Slider's Pet free porn video

SLIDER'S PET By Valerie Hope "Long ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this." Anonymous Bret Reed was not a rich man. He wasn't particularly poor, either - which meant that the current Republican administration in the White House had, in their benevolence, decided to place the tax burden of the entire country right on his white, male, aged 18-35 and single shoulders. He slaved away, day in and day out, to bring home some little bit to feed his habit - DVD movies - and to offset the credit card bills which he'd accumulated while he worked his way through college. But on the first and fifteenth, when the checks came from GeoTech, the software company where he worked, the government's bite made it all that much harder for Bret to lever himself out of debt and start to enjoy anything resembling success. It wasn't like he was frivolous or anything. A modest apartment and a modest car, unlike the lavish bachelor pads and the sports cars that some of his colleagues owned. He kept his expenses low - only allowing himself two new movies on DVD every month - and didn't spend inordinate amounts on groceries or anything else. He kept to himself and didn't spend money on going out or partying, even though he paid the price with his social life. But his father - a blue-collar auto worker - had always told him that with a college degree he could write his own ticket. His old man had been mistaken. A very nice diploma hung on the wall, and all it had gotten him was more debt. Some American dream. Bret managed to get home through the thick Friday afternoon traffic in decent time, clawing his way through the throngs of overdressed people trying to get downtown so they could blow huge wads of cash on watered- down well drinks and overpriced Mexican food, make nuisances of themselves in public and then go home to sleep it off in time to go back out again on Saturday night. Bret's evening was a little more sedate in scope. A frozen pizza for the oven, a cold Dr. Pepper and his new copy of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" which had been waiting in his mailbox from last week's order. He kicked his shoes into the closet and changed from his khakis and button-down shirt into a pair of ratted-out cutoffs and a t-shirt. He took the pizza out of the oven after scanning the news for a few minutes, then popped in his new prize while Slider, the grey-and-white stray tabby cat who'd adopted him a few years back, curled up in his lap for a little bit of quality ear-scratching. The movie had been really good, but the stress of the past week - GeoTech had done a product release and the developers had put in a lot of very late nights - soon had him dozing, dreaming of a place where he didn't have to worry about paying his bills, someplace where he might have the money to go out and drink downtown and pay too much for a plate of substandard enchiladas, maybe even meet a - gasp - girl and experience the dizzying world of love, attachment, sex, frustration and gratitude that relationships birthed. He hadn't been involved with anyone since college two years ago, and although that part of him was well on its way to atrophy, it certainly did maintain a presence in his thoughts and desires. He awoke suddenly with the very nasty feeling like ants were crawling on his neck. It was a well-known sensation. Slider had fallen asleep on his chest again, and because the stray cat had lived through several years of street fights and malnourishment he'd lost several of his front teeth, which meant that whenever he slept or purred he couldn't help but drool. It was a little disgusting, but in the way that a baby's dirty diaper was disgusting. You didn't like the thought of cleaning it up, but something about the act made you love the actor just that much more. Slider was Bret's best friend and confidante, the patient listener to all his hopes and desires. Slider never judged, never overreacted or took anything the wrong way. Bret sighed and scratched the cat's soft head, eliciting a deep- throated purr and more drooling. The yellow, wise eyes opened to luminous slits and regarded him with that mixture of predator and companion that only cats had. "Hop up, pal. I have to change this shirt you just ruined," Bret said fondly, giving the cat's broad backside a gentle shove. Slider stood, slowly, stretching out (with a painful digging of claws into Bret's chest, just to remind the human who was the boss of the outfit). Slider hopped down to the floor, winding around Bret's feet a few times as the man slowly stood up and walked heavily into the apartment's cramped bedroom. "Hmm. Ten o'clock. The night is still young. What do you want to do now, Slide? Dinner and cocktails at the Ritz, maybe, or we could poke our heads in at the party on Bitsy and Chad's yacht. I wasn't going to go, but Cindy Crawford and Claudia Schiffer just begged me to come." The cat looked at him curiously, almost amused. "Oh, I know. There's that little shindig at the Spielberg's. I don't know if I still fit into the Armani, but everyone who's anyone is going to be there. We haven't seen dear Pamela since she got the implants removed." He stripped off his sodden shirt and pulled another, equally disreputable t-shirt from the pile next to his bookshelf. "Or how about this, we can collapse on the bed and read old comic books until we fall asleep." Looking down at the depleted pile of ready clothing in the stack, he rubbed the back of his neck and muttered, "Looks like laundry day tomorrow." He sighed and selected an old "Thor" comic from the pile he'd rescued from his mother's attempts to convert his old room into a sewing room. Flopping heavily on the secondhand double bed, he opened the comic and felt the familiar tug as the images and story drew him backwards, towards his youth again. Just before he surrendered to the irresistible draw, he felt Slider jump onto the bed near his pillow and curl up for another uneventful night. Bret stroked the cat's soft fur and soon had the familiar purr going again. "You got it made, little man," he said faintly, rubbing Slider's favorite spot behind his grizzled ears and making the yellow eyes close in delight. "Couldn't have happened to a nicer cat, even though you're nothing but a fur-bearing appetite." Bret sighed, looking out the window at the parking lot of his little apartment complex. "Too bad nobody feels the same way about me," he said wistfully. "Y'know what I mean, Slide? I just wish... hell, I don't know. I just wish it could be different somehow. I wish I could figure out a way to be happy with what I have and quit feeling sorry for myself for all the stuff I don't. Like the party crowd at college. Just fun and no worry. That's the kind of life I'd like to have." He smiled and rolled back over, returning his attention to his comic book and his purring companion. "But then, that just wouldn't be me, would it?" The cat only looked at him with the half-amused, half-knowing look of a superior being. * * * The sun through the slats of the cheap blinds was very warm on Bret's legs, stirring him from a deep and dreamless sleep of exhaustion and stress. His eyes parted slowly, letting the light in by increments which didn't assault his eyes, running a tongue against sleep-coated teeth. The lights seemed a little brighter somehow this morning, the colors just a little bit too saturated and overdone. Bret fought the urge to roll back into a protective cocoon of covers and just ignore the daylight, but something inside him - perhaps that damnable work ethic his parents had instilled - made him sit blearily, swinging his legs onto the floor. He rubbed gritty eyes and tried to remember to return the romance novel he'd fallen asleep reading to the bookshelf. He'd read them all so many times, he didn't even bother to mark his place. He knew most of them off by heart anyway. Pulling on a pair of really cute white lace-up shorts which were sitting on top of the clothes hamper and a blousy pink t-shirt, he gathered up the laundry into the beaten white basket, added the fabric softener and detergent and gathered up some quarters from the mayonnaise jar beside the telephone for the coin-ops. He was almost down the stairs when it hit him. Romance novel? Fabric softener? Clothes hamper? Pink t-shirt? He didn't own any of those things and never had! A little panicked, he looked down at the laundry basket he was carrying. