore them home. I had to anyhow, I realized, all of them, so I could rinse them out by hand immediately after wearing them the way I'd advised so many other women. Gayle said nothing when she saw them drying on a towel rack in our bathroom. Nor when she saw the pretty pair I wore home and rinsed out the following day. But she complimented me a few mornings later when we returned from a jog and showered and then dressed for the day, and we found ourselves in our bedroom together wearing only our bras and panties. My set was maroon with delicate lace edging. Hers was a chaste white, her bra with wide support straps for her heavy breasts. We looked like two women dressing together casually, roommates, it occurred to me. "Nice," was what she said. "Very pretty! Enjoy them!" Then looking more closely, "Are you developing a figure, honey?" I looked down at my chest. "I don't think so. Some of my bras do gather up muscle and skin, whatever's there, and then the cups shape them. I guess these do look a little like breasts." "They're darling, Allie. Really! Very becoming! You must be feeling very proud of them!" She reached out and touched a nipple through the satiny material, and it instantly became a teeny erection. She smiled and glanced at me slyly, then as she slipped into her blouse she commented, "Maybe we really should start thinking about ways to fill you out. I'll bet you do enjoy wearing pretty undies. Most women do. They remind us how feminine we are. How desireable we are." It hadn't occurred to me before, but all that day whenever I remembered what I had on underneath, I did enjoy the fact that I was wearing them. Gayle was delighted when I confessed it to her that night. A few days later I wore another thong bikini, and the snug band rising tight between my buttocks and separating them actually felt good! As I waggled to lunch, both Meg and Connie lifted their eyebrows and grinned at me. I grinned back, and waggled my rear at them even more exaggeratedly.. Two weeks later I'd worn all of my undies home, even the undersized ones, and they'd replaced all of the regular men's underwear in my drawer. A few days later a box of various styles and colors of teddies and slips and camisoles and chemises and bodystockings and leotards appeared on my desk, in lacy, satiny, and plain cotton fabrics. Without comment I took them home and added them to my morning wardrobe. Soon after, when Connie set up a half-price special lingerie sale, I was able to tell each associate I spoke to what features of each kind they might want to stress to their various customers, which helped a girl feel cute or naughty or proper or seductive. I already knew from the ways they made me feel when I looked in the mirror each morning. Connie and Meg and I alternated going to lunch in couples, one of us always on the phones while the other two went down to the coffee shop off the lobby to nibble a sandwich or a salad and then bring one back. Gayle wanted me even thinner, so we could pace each other on our morning jogs. I was already nearly as lean and swift as she was, though as full as ever in my hips and thighs because of all the jogging. My arms were almost as thin as Gayle's too, because she wanted them that way --she told me that male upper body musculature always somehow seemed threatening to her. So usually a small salad was ample for me. After two weeks of testing out a fast-weight-loss diet-drink product we were adding to our website, I doubt I weighed any more than Gayle. So mainly I looked forward to lunch for the talk. More girl talk. Both women spent their lunch times with me briefing me on everything every girl should know, and I tried to remember it all. Some stuff was predictable -- Meg loaned me a book of recipes I could claim my mother had passed on to her daughter, and I'd dole out a few when that topic ever cam