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Thanks to one of those viruses, Eric's roommate Charlie was re- engineered as a buxom blonde with a highly-optimized libido. Is this a geek's dream come true? Dear Friend By Kiai 06sep03/01jan05 Eric got home from work, dropped his briefcase on the chair in the hallway, popped it open long enough to slip his badge into it, and watched as his own miniature face, trapped in the sterile corporate plastic by its holographic logo like an insect pinned to a display, disappeared into the shadows. He felt as if a part of him, the part that they owned, was shed like a snake's skin for the evening, freeing the real him. He let out a weary sigh and slumped a little, relaxing. Then he tensed again, clutching the handle of his briefcase like it was an anchor on reality, as he heard heavy breathing coming from his roommate Charlie's bedroom. He knew what awaited him. Not for the first time, he silently cursed retroviruses and the people who thought they would somehow solve the world's problems if they put enough engineering into them before setting them loose. The virus itself might be selective, but its impact on the people around its victim was anything but. He first realized that when he tended his roommate, Charlie, through a retrovirus change, missing five workdays and a weekend because of it. The past weeks provided fresh reminders. Ever since Charlie became female, it had become a commonplace view. Her door would be open and the bedroom lights would be off, but she would be on her bed, flat on her back, facing the door. The light from the hall would be enough to show her sprawled legs and engorged labia, glistening with fluids, even as her face was obscured by shadow, making her seem anonymous, generic... pornographic. Now, he realized, she was once again energetically working herself over, seemingly on display specifically for him, and he wasn't sure how he should react, and didn't know what he should say, if anything. It was profoundly embarrassing. Aroused despite himself, he nodded a greeting to her as he passed her doorway, trying to avoid staring at her genitals, intending to retire to the privacy of his own room to work out the stiffness in his cock in the usual way. That was the plan, anyway. He had just passed her doorway, still hearing her wordless moaning as she writhed on her bed, when the noises stopped and she called to him, "Oh. Hey. Dude, you got any rubbers?" Careful to stay out of sight beside the doorway, he turned back and said, "Um, yeah, a few, why?" "Would you, um, feel okay about using one on me?" Startled, he let go of his briefcase momentarily, catching its handle by his fingertips just before it hit the floor. "Is that what you want?" "Yeah, I'm just getting more frustrated by the minute here. You know how to help, I know it; we talked enough about how to handle girls before." "All right; give me a moment." He went on to his own room, dropped the briefcase on its shelf, and fished out a couple of condoms from the box in the bottom drawer of his desk. Then, not sure why he'd agreed to this so readily other than simple sexual frustration and maybe an urge to help, he set about taking off his clothes. Naked and very aware of it, he walked back to her room with his cock waggling in front of him with every step. She had turned on the bedside lamp, and now her eyes lit up as her gaze fastened on his cock. "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" She wiggled over on the bed to make room for him. He sat down next to her and asked calmly, "Where do you need help?" "All over, man, it's just not working when it's just me. Ulp! Yeah, like -- that!" His fingers were at her labia, lightly stroking, with just a little extra attention at the clit end of things, and she tensed, then shuddered, then put her arm around him. He bent over and took her nipple into his mouth, stroking her areola with his lip as he sucked and tugged, and she shuddered again. "Ohhhhh... yeah..." It was a winsome sound, like from one who comes in sight of a goal after losing hope that it was there to find, and it emboldened him. He toyed with her for a good while, finding out where she was already aroused and frustrated and where she was not yet awakened, and using those new points to bring her to several minor orgasms, before turning to the little packet he'd dropped on the night table. She looked over and murmured, "This is gonna be my first time, y'know." "You've still got a hymen?" She nodded. "I think so... Don't think I broke it." "We'll find out, then." She pulled him down into a fierce kiss as soon as he had the condom on, coaxing him to come to rest between her legs the whole while. He felt his tip touch her wetness and let it jostle a little, teasing her, until she grabbed his buttocks and pulled him up towards her, driving him in a little ways. She moaned, sharp and short, and then grunted as she renewed her grip and pulled him further into her. He wasn't surprised when he bottomed out within her without feeling anything give way. She owned a dildo, he knew that from having seen it protruding from her crotch, so she had to have deflowered herself that way long since. Now he began automatically pumping, and turned his attention back to finding places on her skin that were fresh to the touch or had gotten lonely since they last got attention, places he could use to take her higher. When she started crying rhythmically, he began to worry about thin walls and irritable neighbors, but then she seized up and stopped breathing altogether. When she finally got her breath back, she went back into frenzied sounds. Now bucking up against his pelvis in time with his stroke, she cried out, "Oh, yes, goddammit, _yes_!" and held her breath again while he kept the rhythm for the both of them. Several more times, she lost her breath, finding it again in great gulping gasps under him. Finally she started whimpering, low and soft, in alternation with silences where her breathing stopped, and