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary, just the usual assortment of tops, jeans, shorts, blouses, skirts, panties and bras. The cute little red satin bustier he'd picked up in the mall a few weeks ago. The basket almost slipped out of suddenly numb fingers. Dear God, he thought. What the hell is going on here? Running back up the stairs, breathing hard, Bret decided against leaving the apartment (thank God he hadn't been seen yet in the little lace-up shorts and the pink tee) until he was sure he knew what the hell was going on. He dropped the basket beside the door unceremoniously and ran into the bathroom. Shoving aside the jewelry box and the little white tackle-box full of makeup, he splashed cold water on his face and stared into the mirror. The same careworn, plain face stared back at him that always did, in need of a few more hours' sleep and a shave. The little scar under his left eye from a fight he'd had in the eighth grade, the crooked tooth in the bottom row, the limp tangle of fine brown hair that nearly hung into the eyes. With a horrified gasp he looked down at the countertop at the makeup and jewelry. None of this was his. It couldn't be. Somehow he'd woken up in someone else's apartment, a girl's apartment. Maybe he'd eaten something, or somebody had put something in a drink he'd had. Maybe he was sick - that was it. Delirious. It was a fever dream or something. He'd passed out and some kind woman had carried him up the stairs to sleep it off in her apartment. But how did that explain Slider, who was turning around in a tight circle as a prelude to laying down in the center of the pile which heaped out of the laundry basket by the door? And the rather extensive collection of DVDs which was on the little shelf next to the television - his television. But the rest of the apartment had undergone a total transformation. His kitchen was far from the typical shambles he'd grown so used to seeing. Instead of the mismatched, thrift-store dishes he'd used since college, now all of his stoneware was a matched, subdued pattern, sitting neatly in a wooden drying rack. All of the silverware was a nice, matched pattern instead of the unadorned silver he'd filched from his dorm cafeteria over the years. Colorful potholders and tea towels hung from the oven handle and the refrigerator. A dry-erase board with some phone numbers - one for a girl named Monica and another for a girl named Kaylee - and a short grocery list were written in a rounded, bubbly hand with pink marker. He opened the fridge and found a load of fresh vegetables and Tupperwared leftovers and a twelve-pack of diet soda. The freezer was bereft of his customary Red Baron pizzas and the ever-present Night Hawk frozen dinners, replaced by frozen vegetables and a whole lot of Lean Cuisine entr?es, and a half-empty bottle of Stolichnaya lemon vodka freezing in the door with a loaf of wheat bread. Apparenthe woman whose fridge this belonged to was a stickler for emptying ice trays, as well - the bucket was full and all the trays stacked neatly and freezing beside it. Bret never refilled the ice trays until the last cube was gone. The front room had undergone a similar transformation. Instead of his nondescript blue couch with the beach towel thrown across the back and the battered and worn brown recliner he'd rescued from the room of a graduating senior at college, now he had a nice - but not too nice - matching sofa and love seat in blue-and-tan stripes with several tasseled throw-pillows and a thick fleece afghan on the back, and a polished wooden rocking chair, similarly heaped with pillows. The movie posters were still on the walls, but instead of his vintage "Enter the Dragon" and "Braveheart" in the frames he now had a restored "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." The door to the bedroom was a huge repro of Marilyn Monroe standing over the heating vent on the sidewalk, her dress blowing up all around her, from "Seven Year Itch." There was even the new addition of a nice burled walnut coffee table, across which were strewn several candleholders and latest issues of Elle, Vogue, Cosmopolitan and Glamour. The tiny little dining area, which had formerly been Bret's "home office" (read: place to play video games) was now occupied by a little table and two chairs with a basket full of flowers in the center. Bills and sundry junk were stacked on one end and a leather attach? case and one of the red-and-white plastic Macintosh PowerBook computers were nearby. Bret made a beeline for the mail. It was all addressed to Bret Reed in apartment 1212. Checking outside the door, he found the matching number. It was his apartment, no matter that everything in it was completely wrong. He walked back into the bedroom. The double bed was the same, but the plain light blue sheets and quilt were gone, replaced with pink satin sheets and an enormous pink and white embroidered duvet. There was even a pink ruffle along the bottom and about ten times as many pillows as necessary, also in pink satin. There was even a little stuffed teddy bear near the white wrought-iron headboard, neither of which had been present when Bret went to bed. The nightstand held his old digital clock and his glasses, as always, but now had a white wrought-iron lamp with a frilly shade and several tubes of moisturizer. The shelf underneath contained some more women's magazines (which were far from his usual collection of Penthouse which had kept him company during several lonely nights), another teddy bear (this one hugging a huge stuffed red satin heart) and a shoebox containing pictures of last summer's company picnic on the beach - all people he knew and recognized - a few snapshots of people he'd never seen before at some kind of party and a thick white plastic vibrator that made Bret blush bright red to find. It was like sneaking into his sister's room - he felt like he shouldn't be here, even thought it was his apartment. The mirrored sliding door of the closet revealed a little walk-in positively stuffed with clothes and shoes. It seemed to be loosely organized between working clothes - several nicely tailored-looking business suits with short skirts, silk blouses, skirts, sweaters and scarves. The next section appeared to be 'club clothes' - all tiny, stretchy and revealing in bright colors and sequins and patterns. The rest seemed to be formal wear - was that an old prom dress in there? - and winter clothes. The floor was a solid carpet of shoes, in every conceivable shape and size, from flats and sneakers to a pair of black patent platform shoes that Bret had thought only strippers could walk in. The top of the closet contained a quilt and a comforter, a few boxes of Trivial Pursuit, several hats, a stack of bulky sweaters (which wouldn't be of much use in the middle of June, as it was), and a few more assorted boxes. The rest of the room contained a little dressing table with several jewelry boxes on it, a little expanding rack on the wall which held sunbonnets, ladies' hats and a few very small baseball caps. A huge Patrick Nagel print was framed on the wall, and there were several more snapshots of people he didn't recognize taped up around the mirror on the vanity. The table's only drawer contained a huge array of barrettes, hair clips and 'scrunchies' in every color, shape and style Bret had ever seen. The bookshelf beside