Harry Needs One More Test free porn video

My story really begins the year we went public with the machine. Well, it's more accurate to say the story begins a little less than two years before that, when I had the accident. Well, if we're going for accuracy, it needs to start when I was five years old and first discovered crystal radios. It was another almost forty years, but that was the germ of the idea for the machine. Radiant pattern! Raising the energy state of matter and letting it settle back into new ... err. Gentle Reader: headings! Skip the backstory by running a quick search for "The boring beginning." Skip that by searching for "The relevant beginning." Skip to the end by searching for "The real beginning." Use at the peril of missing something important! The backstory beginning: My name is Harold Tamlin, Harry for short, fifty-something year old Man of Science. Christ, it seems like the blink of an eye since that plaque on my door read forty-something. Me and an old college buddy, Frank, had hopped across the world starting company after company and, generally, building giant, boring, risk-less fortunes. We both got married, we both had kids. Frank had the twins, a boy and a girl, right before his wife decided to leave him. Turns out she really wanted was to live in the same small town as her mother instead of Hong Kong or wherever we were that year. We were still young and poor, so it didn't cost Frank much. He kept the kids. I don't think he ever loved again. I married Cathy. We met at a conference in Stockholm. I watched her present the same paper a week later in Berlin, then was on the front row with flowers for her next in London. What can I say? I lived a rich geek's fairytale. We had a beautiful baby girl and named her Carrie. Cathy never got pregnant again. We never questioned it - too busy, I suppose - and probably should have. When Cathy got sick, really sick, eight years later it was too late for modern medicine to save her. That's when I got the idea for the machine. I threw everything I had onto the problem, Frank alongside me every step of the way. We settled into the Pacific Northwest of North America - peaceful, beautiful, but close to the hospitals Cathy needed to keep herself alive. All I needed was a way to energize the atoms of her body and radiate a new pattern into her to correct the tiny flaw in her DNA. Simple, right? Frank found fantastically rare, but naturally occurring crystals that allowed for holographic storage and radiant transmission at sufficient density of an entire human body. We bought the world's supply. We had lasers, we had supercooled magnets - one by one the stumbling blocks fell. We were too late. Carrie, our daughter, was thirteen with Cathy died. She looked so much like her mother that it broke my heart. I retreated from the world. I died inside. I wrapped myself around her so nothing bad could ever happen to her again. Matt and Jess - Frank's twins - were the only people I allowed her to be friends with, the only people good enough for her. They were about five years older than Carrie, but took her under their wing without question. I think Jess was the closest thing to a mother Carrie had in those years. But the problem didn't come from outside. Carrie was just like her mother in every way. Six months of impossible grief - and I certainly wasn't helping - accelerated the onset of her inherited condition. I knew we had five years. I sprang back into action and less than a year passed until our first live animal test. I'll never forget it. That frog came out like a 3d Mandelbrot solid, blinked a million eyes, then exploded. That was a tough nut to crack. At four years after diagnosis, we pumped Carrie full of fats, vitamins, steroids, hormones, cut the chemo and radiation - she actually had hair, for once - just to get the cleanest, healthiest pattern we could. She was such a strong kid, never complained even when I spent whole days at the lab. We still hadn't solved the problem of editing the pattern, of making a healthy version of Carrie we could use to supersede her real body. Time was running out and I knew we had to make it as easy as possible, get the healthiest, even if it was fake, snapshot of her. The rest of that year was a blur. We cut every corner we could. We yanked components, whole systems out of the machine - anything we didn't need to simply save my daughter. We jerry-rigged power systems. We piggy-backed computers onto computers to brute force solve pattern editing. We saved Carrie with maybe a month to spare. Then I didn't know what to do with my life. The colossal weight of more than ten years had lifted. The world opened up. It was the longest I'd ever lived in the same place since high school. I still remember the first day I looked up and realized the sun was shining. And Carrie had so much life she didn't know what to do with herself. To tell the truth, I didn't either. I wasn't used to having a daughter. Between us we found a fantastic program for girls to see the planet - an around the world educational cruise. I sent her away for a year so she could find out what it was to be alive. Frank, always with his eyes on the future, sat me down and asked where we saw this going. How blind was I? This machine I built only managed to save half of what I loved most in the world - what was I going to use that for? He told me to think about it, then set off on his own world- wide tour to collect suppliers, contractors, mineral rights - whatever he thought we needed to change the world with the second generation of the machine. There were going to be hard limits - statistically, there were maybe enough of the crucial crystals on the planet for a dozen or so machines. He'd identified enough for six in various collections and we already owned half of them. Barring anyone figuring out how to make a supernova in a jar, that was going to be it until we could start mining outer space. Frank thought we'd be rich enough to do it, too. This machine was going to change the world. Immortality for some, an infinite playground for others - even the briefest glimpse of the possibilities boggled my mind. He left me with Jess, his daughter, a brilliant electrical and software