he decided it was time to take his. He pulled her tight to him and started pumping more briskly, and was pleased to see her nodding urgently even if apparently all she could do with her mouth was pant. When his moment seized him, she convulsed up against him, and their rhythm grew ragged while they both forgot how to breathe for a little while, and then he resumed with gentler, slower last strokes to bring her to earth. He started to roll sideways off her, but she clutched him tightly, holding him close, so he held her to him. Feeling her breasts pressing against him, he realized that he'd missed this: it'd been months since the last time he'd had time to go looking for female companionship, much less a lover. It was still bizarre and alien to him, though, that it should be his roommate with him now this way. The guy had certainly been enough of a horndog for girls when they met at start of term three years ago, asking him for advice on how to score with the women around here, and pulling out the copies of Playboy in the living room and critiquing the girls on display within. That guy was now the woman in Eric's immediate personal equation. Now she moved underneath him, adjusting to his weight, so he tried once more to roll over. This time she let him roll to her side, still holding him, so they ended up lying on their sides in close embrace. She looked into his eyes, then she kissed him, and whispered, "Thanks... I needed that. I hope you did too; I haven't seen you with anyone in a while." She swung one leg over him, pressing his softening cock back into herself, and looked down at herself and the way their flesh naturally conformed to each other's shapes to press together seamlessly, then back up at him with an earnest expression, and told him, "Ever since I changed I've been so damn horny, you wouldn't believe it. This is the _first_ time I've gotten satisfied. You don't know _how_ lucky you are to still be a guy; you only have to get one or two to get there. I get all these little ones, and if they don't build right they don't really go anywhere, and when they hit I get too distracted to make 'em build right. Maybe it's because I wasn't born this way; real girls probably know how everything's supposed to go." She leaned back, looking him up and down some more, then kissed his chest, and gazed up at him with a strange expression on her face, one composed equally of relief and devotion. She breathed, "Anytime you want me, I mean _anytime_, just do it. Even if you hafta wake me up, it's all right, I want it. I'll even pay for the rubbers." He smiled archly, and, he hoped, warmly. "This is a strange relationship we're getting into, isn't it?" She was dismissive. "Oh, don't worry, this is just sex, okay, 'cuz I'm gonna change back, I just know I am." "Sure." He let it go at that, not sure why her response had rankled. Pure sex between a man and a woman? Even considering who this woman had been when he first met her, the idea of it felt empty, like she was short-changing him somehow, but perhaps he could settle for that until something changed to either deepen things or end them. Over the following days, they fell into an increasingly natural rhythm. He would arrive home from work to find her freshly stripped and waiting on her bed, now with all the lights on. He'd drop his things, they'd make love, and then they'd bathe together while they talked over the day and planned dinner. Sometimes she would have dinner already prepared and waiting to be warmed up and served. Other times they tackled the job together, constantly touching each other as they passed in the kitchen. On those days when it was his turn to prepare meals and she hadn't beaten him to it, she'd hang out on the kitchen's periphery, waiting to help, or peer at him across the counter from the tiny dining area, apparently not wanting to intrude on his work but not wanting to get too far away from him either. They would dine together, perhaps they'd cuddle together studying or watching one of the movies in their vast mutual collection, and then inevitably they'd go back to her room where she'd pull or tease him back down onto her bed for more sex. Tonight was to be a break in that rhythm, and something which had been a regular event with them since before her change. There was a bar nearby whose prices fit their budgets, one that had decent food, and, every so often, live performers. On the first Friday of each month, they would go hang out there, have a meal and a beer, and, if there wasn't a band playing, there were always the girls. Sometimes they'd gotten lucky there. He had already showered their combined sweat off him and dressed for dinner; now he was sitting on the sofa in the living room watching her preparations. She finished brushing out her hair, tossed the hairbrush back into her room where it thumped on her bed, and turned and smiled down at him: "Okay, I'm ready." Charlie had been a longhair when he arrived, with clean sandy blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. These days, though, she let her hair down when she wasn't working on something. When she allowed her hair to dry into its natural curl, it fell like a gleaming cloud around her face. Even without makeup, she was gorgeous. Eric dreaded having to work to discard his feelings for her when she reverted to male. Assuming she did so; that would probably have to wait until the virus writers happened to release an X-to-Y retro for her genotype, and so far they seemed to be more interested in wiping out genetic predispositions and turning the people around them female. Until that happened, she was delicious eye-candy, start to finish, and he knew he was growing uncomfortably fond of her. Her attire was another matter. After the change, she pushed her old clothes to the back of the closet and got new jeans, new shoes, new everything, to fit her new dimensions and form, but it was all guy- styled. She seemed to be in a battle with herself, alternating between being a guy-with-tits