the doorway was filled with fantasy and romance novels, and some strange titles which Bret couldn't figure out the reason for being there - Understanding Communication, the Manager's Bible, Forming the Perfect Brand, Getting the Message Out and Driving Sales through Exposure. Sounded like middle-management crap to Bret. Next thing he knew he'd be finding a copy of What Color is Your Parachute? or something equally as horrible. He hoped that his well-worn copies of all the programming textbooks from college turned up somewhere. Finding his clothes and furniture all changed was one thing, but he needed those books to help him make a living. The bathroom was utterly unrecognizable. Huge plush towels - also in pink - hung from all the racks and over the shower curtain (which was transparent plastic which huge pink flowers all over it in appliqu?) - a radical departure from his ordinary one big beach towel that he used to dry everything. The countertop was an explosion of cosmetics and lotions - with a few more jewelry boxes thrown in for good measure. There was a little basket of potpourri on the back of the toilet, which was the only horizontal space not covered with some kind of skin- or hair-care product. The little cabinet contained more towels, extra rolls of toilet paper and an enormous economy pack of pantyliners and tampons. Bret blushed scarlet once again and shut the cabinet quickly. The shower contained two of the little wire shelving units Bret had seen in some ladies' bathrooms, also brimming with more shampoos, conditioners, body scrubs, exfoliators and moisturizers than Bret, in his ignorance, knew existed. Strangely enough there seemed to be no soap. Whoever heard of a shower with no soap in it? There were sixteen different kinds of scented moisturizing body wash, but no damned soap. Bret pushed aside the bottles of bath oil and salts which were on the side of the tub and shed his (?) clothes into a pile on the floor. He tossed the fluffy pink towel on the closed lid of the toilet and climbed into the familiar-yet-foreign shower, turning on the water and closing his eyes as the warm spray cascaded down his face and body. Maybe he'd open his eyes and everything would be back to normal somehow. He rubbed the back of his neck and scratched himself on the backside - a time-honored male shower tradition - and was a little surprised to feel his erection bobbing up and down with the motion. Something about the sights and scents of the feminine were causing him to become very aroused. He briefly entertained the notion of 'letting his fingers do the walking' for a minute, but on the off chance that this was someone else's place he didn't want them to catch him wanking off in their shower. Instead he tried to make do by losing himself in the warm fall of the water against his skin, working kinks from stressed muscles. He straightened, putting the little Lady Sensor razor back in its rack on one of the shelves and looking down at his handiwork. The legs were smooth and shiny - Nair was a wonderful thing - and the bikini line trimmed to a slender little 'V.' The pits were shaved and it was almost time for him to rinse the five-minute conditioner out of his hair. His skin felt tingly and soft from the exfoliator he'd applied. Bret gasped in shock. What had he just done? Washing his hair roughly and scrubbing his face with both hands, he realized that in his zone- out he'd shaved his armpits, crotch and legs without even thinking. Was this girl stuff starting to warp his mind somehow? He hopped out of the shower quickly and scrubbed his skin dry - a very uncomfortable process, given the pampering he'd just given his skin. Red and kind of raw, he kicked the clothes he'd worn that morning and went into the bedroom in search of something a little more unisex. His still-throbbing erection was going to be a bit of a problem. Rummaging through one of the shelves in the closet, he groaned. No boxers, no briefs, no nothing. Just row upon row of lacy, feminine panties. Selecting a pair of pink cotton hi-rise panties from the stack - they had 'Blossom' from the Powerpuff Girls on the ass, but Bret couldn't see any others that would make him feel any less ridiculous - he slid them up his hairless legs (which was a rather pleasant feeling, some part of him that wasn't in a blind panic noticed) and began rummaging around for clothes. He finally had to settle on a little yellow 'baby' tee with the Playboy Bunny on the front and a baggy pair of 'London Jean' overalls which hid his shiny, silky legs. He shoved his glasses onto his nose, only to find that while the prescription hadn't changed, they were now tiny little 'Radar O'Reilly' glasses with lightweight lenses in a chic feminine style. Hoping he didn't look like too much of an imbecile, he fished through the sea of shoes and found a pair of little black 'flip-flops' with a rattan insole which seemed to fit all right. He had to get out of that place. It was making him crazy. Maybe things would be all right at work. He decided to make a dash for the office and hope that things were normal there. Grabbing his little black leather purse from beside the telephone, Bret dashed out the door and towards his car. Slider, from his nest in the laundry basket, looked on amusedly before tucking a paw beneath his chin and catching a much-needed nap. * * * Bret must have walked past it and back ten times before he checked in the purse - he'd actually grabbed a purse on the way out the door - for the keys. Something was really wrong. His parking place - slip number 53, where he'd been parking since he moved into this complex two years ago - where his dirty blue Chevy Malibu should have been slowly leaking its oil onto the pavement, was instead occupied by a late-model red Volkswagen Cabrio that was washed and waxed to gleaming perfection. The grey interior was spotless under the raised ragtop. Bret looked at his keys. Gone was the simple ring with the keys for his car, his mom and dad's place, his apartment, the mailbox, the laundry room and his safe-deposit box. Now he had a thick brass ring on which were threaded other keyrings, some that contained no keys at all. There was a rabbits' foot and a little picture-gazer from a local theme park, a leather holster containing pepper spray, and - sure enough - a key to a Volkswagen. He opened the door and sat in the driver's seat. Oddly enough, the mirrors, seat and wheel were adjusted perfectly to him. The new Cabrio was gassed up and only had eleven thousand miles on it - almost new. Even though it was kind of a 'girly' car (but what in his life wasn't girly right now?), Bret had never gotten to ride in a car quite so nice. He rummaged around, acquainting himself with all the amenities - particularly the CD player. Although the selection was not to Bret's tastes - he didn't like Madonna or the Beastie Boys and he certainly didn't care for any of the techno groups in the car - he did manage to find an Indigo Girls CD that he remembered liking back in college. Since he couldn't be sure when he was going to wake up and all of this was going to be gone, he decided to make the most of having a decent car while he still could. He was just lowering the automatic top when Mrs. Kennedy from upstairs walked by on the sidewalk and made direct eye contact. No time to hide or pretend that he hadn't seen her - Bret set his mind to the instantaneous fabrication of some explanation as to why he was sitting in a little red convertible with a tiny little Playboy Bunny tee which didn't cover his navel and a pair of ladies' overalls, fussing with the Audrey Hepburn cats'-eye prescription sunglasses he'd found in the console, just as the Indigo Girls CD started up. "Uh..." Bret stammered. "Hi, there, honey? You off to work again?" she asked brightly. "Uh... yeah. Work," Bret managed, ever the soul of eloquence. "You work too hard, sweetie. It's Saturday. You should