engineer just like her dad. His kids were fresh out of college, Matt with a loft in town to start a career as an artist. Frank was right - it was the perfect time to get at least one of the next generation involved in what had become the family business. We'd cut so many corners that last year it was six months before Jess and I had something I was even willing to power up. It was amazing we never had an accident before then - I just never thought the accident would happen to me. The boring beginning: Jess and I worked long hours every day, rebuilding the machine from scratch. She designed an entirely new systems architecture to run the thing and found some cutting-edge processors that looked to give us a real boost in holographic processing. Jess was willowy, graceful, with sleek dark hair and big inquisitive eyes. Don't get my wrong. I would never - well, would have never is a slightly more accurate conjugation. She left me wistful for my lost youth. "Dr. H," she yelled through the door. "Storm warning up there. It's really coming down. Maybe we should call it quits for the day." "What?" I had my head buried in the inner workings of the transmission chamber. "Storm! Lightning! Badness!" "Oh, you kids and your safety. Why, back in my day ..." I pulled my head out. "We're so well grounded these days that even a direct lightning strike wouldn't dim the lights. But it's been a long week, so I'll accept that first excuse you can think of to get out of here early." It was all of 4:30. "Go start turning off all your new-fangled computer toys." She grinned at me and went back to the other room. Jess always wore these big baggy clothes against the chill of our lab up on the mountain. It was endearing. It was more than endearing. I hadn't had sex more than five times in probably twelve years, and that was all with Cathy before she got too ill. I hadn't even missed it, really. But here I was, a brand-new man, not a care in the world, working side-by-side every day graceful, elegant, gawky, young genius of a creature. She was the daughter of my best friend in the world, but could you blame me for the occasional daydream? Today's involved sitting behind her at the control panel while she wore only a short lab coat. She'd keep tugging it down and a breast would pop out the top. She'd hike it closed in front and the back would creep up. Harmless, really. I swear. My cock was hard in my pants as I inspected the final in today's series of crystal realignments, still not satisfied with the projection geometry. I felt, rather than heard, the lightning hit. Crack-boom. Squeezingtwistingburning everywhere, not pain, but - tight, then: I had to give us a little credit. The lights did not even dim. I looked at my hands. "Shit," I squeaked. That voice. "Shit!" It was a high- pitched squeal. I could imagine exactly what happened. A million-to-one shot, maybe a trillion - a lightning strike the moment Jess turned off the control computer. The software would have cut out instantly, but there was still enough charge in the hardware switches to respond to an induced current. And the pattern? Carrie's healthy pattern was, by hook or by crook, the most complex thing we'd ever successfully transferred. It lived in the system these days as our benchmark for diagnostic testing. Jess ran in. "Dr. H, I head -", and she froze, eyes wide. "Don't say it, Jess! Don't say you told me so!" That voice. Soft, feminine. Young. At my sides the shirt sleeves fell over my hands. I tried to take a step, tripped over my giant shoes, pants falling around my knees. Smooth, tapered hands kept me from hitting the floor. My hands. I had the body of my nineteen year old daughter. No, the body was only eighteen years old. It took us that long to fix her. My first thought was that they still felt like my hands and inside my mouth the teeth still felt like my teeth. Thank goodness for small favors and the adaptability of consciousness. Jess unfroze. She rushed to my side. "Are you all right? Dr. H?" I nodded, about the only thing I trusted myself to do. "You're so much smaller - what happened to the mass? You're still alive. You're still ... you. Thank God you're still alive." I couldn't face my near-death yet. "Capacitors. I hope, or it'll be a pain to get me back." Blond hair in the corner of my eyes. Her hair was just long enough for a pixie bob that day. It fell out a week later when we put her back on chemo. I tried to stand. Weight was all in the wrong place, subtly, but enough to throw me off. "Whoa, Dr. H, take it easy." She held me around my shoulders, my tiny shoulders. "Leave the shoes and the pants behind." I stepped out of them and almost tripped again. "Take it easy, Dr. H." "I just need to switch out the core pattern crystal. I ran a test scan on myself last month. This won't be a problem." Thank goodness for elastic. At least my boxers still fit, though lower and wider. I could feel them hugging my ass all the way around though they were nothing but an empty bunch in the front. She helped me to a chair. "Just nothing. Status board's lit up like a Christmas tree. Most of the computers will need a manual reboot and -" "I can fix this, Jess. Just give me a goddamned second." I consciously pitched my voice lower, trying to make it sound more like me. "No. I can do all of that, probably faster than you. You take a minute and calm down. We are not rushing into anything." She sat me in the chair and looked me over. "Look. I've got my after work clothes in my bag. I'll just run out to my car for them. I'll be right back." "I don't need clothes. I just need to boot up the computers and fix me back. Then we can all have a good laugh about how I accidentally turned into my daughter for ten minutes." "Whatever you say, Dr. H, but I'd feel better if you were in something that getting in your way all the time. I wouldn't trust you to type in a passcode in those sleeves. This is going to take us at least a few hours and, well, look at you." Dependable, practical Jess. I was suddenly conscious of what I must look like - an eighteen year old girl in men's clothes. I'd had the top button on my dress shirt undone so I could breathe in the tight spaces behind the projector array and now the collar gaped open around my neck. I probably looked just like Cathy after we fucked in her office that last time. She insisted on wearing my shirt home though it hung on her like a tent. God Carrie looked so much like her. I couldn't make a decision. Jess grabbed her umbrella and slipped out the door. Sitting, I rocked by hips forward just a little bit. There was nothing - no pinching, no mass, no tightening scrotum, no ever-present weight of dick. But there was something. It felt like - don't think about it. I couldn't wrap my mind around this. The shirt covered my entire upper body but my legs were freezing. I folded them up onto the chair so I could wrap my arms around them. Long, tapered legs with high-arched runner's feet - don't think about it, Harry. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. Carrie couldn't weigh more than 105 pounds. That means around eighty pounds of mass fluxing through the system. It wasn't all converted to energy - that would be insane, blow the planet off its orbit - but the matter would bleed off as simple atomic hydrogen and we're lucky we didn't explode. Still there's no way even our capacitor bank could absorb that the rest. And if we couldn't ground it off then we would have been discharging into the air - lightning followed by reverse lightning. Thank goodness the lab was so far from anybody. Thank goodness Frank was still an electrical engineer enough to be paranoid about how we handled the juice. Thank goodness Jess was a genius when it came to system design. I shook my head. Safe or not, there was no way we had the power to put me back in my heavier body. We'd have to bring Frank in. I was stuck in the body of dainty daughter. Thank goodness she was gone for the whole summer. Thank goodness the pattern crystal still in the system was the fixed, healthy version of her. I heard Jess come down the stairs and opened my eyes. "The rain stopped. I thought we were supposed to get it all day." She had her backpack with her. "We blew it out of the sky." I tried to drop my voice again. That sounded way too girly. "I weighed too much. The system couldn't absorb the excess, and what it couldn't ground probably arced up to the sky." I laughed, no, giggled in spite of myself. "It's your basic mad scientist weather control. I'll have to tell Frank - he could get a paper out of it." I had to laugh or I'd by hysterical. Hysteria - Greek for "of the uterus". That was certainly me. "That's ... also amazing?" "It doesn't last - the Russian's proved that. You can pump enough energy into the sky to get whatever you want, but it'll come back down with a vengeance. We'll have to tell Frank anyway. We'll need his help to channel enough power, probably new equipment as well. It means I'm stuck like this for I don't know how long." "We don't know that!" She dropped her backpack on the work table beside the door. "The system isn't up yet. We don't even know what happened. And we won't need so much power if you finally get around to testing matter injection. She had a point. As long as there was enough bio-available matter in the chamber it could be incorporated into a larger body. The only reason we hadn't is it wasn't required in the final rush to save Carrie's life. I grinned. Jess laughed. "You're adorable." I dropped the grin. "What do you have for me to wear? Some of us need to get to work here." "I need to get to work." She unzipped her bag. "You need to take your time. Until everything's booted up we won't know what we have." She pulled out a tiny bundle of clothes, all dark blue, and a pair of those flat slipper shoes, all held to her chest. "I should probably explain. Uh, this is nothing like what I'd wear to work, but I told Matt I'd help him move some stuff around at his studio, and afterwards we'd probably grab a beer and, err, you'll see." "I'll see what?" I stood. The concrete floor was freezing under my feet. My legs were steady beneath me, but walking was a bit jarring. It was as if my legs were too far apart. Well, my legs were in fact too far apart, for me, and everything was lower. My chest bounced with each step. Don't think about that. At the table I picked up the thing on top. It looked like a thick, ribbed cotton tank-top but it was four inches wide. "What the hell is this? How am I going to fit into this? How were you going to fit into this?" "It's girl clothes, Dr. H. They stretch. They're supposed to." She nibbled her lower lip. It was another of her endearing qualities that, under ordinary circumstances, would given me a pang of lust. I was surprised and a tiny bit reassured to feel an echo of it in spite of everything. I was still me in here. "The cut-offs and the tank top I think you can handle. I don't have a bra for you. I wasn't going to change out of that and," she cupped her chest reflexively, "it wouldn't really fit you anyway. But the panties are a bit, well." "Well?" I pulled a wisp of a thing from under the shorts. "Tiny!" "Skimpy!" She snatched them back and folded the shorts over them. For some reason she was just as mortified about them. The whole situation was mortifying, but she wasn't the one who had anything to be ashamed about. "Why do you have to change underwear to go help your brother?" "Matt said he might pay me back with a beer, and that means going out in public, and out in the real world your panties have to match your bra or you're a hopelessly socially awkward klutz who nobody ever looks at twice. I love the bra, those came with the bra, I have to bring those. Okay?" She pushed the bundled shorts at me. "Girl clothes, Dr. H." I pushed them back. "I can't wear that. Why can't I wear the ones you've got on now? Why can't I wear the clothes you've got on now. I need to be covered." I was losing control of the situation. I was almost twice her age. "I can't walk around with ... skin ... everywhere." "You want my dirty underwear, Dr. H? Is that really your better solution?" My face got hot. Carrie blushed easily, cute when she was four. "Fine, the pants then. At least." She stepped back. "You'll look better in these than I will, any day." "Who wants to look better than anything? I only want to look like a flabby old man!" "Dr. H, you need to get a grip and think