and a sexpot, sometimes at the same time. Such as now, when she was wearing jeans which were tight enough to follow her labial fold, and a thin tee shirt emblazoned with the logo of a gaming software company and the slogan "Got game?", with her unbound nipples making interesting mobile deformations in the lettering. "Shouldn't you have a bra on under that shirt?" "Why do I need a bra? I'm supposed to be a guy, right? This is just a medical fuckup, y'know, I wouldn'ta changed if they'da given me the right vaccine." She looked down at herself, then slowly up at him again with smoldering eyes. "'Sides... Don't you like me better this way?" She offered a teasing smile and shimmied, causing her breasts to ripple beneath the tee shirt, easily tracked by their nipples, as if her areolas weren't clearly visible enough through the thin fabric, and he felt himself rouse all over again, to his annoyance. Charlie was enjoyable enough to look at in private, at home, but he wasn't sure he wanted to go anywhere in public with her dressed that way. That look, along with her behavior, reeked of tramp, if not hooker, and he felt embarrassed for her at the arch looks people gave her, even if she herself seemed oblivious to them. It was irritating to be provoked into looking at her that way himself, as if he was tricked into complicity with their disapproval. "The right vaccine?" Rather than answer directly, he seized on her comment. He thought she had simply come down with a virus and changed, in which case all her talk of changing back, short-term, was just wishful thinking. "Yeah, with my genes I'm vulnerable to Type NX, and they shoulda given me a vaccine for that. They gave me Type PA instead, and it hogged my immune system long enough for NX to get to me. They gave me an NX blocker, and they think they mighta caught it in time; we'll see. If I've got any chimera XY cells left they can synthesize a retro with 'em to push me back the other way so I can be a guy again." "Think they can do it?" "Sure hope so!" She nodded enthusiastically, causing her hair to spill down around her face again, and sat down huddled up next to him, clutching his arm to herself. She said fervently, "It'll be good to be a guy again. Man, I'll sure know a lot more about pleasing a woman then. Damn, I haven't felt this good in... ever!" All this talk about sex and changes was getting to him, and she sensed it. Now she looked up at him with a minxish expression. Still holding his gaze, she reached over between his legs, pulled down his zipper and eased his member out, stroking its urgent stiffness with one hand and murmuring, "I've got this guy to thank for that. Hm, how should I thank him? Ooh, I know..." As she bent over and her mouth closed around his member, the wall clock behind her was showing the bar's peak hours which they were missing. No way was he willing to go out in public with them both in this state of arousal, though, even if he was a little put out at her presumption that that one part of him was the most responsible for the pleasure he worked to give her. Perhaps if they were quick enough... He slid his hands up under her shirt, lifting its hem with his wrists, and started kneading her exposed breasts. Their meaty mass was at once foreign for being something he'd never experienced himself and familiar for being presented to him so constantly. The milk glands spread within them were sensitive to his attentions, and that was enough for him. He playfully worked her nipples, causing them to harden like the member that she was mouthing, and was pleased to hear her gasp and feel her clutch his member tightly. She straightened up and leaned up against him, her mouth slack and hungry against his, and then their tongues danced and teased each other's arousals too. When they finally pulled away for air, she looked up at him with eyes full of lust and half- whispered, "I brought you some pussy; want it?" They never did make it to the bar that night, instead they snacked out between lovemaking sessions. The next morning, they resumed as soon as he was awake enough to hold an erection as she slid down onto it. Afterward they puttered around together in the kitchen pulling together some brunch. Eric had just put the tray of bagels and cream cheese on the table when Charlie came out with their coffee mugs. He made to clear the clutter of the previous evening's clothing off the chair, but she stopped him with an offhand "Don't bother, I'll sit on the pole." They ate sitting nude, sideways to the dinner table, with Charlie straddling his lap, impaled on him, and occasionally rubbing her breasts in his face between bites and offering cream for his coffee. Then Charlie had him carry her, still coupled, with her legs clamped tightly around his waist, back to bed to 'work off the calories'. The rest of the weekend was spent that way, as the two of them enjoyed being casual with each other's skin. At one point Charlie giggled and pointed out to him the growing mound of torn foil wrappers in the bathroom trash, grinning as if it was a trophy or an achievement. Eric shared the laugh, but he increasingly wondered where the relationship was going. Sunday evening, he found himself staring out the darkened window as they sat to another nude dinner, this time side by side. He brooded when he noticed that he was staring at her dim reflection in the glass and mentally mapping the details of her face and figure as if preparing himself for a lifetime of this familiarity. Over the following weeks, the brooding deepened. It wasn't that he minded being close to her, not like this when they were so comfortable with each other's touch, but he was starting to worry about losing the other aspects of their relationship in the sex. They had been good friends before, at least; where was this 'just sex' going now? Eric was already working as an engineering technician, getting some real-world experience to go with his degree, and confidently looking forward to moving up into a design position as