be out having fun." Bret managed a stunned smile. Did Mrs. Kennedy not even notice how ridiculous he looked? "I know, Mrs. Kennedy. But it's important." The older woman smiled a patient smile. "Of course, dear. Well, be careful." "Thanks." The woman continued along the sidewalk as if nothing were out of the ordinary - she hadn't even mentioned the new car. Something was definitely wrong. And it was time to find out what it was. * * * Bret pulled into the first available parking spot he could find and jogged as quickly as the little platform sandals he'd grabbed would allow. He dug in the little black purse for his ID and security badge once he came to the magnetically locked door. It was amazing how much shit was crammed into that tiny little purse. There were as many cosmetics in the purse as there were on the bathroom counter at home, a hairbrush, several half-consumed packs of gum, at least four mirrors, several pounds of wadded tissue paper, a ladies' fold-over wallet-slash-checkbook, a little plastic sleeve containing still more photographs of people he had never seen before, a pack of skinny Capri 120 cigarettes, fifteen or so disposable lighters, a Palm VI personal digital assistant, some cassette tapes, one of those Nokia cellphones with the interchangeable colored covers and finally his security badge. He clipped it to the front pocket of the overalls after sliding it through the card reader and opening the door. The office was still the office, at least - that much hadn't changed. He wandered through the maze of cubicles until he found his own. Except that the nameplate on the wall wasn't the customary B. Reed which had adorned that wall for all the time he'd been there. His pictures from the Big Bend national park, his college diploma, his little pull-out poster of Stevie Ray Vaughan, his die-cast model '65 Mustang fast-back, all gone. Instead it was one of those cubes dedicated to the display of action figures. The nameplate read S. Krishnamurthy. Sunil? Sunil was sitting here now? "Hey, Bret, what's happening?" a familiar voice said from behind him. Bret whirled, prepared to explain why he was in women's clothing, carrying a purse to the best of his limited ability with untruth. It was John Coleridge, his oldest friend at the company. He was in his customary cutoffs with Birkenstock sandals, a concert tee and baseball cap. "John! Should've expected you to be here on a Saturday," Bret said shakily as John gave him the once-over-lightly. "Listen, uh, about the purse..." "Looking for Sunil?" John asked, not seeming to notice Bret's appearance. "Uh, I... I don't..." "He said he was coming in today but he didn't say when," John said. "You might want to try back this afternoon. He usually likes to sleep late on Saturdays." "Hey, John... do you notice anything unusual about me?" Bret asked carefully. John scratched his chin. "Not really. Did you cut your hair or something?" Bret smiled, halfway between hysterical relief and genuine fear. No one seemed to notice what was happening. Which either meant that it wasn't really happening - this was all some kind of sick dream brought on by pepperoni pizza before bedtime - or that Bret was well over the line between genius and insanity. "No," he said, perplexed. "Forget I said it." "Okay," John said, turning back towards his own cubicle, opening the soda he'd gotten from the development fridge. "See you later. I'll tell Sunil you stopped by." "Sure," Bret said, turning around again. John acted as if Sunil had always sat here. Which may be true, given the accumulation of paper and detritus which adorned the shelves and desktop. But if Sunil was sitting here, then where the hell did Bret work now? What the hell was going on? He was walking out of the cube-maze in a daze, trying to make everything make sense somehow. He turned at the end of the row, passing by the little offices along the wall that held the managers and the marketing staff. Past Dee Dee Carter's office, the VP of Marketing at the software company, then the cubicles of the rest of her marketing and communications staff - Eric Lewis, Ginger Simmons, Hayley Sparks, Jennifer Traynor and Christina Cullen - all the 'marketing bimbos' at the company who the developers made fun of to mask the fact that they desired them so much sexually. Bret himself had enjoyed several long, informative gazes at Ginger and Jennifer when they'd been bent over in their short skirts to get something from the bottom drawers of their filing cabinets. He walked past all the offices, ticking the names off in his head. D. Carter. E. Lewis. G. Simmons. H. Sparks. J. Traynor. B. Reed. C. Cullen. He stopped dead. B. Reed? That was where he was working now? In a cubicle on Bimbo Row? How the hell did that happen? He went in, looking around carefully. Some of his things were there - the diploma was on the wall and the die-cast Mustang and the pictures from Big Bend. But now there was a little vase full of flowers and another little teddy bear, plus a couple of Escher prints and some Far Side cartoons. The papers collected on the desk were all press releases and trade show brochures, schedules and lists of phone numbers of people he didn't know. The books were all about technical and persuasive writing, none of his tried-and-true programming texts which had helped him so many times. Even the computer was different - none of his development tools were on the desktop where he'd left them, replaced by things like Outlook and Word and Excel and PowerPoint and hundreds of cheesy clip- art libraries. The desktop wallpaper was a scanned image of Marilyn Monroe, one of the art prints of her sitting in a convertible and blowing a kiss to the camera. Bret sat down heavily, blowing out his breath in a long exhalation. This was all some horrible dream, he decided. It had to be. These kinds of things just didn't spontaneously happen. Lives didn't just radically change and spin around like this in the space of a night. He was sure he was going to wake up soon. But until then, it was time to accentuate the positive. At least he had dreamed himself up a new car. And it was time to take it out on the road. * * * It was about noon by the time Bret decided that his whirlwind tour of the freeways should come to an end. He decided to splurge - a hamburger sounded really good to him right now - and stopped by the ATM to grab a little bit of cash from his worn-out bank account to treat himself to a McLunch. He fussed through the little black purse again, pulling out handfuls of useless junk until he found his ATM card. Hoping that his PIN number hadn't magically transmogrified with the rest of his life, he stuffed the card in the slot and punched in the numbers, getting out his last 20 dollars before the next paycheck. He sighed, wondering how he was going to make the money last another four or five days. Strange that he still looked forward to payday - even though he only had the nice balance in his account for a day before he wrote the immense checks to MasterCard and his old alma mater, it was still nice to see a couple zeros. He took the cash, card and receipt from the machine and stepped back to the car. He gave the receipt a cursory look-over - an old, old habit - and nearly missed the step off the curb. Fourteen hundred dollars? There must be some mistake! He didn't make that much money with one check, and he never had more than about $40 in the account once all his checks cleared the bank. Checking the receipt number against the number on his ATM card, they matched. He marched over to the machine again, re-inserted his card and checked his balances. The machine still maintained with electronic surety that his checking account held $1413.77 and that now, his depleted savings account (which was only there to cover the checks he wrote that brought him overlimit) was the proud owner of over three thousand dollars in funds. Impossible! There wouldn't