about who you'll be for the next few days. This is what the machine is going to do for the world. Take it for a ride." She was right and I retreated. I picked up the clothes and shoes and headed to the bathroom down the hall. It was your standard industrial bathroom. Still the concrete floor, white porcelain sink, white toilet, chrome shower head with a pull around curtain. But it had a big mirror and that was where I saw myself. I didn't even hear the door shut behind me. There she was: my baby girl, that blond pixie cut she got when her hair finally grew back in from the last failed round of therapy, the green eyes just like her mother's, up-turned nose, bow lips, pointed chin. She looked six years old in my giant clothes. And if we hadn't rushed to save her this accident would've turned me into a block of high protein goo. I teared up a little. I couldn't believe I was about to do this to my own daughter. Deep breath. I shucked the shirt over my head and dropped it to the floor. There, in the mirror, were my daughter's breasts, perfect pointed mounds that rode high on her chest, topped with thick rosy nipples. With her slender shoulders they still looked just like her mother's, at least when we met, years before she started getting too sick. I had a flash of memory about wrestling to get my hand under Cathy's bra in the back seat of my car, later, sucking Cathy's nipples while she writhed beneath me. Christ, it had been a long time since I'd had sex. My nipples tightened, puckered on my chest until I could see them below me without even trying. The building's air-conditioner kicked on, meaning Jess was making real progress rebooting all the computers. I almost arched my back at the first breeze across my chest. This was getting out of hand. It's just a chest. I looked down at myself and they were just fleshy bags - it was the image that did me in. They're just nipples and I had them before. Pretend they're pecs. I reached for the tank top and my tits - no, chest swayed on its own. I slid the tank top over me, feeling every soft inch slide over my skin. It didn't help with the ... excitement, but at least I didn't have to see them. The tank top barely came past my belly button and the close- fitting fabric accentuated my narrow waist. I grimaced in the mirror. My nipples still made quite an impression, almost casting shadows in the direct overhead light. I was starting to see the point of a bra - two points, as the case may be. As for the next part - I turned around. I'd learned that lesson. Ah, hell. I peeked anyway - gray boxers baggy everywhere except right where they cupped across the top of a firm, tight ass. I steeled myself. I hooked my thumbs into the waistband and had to shimmy my hips to get past the widest part, then slid the boxers down my smooth thighs. Then kept going. I couldn't believe how flexible Carrie was. I kept bending until my fingertips brushed the floor, then kept going until I had my palms pressed flat. I'd never been this flexible in my life. I grabbed the panties from behind me and caught a glimpse of that perfect ass in the mirror. The panties - no, call it what it is. Jess's black, slutty, stripper thong that, an hour ago, would've existed only in my imagination was little more than strings of nylon. I had to look closer than I ever wanted to just figure out which way was front and in which holes my legs went. Only the flimsiest double layer of a lining told me which part was the bottom. I looked down to step into them and - bare skin. My baby girl waxed her p- don't even think it. Waxed her cunt - no. Twat - definitely not. Vulva ... yes, yes I can use medical terms. My daughter's vulva was a perfect peach bisected by the tiniest slivers of labia. Definitely not like her mother's. The fact she got something like this from her old man's side of the family actually made things a little easier. I pulled the panties up without a second thought until I got to the top. The back didn't fit. I glanced in the mirror, no, it was just twisted and cutting into my left ass cheek. Almost automatically, I plucked it into place, nylon disappeared yet somehow framing the globes of my ass. I could feel it nestle against my anus. The panties tingled. The image made me tingle, front and back and all over. Don't think about it, Harry. This isn't you. I couldn't believe women wore these all the time. They were tiny, barely covering what they needed to cover, yet the shorts barely covered any more than that. I had to yank them over my hips, suck in to get them buttoned, and I suspected if I bent over in the mirror I'd see cheek. I slipped the shoes on and was out the door. Jess was hunched over one of the consoles, her back to me. "I can't believe you were going to wear these shorts anywhere in public." I left the voice as it was. Maybe it was better to try to blend in, take it for a ride. "I wouldn't wear them outside - they're just for working in. I had them forever." She turned around. "Shit. You look -." She'd never cursed in front of me before. "Like a girl," I said. "Like Carrie." I could feel her eyes tracing along every surface of my body. Is this what it was like? To be a woman? I knew she could see my nipples jabbing through the tank top. That didn't help. "No. Well, yes in the obvious ways. But you obviously aren't Carrie. You're ... hot, I guess is the obvious word, but something's not right. I'm fairly tomboy, but you don't even have that. It looks like you're ... wearing a body? You aren't in it? Walk for me?" I walked up to her side. "Yeah, that's gotta change if you're going out in public. Make up, too. You just look wrong." I hadn't even thought about going out in public. I could last for a couple of days, maybe a week, at my house, but if this took longer to fix ... "You think people can tell?" "Growing up with a twin, even a fraternal twin, probably gives me an edge. I think people will know something's a little off." I shook my head. That was a problem for later. "What's the word on getting me back?" "Mixed news." She pointed at one persistent amber light on the status board. "We fried the high-speed optical logic board. I put in an online order with the Taiwan firm, express shipping, five business