the company expanded. Charlie was in engineering too, but still working on her degree. She had one more year, and had been getting good grades and better reviews for her careful but innovative design style. His own style was more by- the-book, with healthy safe zones and an eye toward economy of manufacturing. They had admired each other's work, back when they were both male, and tried to learn from each other, but it worked best when they collaborated. Somehow between them they were able to toss ideas around and criticize without offense, so their joint projects came out with minimum chip-counts, few-to-no single-source devices, analog sections that didn't need tweaking, and, when micros were involved, firmware that was clean and robust. Eric had been looking forward to getting Charlie working with him, thinking that he could pull Charlie in as an engineering technician as soon as he got a rise in position, then see how long it took until the two of them, working together, could leverage Charlie up into an engineer position alongside him. That collaborative approach had worked beyond engineering. Anything the two of them put their heads together on, it seemed, _just worked_. Their two collections of music, videos and equipment, for example, went together conveniently with just two rotary switch-boxes, a few relays and some resistor networks, to even play music from or on the computers in their bedrooms when they felt like it. And now... Charlie was just as bright, but the serious, slightly bookish guy was gone, and the girl that had taken his place, well, most of the time she was either absorbed in her changes or a ditz or both, at least when Eric was around. That started getting obvious a few weeks after she first asked him into her bed, when the other shoe dropped. It was early evening; Eric had been home from work for perhaps an hour, poring over component data books for an upcoming project, when Charlie came home looking somewhere between distraught and despondent. She flatly announced, "I got my answer," and immediately threw herself down on the couch next to him. He had been waiting for this news, so now he gave up pretending to be able to study, closed his book and put it down. He turned and studied her forlorn expression for a moment. Then, seeing that and the way that she seemed to be cringing into his space, he put an arm over her shoulders. That comfort seemed to help. She came out of her daze and looked up at him. He could tell that she'd been crying. He knew the answer then, but he asked anyway, to get her to talk it out as much as anything. "Well?" "I... I'm not going to change back. The blocker wasn't in time; they didn't find any chimera cells anywhere. I'm all XX now. So..." She limply shrugged. "This is me from now on." She leaned forward, fumbled with the rear pocket of her jeans, and brought out something which she held out. "I got my new license. See?" She was holding out her wallet, a man's trifold, open for his view. The stunned-looking girl pictured on the driving license seemed incongruous, nestled in the starkly simple display pocket surrounded by no-nonsense black leather. Some of that opinion must have shown on his face, because she pulled the wallet back to her, turning it around and scrutinizing it. "Guess I oughta get a purse 'n' stuff..." She looked up at him, visibly putting on a brave face, and said, "But at least now I know what to do with my old clothes, right?" "You can go on the Pill now; that'll be reassuring." "Already got 'em, got 'em two weeks ago. I'll be good to go in another three weeks, and then we can save on rubbers." She reached into her jacket pocket, then held up a luridly-colored box. "Meanwhile... I got you some more. Let's use one now, okay?" "Two weeks ago?" "Well, yeah, they said it wouldn't mess me up for the change back, because it's just hormones, and no telling how long it'd take 'em to sequence a retro... I didn't wanna wait." She waved the box in her hand. "I don't wanna wait now, either, if that's okay. I need something to cheer me up, and you're the best thing I know for that. Please?" "Sure." Afterwards, they were lying side by side, each with an arm around the other and holding each other close in the afterglow, when Charlie craned her neck to lift her head so that she could kiss Eric's shoulder. She sighed as she settled back into his embrace, and murmured, "Mm. That was good... And I feel safe, here with you. Safe 'n' cozy." He smiled at that, turned his head so that he could see her better and said, "So it's not just sex anymore, is it." Her contented expression evaporated. She turned and gave him a lost and forlorn look and shook her head, "No... not anymore." She stared off into space, saying softly, "Now I need... I dunno... I'm not sure _what_ I need... but I know it's you. It _has_ to be you." Suddenly she was in tears, staring at him again and saying urgently, "You're the only one I can trust!" A little stunned at her outburst, and chagrined at having caused it, he tightened his one-armed embrace, pulling her closer to him, and reached across to gently cup her cheek with his free hand. "Calm down, Charlie... I'm here." Her free hand came across to clutch at him. She growled, "I dunno if I can even keep my name, I mean, how's it sound, 'Charlie the girl'?" "What does it say on your license now? I didn't think to look." "Charlene." She took in his amused expression and added ruefully, "I know, it sounds dumb, but I couldn't think of anything." He shrugged. "Charlie's a cute name for a girl. Isn't that the name of a perfume or something? Keep it." "I guess." "Well, it doesn't sound bad... And you want people to call you by a name you're used to, so you recognize it..." "Yeah... Fine, then. If you say so, I'm still Charlie." "Don't sound so overjoyed." He was answered by a fresh scowl. "Well, I dunno... Maybe I was thinking of something girly, y'know, to give me a head start on being a girl." He chuckled, put his hands under her ample breasts and hefted them, rolling their bulk between his thumbs and his palms, then caught her nipples between his fingers. "Seems to me you've got enough of a head start right here. Two of them, even." "Silly." Smiling again, she craned her neck to look up at him, then brought up one of his hands and kissed it. "Now you've got me all horny again." She giggled, "'Please, sir, I want some more.'" He grinned. "What's that from... 