have been this much detail - not even in a dream. Usually his dreams were oriented around the actions, not the details. He dreamed about Rebecca Romijn-Stamos with a can of whipped cream, not the nutritional details on the side of the can! This couldn't be a dream, or some whacked-out hallucination. It was real. He was really wearing women's clothes, he really did have a cubicle in the marketing department at work, he really was driving a red convertible and he really had all that money. Stunned, his lunch forgotten, he sat numbly in the car again and steered it for home. * * * Slider watched his human with a mixture of curiosity and feline worry as he sat, dumbstruck, on the new striped couch staring blankly at the wall. Even his best efforts at lovability were received with a comatose stare and a distracted stroke - not even a decent ear-scratching. Losing patience Slider hopped from the couch and stood brazenly on the counter, trying to elicit the wonderful yelling and chasing and water- pistol firing that jumping to the counter or sharpening the claws on the couch entailed. The human didn't notice. Did other cats have this problem with their pets? Slider decided that the only thing left to do was to use the most powerful weapon in his entire feline arsenal. The curl-up-and-writhe- adorably-on-the-floor method. Seldom used in this household - Slider preferred subtlety to the direct, frontal assault - but evidently necessary to snap his human out of the stupor he sat in. Flopping on the carpet, Slider curled his feet and rolled onto his back, regarding the human with round eyes as he rubbed the top of his head on the carpet, flattening his ears. The rolling from one side to the other would come a bit later, after the bait was taken. There were definite rules governing such tactics, and Slider was a stickler for rules. Slider allowed himself a flash of satisfaction. The human moved, looked down, and noticed how utterly adorable he was behaving, and the mask slipped. The human did that strange corners-of-the-mouth expression that bared all the teeth. "Am I not paying enough attention to you, kid? I'm sorry." The human crept onto the floor, legs curled beneath it, and began to stroke and scratch all the proper spots to elicit the purr. Slider obliged full-throatedly, rewarding the human with the roll-from-one- side-to-the-next maneuver. "It's been a strange, strange day, Slide," the human said. "My whole life is upside down right now. I don't know what happened. I mean, last night everything was normal and then I fell asleep and everything was different. The last thing I remember was petting your tubby little belly and reading comics. Right after I said that I wished..." The stroking stopped. Slider turned right-side-up and looked at the human strangely. "I said I wished that things could be different," Bret said, realization dawning. "I said I wished I could stop caring about things, like the party crowd at college. And then I thought about that party that I went to at the Tri-Delt sorority my junior year. That was where all the party girls were. I remember thinking how lucky they had it, with their parents putting them through school and their easy degree plans." Bret sank his head into his hands. "And now I'm turning out just like them," he moaned into his palms. "Be careful what you wish for, Bret. Be careful what you wish for." * * * Bret sat and wept silently for a little while before he got his wits collected. Slider was curled up next to him, lending support of the warm and furry variety. It made Bret feel a little bit better. Finally, with an effort, he stood. It was time to figure out something about what the hell was going on here. He dropped the forgotten purse next to the telephone and noticed that the high-end digital telephone (much better than his Goodwill cordless) was blinking its message light. Bret pushed it, ignoring the electronic "Q*bert" voice announcing that he had two new messages. "Hey, Bret, it's Kaylee. So are you in or out? Expansion, tonight, about nine. Everybody's going to be there. Call me. Ciao." Bret thought for a second. Kaylee was evidently one of his friends now, and she had invited a group to go to one of the most upscale and popular dance clubs in town tonight. Ordinarily, Bret would have been sweating the cover charge, but not after a peek at the bank balance. The machine beeped again. "Hey, Bret, it's Becca. I called all those people on your list and they said they'll all be there next Saturday. I was just going to order a deli plate or something to feed them. Give me a call later and let me know what else we need. See ya!" Okay, no mention of any Becca and Bret hadn't checked out the Palm Pilot or a calendar or anything yet, so he didn't know what was suddenly going on in his life. It was time to do a little snooping around. First was the little box next to the computer on the table, full of bills and check stubs. How the hell was this possible? According to the pay stubs, a marketing bimbo was apparently making more than a developer. But they didn't do anything, at least not that Bret could comprehend. They chatted and had meetings and talked on the phone, but he never saw them actually do anything. And it turns out that he was making nearly ten grand a year more than he was actually building the company's product? Did the other developers know about this? It would cause a riot in the cubes. The computer was a mystery. Lots of text documents and some scheduling stuff, a few games and the obligatory Marilyn Monroe desktop wallpaper. Apparently, whoever he was, he wrote a lot. There were more text files than anything else on the computer. The Palm Pilot was a much bigger jackpot. It held all the phone numbers and contact information for the people who were suddenly calling. Becca could only be Rebecca York, and there were about seven numbers after that name - home, work, cellphone, pager, Rick's house (whoever the hell Rick was - probably Becca's boyfriend). Scarily enough, this new life Bret had landed in required him to know every person and phone number in the tri-state area. The schedule on the Pilot was utterly Byzantine, filled with cryptic meetings, conference calls and after-work activities. The next Saturday that the mysterious Becca was talking about was a 'reading,' whatever that was (God, he hoped it wasn't some New Age bullshit) at the apartment complex meeting room at 3.00 in the afternoon. Unable to shake the feeling that he was an invader in this life and the rightful owner might walk in at any moment, Bret dutifully entered the information from Becca into the schedule. Maybe whoever it was who was supposed to be living this life would thank him, later, for 'lifesitting' so responsibly. He stepped out onto the apartment's little balcony to see that his venerable lawn chair was still in place, but now surrounded by a lush green little garden of potted plants. Two birdfeeders and a dream- catcher hung from the eave. There was even a little plastic outdoor table next to the lawn chair with a couple of candle stubs and a coffee can full of cigarette butts. Slider walked out onto the balcony behind him, sniffing the outdoor air with some interest. Bret slumped into the lawn chair heavily and the cat jumped into his lap, squinting in the afternoon sun. "Jesus," Bret breathed. "I wish I knew what the hell is going on." The cat only purred as Bret dug in the purse, looking for more clues as to what was going on, who this person was who left their life behind for him to wake up in. The cellphone was crammed with as many phone numbers as the Palm Pilot and seemed to be charged up and ready to go - Bret had noticed the car charger in the little red Cabrio when he'd driven it. The wallet was stuffed - a checkbook, literally hundreds of ATM and credit card receipts - mostly to stores like Rave, Wet Seal and Charlotte Russe, the stores that sold the more daring outfits