days." "A week," I said in my little girl's soft voice. She nodded. "I called dad, explained things. He's stuck in Micronesia, some tiny little island with a promising impact crater. He said he'll pull whatever strings he can, and will remote into the mainframe to start running simulations. He thinks if we can get matter injection working then we shouldn't need any more power than what the capacitors managed to catch." "How'd he take it?" Jess stared right at me. "You know, the chances of you coming out of any kind of accident in that thing were astronomical. And if you hadn't I dunno if - I mean, it just would've been the end, you know?" I put my hand on her shoulder and she leaned into me. "This whole thing was about saving a life. And it's done that. That was the end. Everything else is extra." She looked up at me. "This project is more than that. Don't ever sell yourself short. You're a genius. All of this is ... you." I patted her on the shoulder and stepped away, a little uncomfortable. For some reason a brush with death didn't matter as much as tits. "I bet that's not what Frank said." "He's amazed. He thinks it might be a good thing? Fortuitous is the word he used. 'Just the thing to get ole Harry thinking." "Frank's always pushing to hurry things up." "He thinks you're always trying to slow it down." "Who's slowing things down? We have a week to test matter injection. We can do that. We already know the crystal alignment's sound." "And I called Matt to cancel our plans for tonight. He can stretch canvas by himself. Dad told me to take care of you." "You did all that while I was changing clothes? How much of a woman am I all the sudden?" "Just enough, apparently." She laughed. "Plus I'm a master multitasker. I imagine you had a lot to ... take in?" Suddenly I didn't know where to put my hands. Behind my back would thrust my chest out. In front of me squeezed by breasts together. At my sides they just - stop thinking about it. She jumped up. "There! Right then, what were you thinking. You stopped looking ... wrong." I felt heat in my cheeks. "You were looking at me and I didn't know where to put my arms." "You were in your body. Dr. H, that's ... good." She glanced around the room. "We should get out of here. It's definitely enough for today. I'm driving you home." "Jess. You really don't have to. I've been thrown for a loop, yes, but I can see to myself until morning." She started digging through my pants on the floor. They looked enormous. She pulled out keys and wallet. "Maybe, but I'm not going to risk it. And Dad agrees. You learned to walk quick enough, but you fell too. You think you can drive these roads your first time out of the gate? In the Beast?" The Beast was the nickname for my car, my only real personal luxury. And, damn it, "You're right again." "Do you even have an ID for Carrie? Something you can use for awhile?" I shook my head. "Don't worry. We can work something out." "Thanks, Jess." "It's nothing. All in a day's work for your intrepid, underpaid assistant. Come on. I'm beat. You're beat. Let's get you home." She shoved my old clothes into her bag. "You really are taking this all in strike, aren't you." "It's -" She thought for a moment. "Someone was going to do this eventually, try to be someone else. It's not as big a change as you'd thing, not on the outside. You'll have to wait until someone else does it, I think, but for me, you, Dr. H, are still very obviously you. I - you'll just have to wait until somebody else does it." Most of the lab - lair, as Frank referred to it - was underground. The climb up the stairs to the entry made me admit I wasn't as at home in this body as I'd thought. Each step had me rocking my weight from side to side to keep balance and the flexing on each climbing step left me keenly aware of that thong pulling against me and the rasp of nylon across bare skin. Jess was right behind me, staring at the tiny shorts she made me wear. "Stop," she said. I felt her hands on my hips. "Rock these when you step. It's where you center of gravity is." She slid my hips from side to side. "No, roll them. Loosen your spine a little." It was just her fingertips, but they burned. I don't know what I did, and I don't know how she did it, but it helped. My body was steady, but moving beneath me. Rolling, and it was just walking. At the top she pointed to her tiny beat-up sedan beside my silver Beast of German steel. Now, Frank had just as much money now as I did but he believed in having his kids earn things. He paid his daughter a pittance and let her know she was working toward stock options, just like how we made our first fortunes. Bastard also made me promise not to cheat and slip her anything extra. I set the door to lock when we left. "We can take mine. I trust you to-" I stopped myself. Blushing again. "I mean, I never not trusted you. But while we're forced to be a little more flexible, and you've already given -" "- loaned -" she interjected. "- some of your clothes, it would make me happy to let you drive the Beast." She laughed. I blushed harder. "You're adorable. Listen. This is all - I mean. Don't worry about me. Don't even worry about thanking me for at least ... two days. You have enough on your plate." "Two whole days? That's it?" I climbed into her car. "I'm an excellent multitasker." It was good we left when we did. As predicted, the weather had overcome whatever thing we'd done to it and black clouds were blotting out the late afternoon light. Jess kept her car in low gear on the wet roads. It meant the usually long drive would take even longer. "There's one thing I don't understand," she said after minutes of silence. I laughed and it was like bells in my ears. It made her smile. I could almost ignore the jiggle in my chest. "This I have to hear, because you took to the properties of pattern transference math like a fish to water." "Well that's just it. You, the body you're in, is an exact, well, fixed, physical replica of Carrie, down to the neural connections in your brain. So why are you, Dr. H, you instead of Carrie. Why don't you have Carrie's memories?" It was an excellent question. It didn't matter for the purpose I built the machine, fixing physical defects in a