'Oliver'? You could call yourself Olivia, or Olive." She snorted at that. Adopting a fake Russian accent, she sighed into his ear as she pulled him over onto herself, "Why don't you ask me about that... later..." He recognized the quote and nodded agreeably, adding, "Or Tatiana," but her response was to hungrily capture his mouth with her own so that further talk was impossible as well as unnecessary. In retrospect, it seemed as though a new woman arose from that bed, one who took the idea of a 'head start on being a girl' seriously. Her just-a-guy costuming was abandoned and banished. Instead, at times it was like she was trying to be Marilyn Monroe, with adopted mannerisms he could trace to specific movies they'd watched, and frilly dresses and nylons, and artful makeup and salon styling. At least it was all tasteful if provocative. She was developing a sense of style, and, though the style wasn't what he had expected, he could appreciate her efforts and the look that resulted. He started going out with her in the evenings again, because this was a Charlie with whom he could enjoy being seen in public, taking pride in her choosing to be with him as well as pleasure in her company. This Charlie was serious about turning her back on the past, too. One afternoon when Eric got home, there were clothes piled neatly in the hallway. Charlie stepped out of her room wearing a pleated skirt, spike heels, mesh stockings and a low-cut peasant blouse showing generous amounts of cleavage, and carrying a black leather trenchcoat. She grunted as she lifted the coat up in offering. "Here." "Uhh... Thanks, but why?" "You liked it; it fits you; and it's never going to fit me again." She leaned over and peered down at her feet, and, even as he surveyed everything that the blouse might have hoped to hide, Eric got the point. In the months since her change, Charlie had gradually lost five inches in height and comparable breadth in her shoulders, as her long bones caught up with the soft-tissue changes forced by the retrovirus. The trenchcoat had been cut long for the fierce winters, and Charlie hadn't been all that tall to begin with, being more a compact shape as a man, so the coat originally came almost to his ankles. Now, with Charlie's slighter female build, the coat was likely to drag on the ground and just as likely to slip off her shoulders unless she wore it fully closed, and then it would look tackily oversized. Eric nodded as he accepted the gift and her reason for giving it, but he looked up and held it out to her, saying, "You sure? You should hold onto it, just in case." Halfway back to her room, she turned and showed him a bitter look. "Just in case _what_? Let's face it, this is how I am from now on. There are no X-to-Y viruses going around, so they must never get written." She sighed. "Whoever's making these viruses, they've gotta be no-life geeks, with the amount of engineering they put into these, so they're just gonna keep making more women until they get dates, if that ever happens. I mean, think about it -- to everybody else, it's a normal cold virus, you fight it off and get over it and it doesn't bother you again. Anybody with the right genetic profile, though, a decent-looking guy, and I _was_ decent... All of a sudden they're no longer competition, instead they're more girls for the girl supply, just like me... And horny as hell _all_ the frigging time too, probably..." "Just like you." She nodded, causing her mop of golden curls to shimmer, and, as her eyelids drooped half-closed, she said, with a shuddering sigh, "Yeah... _Just_ like me." Then she looked down at herself and her tone got bitter. "_Just once_, I'd like it so those virus writers get a taste of their own... Maybe not do quite so good a job on sequencing their own vaccines." She shrugged and added in a disgusted tone, "Of course, we'd never hear about it, but still..." She reached up to squeeze her breasts with her fingers, hard enough that Eric worried that she would cut herself open with her fingernails through the thin blouse. "It would be nice to know they had to deal with this." She dropped her hands suddenly and looked away. "I do like how you look in that outfit, by the way. If that helps." "It does; thanks." A little flushed, she turned and looked up at him and smirked, an expression that stressed wry self-mockery and unsuccessfully masked anxiety. "It's a present for you. Want to unwrap me now?" His response to that anxiety was automatic. He put his briefcase and the trenchcoat down gently, then in one stride had her in his arms, giving her a fond smile as he bent over her for a kiss. "Yes, please." Then her tastes seemed to change yet again, to housedresses, modest outfits that hid everything behind a prim and proper veneer. That was a surprise, but, as Eric kept reminding himself, it was better than the guy-with-tits outfits that made her look so wanton. This also was a Charlie that he could enjoy being seen in public with. Perhaps she was doing this to reclaim ownership of her changed body, and that had to be a good thing. Next, she started in on redecorating the place with pink stuff and pastels and muted aquas, like she was propagating her new tastes in clothing outward in all directions, and that was not a good thing. At first it was just her bedroom which developed frills and lacy gauziness, and that was her territory so it was all right. That, too, Eric tried to take in stride. Certainly his own room had his own stamp of identity on it, from the test equipment under the desk to the three walls of bookshelves. It was understandable that