he'd seen in his infrequent jaunts through. There were also a whole lot of movie ticket stubs, which was a good thing. There was his drivers' license and Social Security card, an insurance card for the Cabrio and his ATM card. But now there was a platinum MasterCard which he'd never seen before. There were also charge cards for Dillard's and Foley's department stores and one for Victoria's Secret and a Texaco gasoline card as well. All in his name, even though he'd never applied for any of them. The pictures were also a mystery. Lots of people he'd never met and places he'd never seen - pictures taken at theme parks and on the beach, some pictures taken in a theater on a large, lavishly designed set for a play. But there was one picture with him in it - wearing a cap and gown and holding a college diploma. Beside him was a smiling grey-haired woman and a tall man with a rounded belly and silver hair. They had arms around him, hugging him tight, and all three were smiling ear-to-ear, laughing just for laughing's sake. He'd had a similar picture taken on his graduation day, with his parents. "Oh, God," Bret breathed. "Are these my parents now?" He tried to summon the image of his own father and mother - his father a foreman at an auto plant and his mother an events planner at the YWCA - but he couldn't manage to get any picture in his mind. The images were hazy and indistinct. But when he tried to remember events - graduations, birthday parties and the like - they all sprang into his mind with perfect clarity, but instead of his balding father with the huge forearms and his heavyset mother with the curly brown hair and the librarian glasses, he could only picture the silver-haired man and the slight little woman from the picture in the purse. They smiled a lot, and laughed a lot, like his real parents had. He remembered a happy childhood, for the most part, and there weren't the memories he had about the plant shutdown and his father's layoff, the starting work at 15 in a local bar just to help his mom and dad with the groceries. Working his ass off just to get into a college, and then having to work his way through. He didn't remember his mother's hysterectomy and the endless headaches trying to offset the medical bills. Instead he remembered getting a car for his sixteenth birthday and working summers as a lifeguard and a hairstylist at a beauty salon, going out with friends, going to his junior and senior proms and cheerleading practices after school for the championships in Daytona, Florida... Waitaminnit. Cheerleading practices? Bret had played baseball. One of the few scholarships he'd gotten was for his work as an All-Region second baseman. His grades had been okay, but not nearly enough to get him anything academic. But then how did he distinctly remember getting straight A's and a nice scholarship to the university? And cheering for the football and basketball teams in college? Those memories were crystal clear. Bret decided to take a cue from Slider, who was curled up and sleeping in his lap, and stop worrying about it for a little while. He leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs, starting a little at the feel of his hairless legs against the denim. Now why in the hell had he done that? Shaving his legs was a real strange thing for him to do. He'd been standing under the warm water and letting his mind drift, and the next thing he knew he'd just done it. Kinda like now. The sunshine and the soft, warm cat in his lap, listening to the birds in the treetops. It lulled him a little bit. He snapped back to reality with a little jump, realizing what he was doing. The cat was gone from his lap, back inside, and here he sat on the balcony, with a glass of diet soda sitting beside him, a copy of Vogue open in his lap and one of the super-skinny and long Capri cigarettes between his lips. He exhaled and a pale blue streamer of smoke escaped his lips. Normally he hated smoking - he never really tried but once and it had left him coughing and choking for nearly an hour afterwards - but now it seemed to be the most natural thing in the world to him. It even tasted kind of good. Bret decided to try another drag, and the bitter acrid smoke made him almost gag. He tossed the butt into the coffee can, trying to clear the tears from his eyes, and noticed the bottle of pink nail polish sitting open next to the ashtray. Looking himself over, he now noticed that his fingers and toes were adorned with several coats of pink polish. He was even holding his hands as if he was waiting for them to dry. God! He zoned out for half a second and the next thing he knew he'd done his toes, nails, and had smoked a cigarette and read Vogue until they dried! What the hell was happening to him? It seemed like every time he let his mind drift, the minute he stopped thinking about what was going on, he went and did something like shave his legs or paint his toenails. He decided to try and keep his mind focused as sharply as possible, so that he didn't have any more lapses. There was no telling what would happen if he didn't keep himself sharp. Maybe a few hours of television, something distracting like that. He turned on the tube and flipped channels for a while. He found 'A Bridge Too Far' on cable, a good manly-man war movie that might be able to drive the girly-ness from his thoughts and life for a little while. Besides, it was a good film, just a little long. He tried to remember if he'd ever made it all the way through - it did kinda drag in the middle, and sometimes he just kinda dozed - not asleep, but not fully awake either. He was just reflecting on that when he felt his eyelids start to get a little heavy. * * * He came back to reality in fire-edged darkness, a persistent buzz in his ears underneath the sounds of the Wallflowers. He smelled something akin to coffee. His skin was warm - very warm, hot in fact - and he felt as if he was enclosed somehow. There were strange tensions on his skin as well, not uncomfortable, just pulls and tugs where he wasn't used to feeling them. Suddenly the fire at the edge of the darkness faded and the hum was gone. Moving slowly, Bret pushed away the weight hovering atop him and felt his face. The darkness was caused by an opaque pair of what felt like goggles. He stripped them off and got his bearings. He was laying in a tanning bed in a little salon room. His overalls, shoes and shirt were in a pile next to the door as well as the little black bag which had been hanging on the doorknob in his bedroom. The strange tugging was due to the string bikini which stretched across his broad male chest and the little thong which was nestled in the crack of his behind, the little red triangle of fabric stretched tight across his cock. The coffee smell was obviously the tanning accelerator he was wearing - the tube laying next to the tanning bed was called 'Cappuccino.' How in the hell did he get here? Oh, yes. Of course. His concentration had drifted as he'd dozed during the movie on television and he wound up here. The clock on the wall said four p.m. - a good two hours had passed. Bret searched his memories as best he could as he smoothed the cool after-sun aloe gel on his cooling skin, which was now a very rich, healthy mocha color. He noticed that his hands were different, too - his fingernails now sported acrylic extensions with a sexy French manicure applied. They were buffed very shiny and glossy, square-cut and about an inch from cuticle to tip. Bret idly wondered how he was going to be able to do anything with these claws, no matter how good they looked. He remembered getting up and taking his tanning bag from the door, trotting down the stairs to the car and taking off. He'd gone to Nails Exotique first, getting the extensions and the manicure because he remembered deciding that the old set was no good and not even the polish he'd applied had been able to save them. He decided