solitary individual, but it had been a puzzle when it first cropped up. "Were you around for the early mouse experiments?" "No. Well, I was around, but I was about the same age Carrie is now. You and Dad didn't let me in the lab much, certainly not to know what was going on." She glanced over at me, the car swerved a bit, and her eyes snapped back to the road. "What? What is it? Trouble with the car?" "It's ... you. The way you're sitting. I could see ... everything. Put those legs together, missy." I looked down and, well, it's how I would always sit. But now instead of a casual pose it was my legs splayed open with a glisten of black visible beneath the fringe on the high-cut leg. I snapped my legs shut and there was ... nothing there. My thighs didn't even touch at the top. I crossed my legs and squeezed them all the way up. "Sorry." "No, no. It's my fault. They're my clothes and, well, you see why I don't wear stuff like that at the office? They don't fit on me like that, anyway. They're lower and they're certainly looser." "Are you saying I have a fat ass?" I couldn't care less, and I certainly couldn't disagree with her, but it was too easy a tease to pass up. "No! You're just, I mean. Look. Neither of us are big girls. It's just that you, now, have curves in all the places I don't. On me those are frumpy. They're still short, but on you they're painted on hot or something." "Jess, I think you look just fine." "And I like the way I look just fine. But there is a difference between just fine and, well, hot. The way you look is ... hot. The way I look is just fine, but I'm sure guys would drool just to see you cross your legs like that." The mention of guys was like a bucket of drool dumped all over me. "Nope. Can't deal with that thought. I'm not going out all week." "Well, I'm just saying." "Jess, you don't -" "Dr. H, don't try to lie to me. You're a guy and it's not like I ever caught you staring down my shirt or doing a doubletake as I walk by." I uncrossed my legs and grumbled, "If I'd known you wore these panties it might've been a different story." She laughed again. "The point is that I'm just fine and always have been. I get along just fine. But let's not pretend I'm any more than I am. It's what's inside that counts, I'm doing great in that department, and, shit, we're working on a machine to do the rest." "Still -" Jess cleared her throat. "So tell me about the mice." "Right, the mice." I forced my mind back on track, right into lecture mode. "So we knew consciousness was emergent, non-physical state that couldn't be produced or replicated by any change to physical properties. We assumed, however, that the brain's physical component would mean memories would arrive with the pattern. In fact we tested this early on by imposing the pattern of one mouse we tested over and over onto a control mouse and, lo and behold, the control mouse shit himself the next time your dad showed up with a needle. It was proof the memory of testing had transferred." "You hurt them that much? You scared all the tiny mice? Shit, Dr. H!" "No no no, it wasn't fear. We were testing whether me got a map to other living things in a body - whether the bacteria in the post-transference mouse would change to that of the original. They got to pooping any time you pick'd them up just to save us time." "Okay, that's kind of cute? But still gross. What then?" "I wanted to run a cognitive battery. The memory transfer never bothered me because we weren't ever trying to change appearance. Yet I was concerned. Though we'd proved memory transfer - I thought - I always felt that post-transfer mice never behaved exactly the same as the originals. They weren't psycho, but there was something." "Sorry to break in again, but how do you tell if a mouse goes psycho?" "Stanford has a behavioral index for that. For everything, really. It's where we got the idea for the test. We trained the mice to run a maze and did the routine testing that provoked the poop response, stored the pattern, transferred the pattern onto virgin mice, dropped them in the maze, and nothing. No measurable memory of learning the maze. But they still exhibited the exact same response as the original mice to testing stimulus. The neat thing was the reverse - training a mouse to run the maze then transferring onto him the original poop response pattern, mind you from that first mouse who never saw the maze, and the result was a mouse who did both." "What is it, you get some memories but not all? But you'd know if you had any of Carrie's memories, right?" She looked at me sidelong. "Do you?" "Not memories, no, but habits? Physical mannerisms? Phobias almost certainly. Anything deep and Pavlovian, yes. In between I don't know. Carrie remembered the time in between taking the pattern and the transference, so we know memory is much more than a mere physical arrangement of neural connections. But a lot of human drive is a mix of physical and not." "But you couldn't walk. How does that fit in? That's got to be one of the more rudimentary hard wired systems." Another excellent question. "But I started off knowing how to breathe. I don't have an answer. I learned to walk fast, like there was something in there. Climbing stairs took longer, but it was just a few flights. I'm a lot more complicated than a mouse. I think it's still happening." That thought gave me pause. I was still myself now, embarrassed but functioning. What would I be tomorrow? Rather than the rational, uneasy feeling I had, Jess was excited. "This really is a golden opportunity! Just think of all you're going to learn in the next week. She was left-handed, so no change there. What was her caffeine intake? Will you crave coffee in the morning? Chicken or steak? What about music? Can you imagine if relatively arbitrary preference had a physical component?" Instead of hearing things to discover, for me Jess was pounding down coherent pieces of my identity that might be missing. I didn't want to like Neo-electric Classical. Tears welled up. I couldn't keep my voice from breaking. "I'm still me." "Oh, honey," she said. "Not honey. Harry. Dr. Harry. I'm not this," I gestured to myself. "I'm a fifty-something year old man." "Of science," she