Charlie would change her space to fit the way she saw herself now. Lately, though, she was invading the common areas as well with the changes. She had the money to spend and she spent it, and the apartment was starting to look domestic to the point of kitsch as a result, with little bric-a-brac shelves nailed to the walls, and artful decorative arrangements everywhere he used to put his feet up, and no wall surface left untouched anywhere that was large enough to hang a schematic or a listing, let alone an extended Gantt chart. He'd always known that the place could stand some sprucing up, but now it was getting too cluttered for his liking, putting his teeth on edge and making him feel crowded. He spent more time in his own room as a result, working on what interested him, and trying to ignore the festering cloud of homely clutter, through which it seemed like he couldn't see Charlie anymore, much less his own home. Certainly he could no longer see a Charlie he recognized. As he retreated more and more into his room, Charlie started following him in, bringing him his dinner and lingering in his bedroom while he ate. When he was just browsing the Internet that wasn't so bad, because they could share that, and trade barbed comments about what they saw. Sometimes he could hear her wit in those conversations, and that was enjoyable. Other times, though, he was engaged in other pursuits which he didn't want to have to interrupt. Such as tonight, when she showed up at his door wearing a sheer nightie that hid absolutely nothing, making it painfully obvious that she had decided to shave her pubes. She sat down on the end of his bed, well within touching distance of where he sat at his desk, and said softly, "Hey... I'm lonely. Can I curl up with you tonight?" He glanced back at the monitor. "Umm. Sure." This would have been a good time to tell her about his latest little project. In fact, it was just the kind of project that they'd both enjoyed in the past: he was trying to cram a timetable of lights, radio and alarm sounds into a microcontroller's memory, making it as tight as possible to fit. The power in the city had been a little unreliable lately, and, every time there was a glitch or outage, his alarm clock would sit there, dark or blinking 12:00, rather than wake him up. Not that it's waking him up was a sure thing even when the power was steady: he really needed some lights turned on, and then the radio, and then the alarm, in that order, to drag him out of deep slumber. A small microcontroller could do all that, keeping time and turning on relays on schedule, and display the time just like a simple alarm clock. It was a personal design challenge, to pull something together quickly to run on rechargeable batteries when the power was out, and then live with the result. It was cheaper than putting the computer on a UPS and leaving it up all night, and good practice with small-system embedded design. The other part of the challenge was to do the complete design, both hardware and firmware, using nothing but open-source software, to test how close that had gotten to professional usability. The two of them used to share challenges like that through their three shared years of school, collaborating on interesting projects. Now it was all as if in an alien language to Charlie, she was so far removed from involvement. She still had the intellect, he could tell, but it looked like she was refusing to use it that way anymore, and that was a frustrating waste. Maybe, though, this was the right time to bring it up. With that in mind, he pointed at the screen and said, "Actually, I was hoping I could get your help in this; it'll be another fun project for the both of us. I've done my usual kind of design, but, even after taking in the usual tucks, it won't all fit in the memory, and I don't want to have to put in a bigger part..." He paused, watching, as her eyes flickered across the screen, taking it all in briefly with a blank expression, before settling on his crotch. Only then did her expression show any sign of life. Now he was feeling annoyed and cheated, and controlling his temper because he knew he could be furious if he dwelt on it. He said, low and hard, "You're just not interested, are you? Are you going to even stick it out for your degree?" She recoiled as if struck. "I try! There's just a lot on my mind these days... A lot. It's not as easy as it was, any of it." She had a lost look about her, now, as her gaze rapidly alternated between his face and the monitor's screen, obviously avoiding looking at anything below his neck. He sensed that, for whatever reason, she was on the edge of desperation or tears or both. Gently but firmly, he countered, "Charlie, you're acting as if becoming female has made you stupid. Well, I don't buy it. There are plenty of brilliant women in the world, and I _know_ you're one of them." "...And how distracted are they..." "Distracted? By what?" "Well... Keeping up the place, cooking dinner, decorating..." Her voice trailed off, leaving whatever else was on her list unsaid. "I don't know as I _want_ the decorating, but the rest are joint jobs, they always have been. You act like we're married." "Well, that's how I get through the day!" "What!" At his outburst, she cringed, then shook her head and muttered in a low, lost tone, "All those guys. And I know if I started doing _any_ of that I couldn't stop, and then I'd be _just_ the kind of bimbo they want me to be, whoever did this to me. So I pretend to myself that we're married and I have to stay faithful, which I wanna do anyway. And I wear wifey stuff to remind myself, and so the guys get turned off by it all so I don't have to fight all those feelings when they come onto me." She looked up at him again with anguish in her eyes, half-whispering, "See? There it is! The big secret. I'm _always_ distracted, now, always _wet_. The only way I keep _any_ kind of control over myself is by pretending I'm your wife." She gave a bitter half-sobbing