on square- cut this time because she saw them on the Cosmo cover model and thought they were really cute. The little Vietnamese girl who'd done her nails had smiled broadly when Bret had tipped her and gone out to her car to head towards Tropic Tan. He flashed his pass - a lifetime membership, of course - and gotten a bed without waiting. He'd stripped to his skin and put on the little red thong bikini he'd gotten two months ago out of the Venus Swimwear catalog, rubbed his skin down with Cappuccino Tanning Accelerator lotion and set the bed for a twenty-minute bake. He'd put on the new Wallflowers album, which he'd bought on cassette specifically to play in the little stereo in the tanning bed, slipped on the headphones and just relaxed. No cellphone, no schedule, nobody who even knew where he was. Tanning was the best. He went four times a week, he remembered, and it was the time when no one was allowed to intrude on his life. It was his great solace. Once he was covered liberally with the soothing aloe gel, he threw on the little Playboy baby tee and overalls over the bikini. He slipped into the sandals and stuffed his underwear, eye goggles and tanning lotions into his tanning bag. He left the salon quickly, stopping only to wave back at the tan shapely girl at the front desk who greeted him by name. Bret hopped into the little red Cabrio and started the engine, finding that the Indigo Girls CD had been replaced by Madonna's "Immaculate Collection." Bret fumbled for the stop button - he really disliked Madonna's music, even though he had a very powerful memory of how much he'd liked it in high school and college. He tried the radio, but the presets were all tuned to the 'mix' and 'alternative' stations. Finally he manually tuned in his favorite 'classic rock' channel and tried to let the Stones calm him down. He pulled into traffic and headed back towards the apartment, this time pausing at the Jack in the Box to pick up something to eat - his stomach was growling by this point and he still had the twenty dollars he'd pulled from the ATM earlier today. As he pulled into the drive- thru line, a pickup seriously in need of a muffler blasted by him. Bret distinctly heard a wolf whistle out the passenger side window as it hit the street in a chirp of tires. Great. Now he had cowboy-wannabes whistling at him. He ordered his usual burger and fries and pulled to the window. The little pimply- faced teenager on the register gave him a once-over-not-too-lightly and spoke only to Bret's chest. Bret grabbed the food almost violently - tearing the bag a little with his nail extensions - and slammed the little convertible into gear, gunning it into traffic without even checking out how badly the teenager had desecrated his order. He walked in the apartment to the jangling accompaniment of a ringing phone. Dropping the sack onto the coffee table and the waiting nose of a very curious Slider, Bret picked up the phone and pressed 'Talk' with the tip of a carefully-manicured thumbnail. "Hello?" "Hey, baby girl, what's up?" a very cheerful, bubbly voice asked him. "Who is this?" Bret asked. "It's only your best friend," the voice replied. "You know, Kaylee? God, you are so blonde sometimes. Who did you think it was?" Bret cleared his throat. "Uh, I was expecting a call from Becca. Sorry." "So, you coming out tonight? It's going to be a good time. Kaitlyn and Ashlea are already here, and Jana and Lori are on their way." Bret closed his eyes, trying to shut out the very clear pictures of people he'd never seen before that popped into his head as Kaylee named them off. "I'm not feeling very good," Bret attempted. "I think I'm just going to take a bath and call it a night." "Oh my God, you are being such a grandma these days," Kaylee chided. "Get your ass up, slap on some makeup, put on that little sequined dress you bought and get out here." "I really don't think..." "We're not leaving without you, Bret," Kaylee demanded. "Seriously, Kaylee," Bret said. "I really don't feel good." There was a long considering pause before: "Do you need me to get you anything?" Bret rubbed a hand through his hair, almost impaling his scalp with the unfamiliar nails. "No, thanks, I'm okay," he said. "I just want to take a bath and go to bed." Kaylee's voice took on a conspirational tone. "I get it. What's his name?" Bret was mystified. "What's whose name?" "The guy you have over there. The only way I know that Bret Reed would miss a night of drinking and dancing is if there was a big, hunky man involved." "There's no guy," Bret said, a little annoyed. "I told you, I don't feel good." Kaylee giggled. "Oh, well, whatever. We'll be at Expansion if you change your mind, baby girl. Call me, okay? Ciao." Bret couldn't even answer before the line went dead. God, what pushy friends this new life had to offer! He set the phone back in the cradle and took out his meal, clicking on the television and scanning some channels until he found something to eat by. He knew that the classic movie channel was going to be running a Marx Brothers marathon tonight, so he started in that direction. He looked down at his half-finished burger. He'd zoned out again and had managed the meal - Bret didn't even remember tasting it - and was watching the 'Fashion Emergency' show on the E! network. He dimly remembered feeling envy for the models, and expressing strong opinions about some of the clothes that they showed. He tried to take another bite of the burger but couldn't. The smell of the grease and meat just turned him off. Same with the fries. He must've been hungry for something else. Putting the burger on a plate and covering it with Saran Wrap, he saved it for later - never waste food, not on his salary - and before he knew it he'd lit another of the long super-slim Capris and was puffing away contentedly on the couch, watching the fashion show. Bret was nearly panicked. He hadn't even dozed off that time, or lost focus. He'd just done it because it felt so natural. He always had a cigarette after dinner, ever since he started smoking regularly. He vividly remembered sneaking his first cigarette out behind the girl's locker room with Cindy Hanson and Stacey Johnson after junior high cheerleading practice. They'd almost gotten sick, but it was just so naughty and sexy-looking and it made them feel so grown-up that they'd kept at it. They both slept over at Cindy's house that next Friday and had paid Cindy's big brother to buy them cigarettes and beer. They'd sat out by Cindy's parents' pool and smoked the whole pack of Marlboro Lights and drank two cans of Miller apiece. They'd all had headaches the next morning, but they hadn't gotten sick or anything. After that, Bret had put his five dollars in the collection when Cindy's brother had bought cigarettes every week after that. But none of that had ever happened. Bret could dimly remember that he'd sneaked a cigar with his best friend Anthony Butcher, but his dad had caught them and given them both a spanking. He'd never been popular enough to get to know any of the girls like Cindy Hanson or Stacey Johnson. He'd jerked off while fantasizing about them, just like all the other boys in his grade, but he'd never exchanged more than a 'hi' with them for the whole time they were in school together. Bret looked down. He'd put out the cigarette in an ashtray on the coffee table and was putting some kind of a moisturizer on his lips. His lips were always dry after tanning, he knew, even though there was no way he could know what happened to his lips after he tanned because he'd only done it for the first time today. "What the hell is happening to me, Slide?" he asked. The cat only wore his 'wise' expression and didn't answer. * * * Bret looked up from the computer. He'd put himself to the task of trying to zone out while still focusing on writing a short biography, some way to figure out just whose life this was supposed to