finished from the plaque on my door. "But don't you see? Whatever changes isn't you, not really. Don't you want to know who you are?" I didn't have an answer to that. Maybe she was right. "I'm crying. This isn't me." "That's you being tired and overwhelmed. Dr. H, who wouldn't cry? And I'm sure you didn't let Carrie eat all day before the scan." She patted me on the leg. And it helped. "I'm not saying we have to chart everything you say, do, and eat. I'm not saying you have to try to change or try to not. It's only a week. Think of it like a vacation. It's not like you could stay like that forever if you wanted to - Carrie will be home in six weeks. And you won't want to. You just won't. That definitely isn't you." "You're right. Thank you, Jess." I wiped away the tears with the back of my hand. "And someone will have to discover this kind of thing. And it should be me. I wasn't ready. Not like this." "This is your tiny mountain road here, right?" I nodded. "Finally. Longest car ride of my life." I didn't live that far as the crow flied, and in good weather had even hiked it once or twice, but the public roads meant endless hatchbacks. We hadn't seen a single car the whole way. After night fell, Jess had to drive even more slowly. "You didn't mind, did you? I hate these roads when they get wet. Looks like it's about to start raining again." She turned up the gravel drive and with that the first giant raindrop splat on the windshield. "Oh just hold off five more minutes." "No, no. It was good. You did exactly right and the talk ... needed to get said. Thanks." "Bottom line. It might not be the easiest week of your life, but you won't be doing this alone. I'm definitely not leaving tonight. We can hang out all week if you want to. We might even find a way to have some fun." "That might be ... nice." I'd meant to say 'best'. We pulled into the parking space. Rain pattered, but if we ran we'd hardly be wet. Jess turned off the car. "You ready to dash?" She grinned. I grinned back. "Is this your idea of making it fun already?" "I aim to deliver, Dr. H." She popped open her door and jumped out. I followed suit. She beat me to the stairs, but I was right behind her the whole way up. My breasts heaved and bounced until I crossed my arms over my chest, telling myself it was against the sudden chill. She beat me to the overhang by a second, then turned back, stricken, as the sky opened up. "My bag is still in the car. Your keys. I'm such an idiot sometimes." "I'm stupid," I said immediately. "I didn't even think. I'll get them." I looked out at the deluge. "Don't be silly." Jess walked out into the rain, taking her time. She wouldn't have done it if I was still a man. I wondered what other changes I had in store. Jess was right. The things that changed weren't me, but the little things were some of the easiest to cling to. And some changes were going to be in how other people treated me. I thought hard about what Carrie would do in this situation, and couldn't come up with any predictions. Would Carrie have gone to the car in the rain? I wouldn't have let her, because of her health. Would Carrie leave Jess in the mudroom and bring her a towel, or tell Jess to make for the nearest bathroom to warm up? When she had keys in her hand, would Carrie open the door with her left hand or her right? "I'm the one who's supposed to be glum," said Jess from behind me. "Keys for your house, Dr. H." She tossed the ring and I caught it without even a fumble. Physical coordination was really catching up to me. I unlocked the door with my left hand and began flipping on lights. Jess followed, dropped her bag in the corner, and waited soaked and shivering. "Wait just a second," I told her. "I'll be right back with a towel to catch the most of that, then you can jump in a shower and warm up." I slipped the wet shoes off my feet and dashed around the corner to Carrie's bathroom. Towels: check. There was even a robe behind the door. But back at the door, Jess had already taken off her baggy shirt and was tugging on her jeans. I stared, towel in hand, until she noticed. "I -" I said, then froze. She was so willowy under the bagging clothes she always wore, elegant. The black bra had lace cupping her small breasts, lace through which I could see flat, silver dollar nipples. Her panties were white and, while they rode low on her waist, covered so much more than the ones I had on. "Uh -" She stood up, wet jeans tight around her thighs. "I can't get out of these. I need help." "Right, of course." I handed her the towel, then ducked into the mud room for a stool. When I bent over for it I saw my nipples poking up as hard as ever. "Because of the cold," I mumbled to myself. "She sees them every time she looks at me. It's a tiny tank top." Jess had wrapped the towel around her torso and sank gratefully onto the stool. She had her shoes and socks off already, which just left me tugging on the legs. An inch at a time they came off, but I couldn't believe how hard I had to pull to get them to move. I was so much weaker than I should have been. For a second, right before they came off, I stared full on into the crotch of her white panties and the strip of shadow they contained. Women and pubic hair - I wouldn't be able to avoid it much longer. She stood, blushing. "Shower for me." "There's a robe on the door in there. I'm going to make some food. Then we'll deal with ... girly things." I waved at Carrie's room. "Plan," she said. In the kitchen, I opened the fridge. Quick and high protein, that's what we wanted. I pulled out eggs and cheese and a couple of other things. While waiting for the skillet to heat to the perfect temperature, I pulled down a bottle of wine and stopped when I couldn't reach the glasses on tiptoe. But Carrie would never have to try because Carrie didn't drink. I used the stool to grab two. Score one for the home team's habits. I wondered how long it would be before I stopped noticing my breasts sway every time I moved. I heard the water shut off and grabbed two plates to serve at the counter. When I looked up she was there in Carrie's old robe, much shorter on her than my daughter, watching me. I felt a blush rise up through my chest. "Something wrong?" She