laugh. "Helluva way for a guy from a varsity family to end up, ain't it? And I _know_ it's not fair to you! You didn't ask for this. You put up with me, I know, and, believe me, I'm grateful that you put up with me, but then..." Her expression got resigned, accompanied by a ragged sigh, almost a sob. "Then I have to think about how it all feels to you. So I try to dress it up to make it better for you. And dress _me_ up too. So if you have to put up with someone being your wife without your permission, at least it's a _good_ wife. But it's not working, is it..." She took in his stunned expression and averted her gaze, grimacing almost into sobbing before she regained control and managed to say through her tears, "I'm sorry, it's just... This is so _totally_ fucked up. I'm trying to be a real girl for you, and I'm just _pissing you off_, I can see that--" She clutched the air in futility, and her face took on a panicky expression. "--But I don't know what to _do_..." Her expression crumpled; suddenly she had lunged forward from the end of the bed, holding him tight, and was sobbing openly against his chest while he sat there in shock. When she managed to continue, her voice was almost a moan. "It's just... When I changed, I woke up, and you were standing there in just your boxers, and you were helping me with all this, you were soooo caring..." She sniffled and shook her head. "I've been in lust with you ever since, wanting you in the worst way all the time; maybe I'm in love with you too, I don't know. Which is weird, because I never noticed you like that before I changed. And I've been trying to make it worth your while because you matter so much to me--" Now she was reared back, staring blindly up into his face as fresh tears erupted. "--and all I do is _push_ you away--" She sat back, hiding her broken sobbing behind her hands, defeated and alone in that moment. He sighed and pulled her back into his embrace. She resisted momentarily, then came willingly, still hiding her face in her hands even as he held her to his chest, and he pulled her gently into his lap while he thought about all of this. He had known she had to be hurting from everything the change had done to her life, and now he was annoyed with himself for not having seen what her efforts meant; he was just as clueless as she was. Change or no change, she was a good friend, and gradually something a lot deeper since the change had driven them into intimacy. They wouldn't have lasted as roommates this long otherwise. Now he felt like a part of him was hurting with her, filling him with guilt for letting her down. There had to be more than sex for this to work; and there was, if he could finally get over that long-ago 'just-sex' rebuff. This person in his lap was a good friend with whom he had developed the rhythms of a warm friendship, and at times a partnership, and, yes, a warm and unexpectedly deep affection, otherwise he wouldn't have gotten so angry at what he saw as fakery. She could only stretch just so far, though, to fill all the roles left in the interaction; he had to do some stretching too... and he hadn't thought of her as anything but the girl she presented herself as in quite a while. So, just whose fault was this anyway? Now it felt as if there was no barrier, nothing between them but an empty space she had just given up on trying to get him to help her fill, and some of it was his fault, a fault he needed to fix. There were possibilities here. She was willing to see beyond the past and try a new interaction; was he? Could he persuade her to help him fill the empty space in the right way, a way that was honest? "Hey..." She looked up with wet eyes but said nothing. "We wouldn't be doing this if I didn't like you. You can get a little annoying sometimes, but..." As hunched as she was in his lap, still now she seemed to cringe further, and he bit his lip in disgust at himself. That wasn't how this had to go. He had to make the point, though, somehow. "You remember Janie? I met her down at the pub." She responded in a hurt tone, "Yeah. So you're already attached? That sure didn't stop you--" "Nonono. I haven't seen her in over a year. We went out twice, we had some good times, but that was it. There was nothing there. No contact, and nothing in common." She waited, then said in a still-hurt voice, "So...?" "So there is, for us. I like how your mind works when you're tackling a design. I like how we work together to solve stuff, and my approach and your approach work better together than either of us could have done alone. In engineering and in a lot of other stuff too. Dammit, I _miss_ that... that working together. That sharing. See, you're beautiful, and that's great, but what I _really_ like to watch is your mind, because it's beautiful too, it's something I admired back when we were both guys. So, how about this..." He thought for a moment, putting his words in order while she watched him intently, then continued, "I like you, and I like how we are in bed, and I like you when you're being the girl you really are... but I miss my friend, too." He registered her intense gaze and smiled apologetically at her, and said softly, "How about if you just don't worry about how to be a girl. You're already that. Work on being a girlfriend instead. There're two parts to that, girl and friend, and you don't have to worry about the girl part. Like I said, your body's taking care of that... but I need my friend back, okay? Quit hiding: I really miss you. For this to work, you really have to give me my friend back. Please." Her jaw dropped. Then her expression lightened as she thought. "So..." Now he kissed her, and said, "So, if you'll stop trying to be who you think I want, just let all that go and just be you, I think it'll work. The things we used to share, I still like to share... want to share... with you." "And you still want to--" More confident now that she was hearing what he meant to say, he nuzzled her cheek with his forehead and murmured, "I told you, your body's taking care of the girl part." Now she grinned with relief and anticipation, and asked, "Can we do some of that, and then see what you've got so far? 