be, anyway. The bio wasn't too long or involved, just the basics of where and when. Parochial school until he was thirteen, then junior high at Madison and on to High School at T.C. Jester. He worked summers as a lifeguard at the YWCA pool and also helping out as an apprentice hairstylist at a beauty salon near campus. He'd gotten an academic and cheerleading scholarship to the university and had met and fallen in love with Richard Klein there, dating him for two years until they broke up. It was Bret's first real heartbreak. He'd dated a great deal in high school, but never gotten more serious than a heavy pet session, and she'd never fallen in love like that. He needed nearly a year to recover from Richard and had sworn off men for a while, concentrating on his cheerleading and his double major - communications and film. He'd graduated cum laude with two Bachelor of Arts degrees and had moved to the city to find a job. He'd hired on with GeoTech two years ago in marketing and had just been promoted a few months back to Public Relations Director. Ginger, Jennifer and Eric all worked for him now. He was also about to make a move into writing and directing his first short film, which explained the 'reading' next Saturday. His parents' names were still Marla and Howard Reed, but Bret's mother now worked as a professor of literature at the local community college and his father was a consultant for Andersen Consulting, as well as being a Methodist minister. Great, thought Bret. Now I'm a preacher's kid, to boot. But one thing was made clear in the short little bio. Whatever part of Bret had written it, whatever ghost was possessing him, had clearly stated that pledging and joining the Delta-Delta-Delta sorority at the university was the best thing that ever happened to him, and his friends Becca, Kaylee and Monica lived in the same city and they were still as close as ever. He deleted the file and closed the laptop with a sigh. * * * Slider had long since lost interest in the human's antics as he'd gone through every square inch of the apartment, looking for clues to identity. After pouncing masterfully on the shoestrings of his human's sneakers and investigating all of the boxes, bags and other containers which were being dragged out of the closet, Slider curled up in the last square of waning sunlight on the table outside and tried to catch some much-needed sleep. After a short and very refreshing nap, Slider began a short search for his human, hoping for a bite of dinner, perhaps, or some more scratching behind the ears (ever since the human had lengthened its claws, the ear-scratching was heavenly). He found the human sitting on the strange chair in the water room, head in hands and making strange noises. Leaping effortlessly onto the counter, he summoned the human's notice with a butt of the head against its shoulder. "Slider," the human said miserably. "Will you look at me? Jesus. I wasn't thinking and all of a sudden I sat down to pee. I sat down to pee." Slider continued his head-butting onslaught, even going so far as to add the purr, before the human caught his subtle suggestion and took up a casual ear-scratching. "I can't even remember what my real parents look like," moaned the human. "I don't remember what my first girlfriend looked like, only that her name was Angie Garver. I'm scared, Slide. Really fucking scared." The human got up and touched the shiny lever that summoned the loud 'whooshing' sound. Slider laid his ears back at the affront. The human was standing in front of the strange window where the other human who looked just like him lived, the one who had a cat who looked exactly like Slider and they copied one another's actions perfectly. Slider's human was examining his face intently. "I don't look different. I don't feel different. I don't understand why everything around me is different. My life doesn't fit me anymore. It may have sucked, but at least it was mine." "Or is this life the one that's mine?" he asked the cat, scratching the forehead absently with long nails. "When I stop worrying about it, I live it like it's the one I've always had. It's a pretty nice life, from what I've seen of it." "So is it my life doesn't fit me, or I don't fit my life?" he asked the mirror once again. "Everybody sees me as a girl," he decided. "Mrs. Kennedy, John Coleridge, nobody seems to notice that I'm a guy wearing women's clothes and stuck in a woman's life. Hell, that guy at the Jack-in-the- Crack even whistled at me. So if nobody seems to notice that I'm a guy, why should I be worrying about it so much. It's not like I was using my cock or anything like that when this happened. It's not that great a loss." He looked at the cat, suddenly. "So whaddaya think, Slide? Think I should go out dancing? Take this new life for a spin?" He ruffled the cat's fur playfully. "I thought you were going to say that. Going out it is." * * * Bret managed to find a version of 'autopilot,' as he'd started calling it, where he could still observe and think and even have some measure of control. The best he could describe it was putting his mind in the strange, rising state right before a sneeze, and the 'other life' seemed to take over the habits, movements and provide the basic knowledge that Bret needed, while leaving him still in control. Stepping out of the day's overalls and t-shirt, Bret went to the closet and rifled through the racks, trusting his new instincts to stop him when he came to something promising. He finally decided on a little pink sequined tube-dress with spaghetti straps and a little gauzy see-through pink jacket with long sleeves. Bret also chose a little strapless demi-bra and matching thong panties from the drawer along with a pair of dark pantyhose with a glittery finish. He slid into the panties and bra (which still looked admittedly weird on his male body) with the ease borne of his new instincts. Sitting on the bed he glided the pantyhose up his hairless legs - a wonderfully erotic feeling, he discovered - and managed to get them snug against his crotch over the panties. After that the dress went on over his head and he had to do a little 'shimmy' to get it to slither down over his body. A little tugging and twisting got it straightened and seated properly across the nonexistent cleavage. The dress could hardly be qualified as a body covering. The hem was only a few inches below his crotch and there was no back to speak of - his entire upper body and shoulders were bare. The little gossamer jacket probably wasn't going to help, but the instincts told him to leave it on the bed for the time being. Bret draped a towel around his neck and went back to the bathroom. Letting his instincts keep control while he tweezed his own eyebrows was a real triumph of willpower. But once all the stray hairs were removed in a thankfully quick time, Bret found his hands taking up concealer and sponge and applying strange shapes on his face - just under the eyes, along the ridge of the nose, under the chin and eyebrows, on the forehead. Then a little darker stuff under the cheeks and around the temples. Bret then found himself attacking the whole thing with a triangular sponge, blending the whole thing into his skin to create contours and shading. A little cr?me foundation to even things up. After all that paint, Bret was sure his face would have felt sticky and oily, but the application was so masterful that he could hardly tell it was there at all, and most of that was smell. Next he loaded up a fat soft brush with purplish-pink powder and blew off the excess. He applied it to his temples and cheeks, dusting it lightly across the forehead and chin as well. It gave him a rosy, healthy glow. Next - and Bret was sure to stay far away from interfering with the instincts here - he lined his eyes with a black pencil, which looked entirely too sharp to his male sensibilities to hold that close to his eye. He line