'Cuz I meant what I said, I want you in the worst way..." As she got up from his lap, she took in his wry expression and laughed through her tears, "Well, actually I want you in the best way, but I'll take what I can get!" Smiling, he got up from his desk chair and pulled her down onto the bed with him. He kissed her, and let her work his pajamas off him while he peeled her out of her nightgown. Then there was a moment where they lay side by side, and her gaze traversed him from bottom to top, while his did the same to her, cataloging her shapeliness and freshly judging it desirable. When he took her by the shoulder and pulled her close, she clutched at him, seeking softly for his mouth, and there was still an anxious desperation in her hungry kiss. He gathered her up in his lap, his erection between them, and her fist softly closed on it even as he kissed her breasts and softly stroked her back. He realized that she needed to know that he wanted her too, so he turned, gently pressing her down onto the bed, onto her back, and took her securely in his arms, trying to communicate with a kiss that could go deep enough into their feelings to find the friend that had gotten hidden within her. Meanwhile, he began to tease and caress her, working at giving the girl in his arms the best avenues to joy that he could open for her. Some time later, sated, she sat wrapped up in his bathrobe, perched in his naked lap as he sat in his chair, the both of them momentarily staring idly into the fluorescent starscape vistas of his screensaver. He took a moment to savor his view of her, now that it felt safe to acknowledge the attraction. He really did like how it profiled her face. He wasn't lying: she _was_ beautiful when she wasn't hiding it behind fake beauty and trying to mimic a complete marriage all by herself. A marriage, though... He idly thought about that, trying it on in his mind. Wife? Her? Hm, well, why not? It felt familiar, and now it felt good, too. Maybe that was how it should go, if she could still focus that brilliant mind of hers. Without it, they had nothing but sex, really. With it, they had a good foundation for the deepening of the fondness that he already felt for her. That was the key, then. And, if that worked, then they probably belonged married; he certainly didn't want to lose the possibilities... As she forgot the robe, it drooped open, letting the dim light of the screen shine on her breasts, and he smiled at that even as he enjoyed the view. He realized that she belonged like that, too, really, and that the casual closeness of their sex was another aspect of their sharing, sharing emotions and bodies. It was something to be valued, as long as it didn't replace the sharing of thoughts and minds of the past three years. Now Charlie shrugged the robe off her shoulders and arms, letting it drape around her hips, and said over her shoulder, "I only need it down below, until I stop dripping." She put on a pout as she said that, and they shared a commiserating smile before she turned back to the screen. She casually flicked out one slender index finger and nudged the mouse with it, and the screensaver went away, revealing a group of xterms and CAE windows on a KDE desktop. She squinted, concentrating, and eventually commented softly, "Oh. Yeah. I see what you mean; you got it pretty tight already. Hmm...." She leaned in, scrutinizing first his schematic and then his code, occasionally clicking windows up to the front with the mouse and scrolling them. Even at this angle, he could see the extra spark in her eyes, the extra focus of her intellect at work, and it felt like something within him welled up, warm and full and grateful at the sight. Now she brought the header file up to the front of the group, skimmed through it, and smiled. "Good, you've tokenized events already." She leaned forward again. He automatically closed his arms around her waist, resting on the wadded bathrobe. His thumbs started idly caressing the skin of her belly as he watched her face. At that, she turned her head and looked down, met his gaze and smiled, then she pulled his hands up so that they covered her breasts, and patted them gently. Then, with his hands still firmly cupping her, she leaned in with one elbow on the mouse pad, that hand under her chin, and her free hand pointing at the screen, and asked, "Do you need that much precision in the time-of-day? MS-DOS only kept filetimes down to two seconds; you've got tenth-of-a-second here. Does your micro even have enough horsepower to make that kind of precision worthwhile?" "Barely, but if this thing drives relay closures it'll matter. You know, power-up sequencing." "Oh, yeah; okay." He watched her eyes tighten as her gaze danced over the screen as she thought, and admired how her intelligence looked when shining through such a beautiful face. Then she pointed at the header file again and murmured, "Hmm, how about..." Half an hour later, working together, suggesting and stepwise refining ideas between them in rapid exchange, they had cut three components from the bill-of-materials, reduced the storage-per-event requirement by a third and were optimizing the state-machine that would handle the events. He was leaning his head around her, looking for any more air they could squeeze out of the design, and idly stroking the bare skin of her back as he did so. Suddenly, she twisted around grinning, took his cheeks in her hands, pulled his mouth up and kissed him. She said, "I missed this too. Thank you." He wrapped his arms around her again, smiled up at her and said, "Welcome back," and she kissed him again, harder. "Dear friend...," she breathed as she let him go, and her eyes glittered with moisture in the light of the display as she said it, even as she smiled. He grinned. "My feelings exactly." He pulled her down for another kiss.