shook her head. "You move beautifully when you aren't think about it. Very naturally." That did it for the blush. "Eat already. Wine?" Jess thought for a second, then nodded. "You aren't Carrie." "Exactly." We ate in companionable silence but quickly, both of us starving. The food was fantastic, but the wine was ... different. Jess noticed. "You keep taking tiny sips. It tastes different for you?" "That hasn't changed. It doesn't taste wrong. It tastes exactly how I remember it, but it tastes ... new. Does that make sense?" "You make that omelet a lot?" "Not all the time. You didn't like it?" "No, it was great. What I mean, is, Carrie would know what the omelet tastes like, but not the wine." I drank the wine again. Rolled it over my tongue. The motion was familiar, yet foreign. "I think you've figured something out." "What should I do with the dishes?" She slid off the stool, causing the robe to slide all the way up her long thigh. I looked away. "Dishwasher." I cradled up our glasses in one hand and the bottle with the other. Another unfamiliar gesture. "I'll move us to the fire." Across the low room was an automatic fireplace flanked by two leather chairs. I set the wine on the table between them and clicked on the fire. It might not have been authentic, but it was authentically cheery. Jess crossed the room to me smooth and graceful. I could see in her the way she wanted me to walk. It made sense. The robe had loosened so it was open to down between her breasts and every other step there was a flash a pale thigh up to where it tied around her hips. The tank top slide over my hard nipples with every breath, an unnerving reminder of the strength of teenage hormones I'd left behind decades ago. I felt heavy ... down there, achy like my cock had been hard for hours. She was still barely half my age. She sat, legs casually crossed, and tugged the edge of the robe to cover her thigh. It came open again when she bent to refill her glass. The cloth gaped open at the neck, exposing the swell of her bare breasts. I bent to refill my glass before she caught me staring. I couldn't miss my rock hard nipples, the curve and sway of my own breasts. I'd bet neither could she. The fire felt good beside me. "So," she said at long last, a pleasant distraction. "You can tell what's your old habit that is new to your body. Any ideas on the opposite?" "Almost everything's something I haven't done before. Not like this." "Point. But that's too foreign. What about things we know have to be physical?" "Now you've lost me." "I-eeee there's no avoiding a couple of awkward questions. What about her period?" "Carrie doesn't-didn't cycle. Depo shots suppressed them to even things out for therapy. I'll have all the same hormones and responses." "Hormones! That we can - ah, hmm." Jess stammered into silence. "The more embarrassed you are the worse it is for me. This isn't Carrie and I think we're pretty certain it's not exactly Harry either." I was glad the darkness hid my burning face. "If you have ideas, spit them out." "I couldn't help from noticing that you've got some, well, raging ... hormones. Is that polite enough?" "My," and I gestured vaguely at my chest, "these?" She nodded quickly. "What's it from? If you don't mind me ... asking." "Mostly me. Mostly the way things ... feel." "So it's not ... me," she said. "Because I get the impression you've been ... noticing things. About me, I mean. I mean, I can't help noticing you ... noticing." "I, yes. But I - I did before, if we're being totally honest. I've seen a lot more of you this afternoon, literally, and walking a mile in your clothes when they're clothes like this puts a different spin on things. But I never would have done anything before, I want you to know that. It was kind of a wistful thing, but staring at you is definitely all me, so I think we can scratch that off the list." "I don't - ah, ignore it." She gulped her wine. "What about common ground? Hobbies?" "There I know what you mean, but I simply don't know about Carrie. Maybe she was, now, healthy, starting to figure those things out for the first time. Maybe this fixed body is a blank slate. I know she liked to run when she felt good, but I did that too. She grew up without a mother. She basically grew up without a father." "I think you sell her and yourself short. She thought she had a great life, you know. She had hobbies and passions and, while she may not have been the most open person, she never felt like she missed out on much, not in this town. And she knew she had a great father." Her stare burned holes in me. I realized I was sitting exactly like I'd been in the car. It was dark - it didn't matter. My nipples were on fire. I had to be the grownup here. I stood, a little woozy. "Come on. Let's get into some real clothes." I emptied the bottle into our glasses. I glanced at her and caught her staring at my swaying tits. I took a few steps toward my side of the house. "Er, Dr. H, where are you going?" "Boxers, t-shirts. I've got stuff that'll work." "I think that's cheating, don't you? But on the girly clothes. Live a little. I dare you." "You think I can't do this?" I switched direction and walked right into Carrie's room, flicked on the light. It was exactly how I'd last seen it and I half expected to feel ... something. Some special attachment to this bedroom that might have felt so much more familiar than my own tonight. Jess stopped in the doorway. She tugged the robe back tighter, making things a touch easier for me. "Something the matter?" "Correct me if I'm wrong, Dr. H, but you don't go in here very often, right?" I nodded. "And I assume you aren't planning on telling Carrie what happened this week. Ever." "God, no." "And I know you have to use this stuff, I mean, I'm practically making you. It's obvious and logical. I absolutely believe Carrie would want you to if she knew what was going on. But if you don't want her to know, then we need to cover a few things." I looked around the room. There were little things, personal things tucked everywhere. There were two headbands on one of the bedposts. Her wardrobe had twenty little drawers, each no doubt meticulously arranged. "You're absolutely right. Touch anything and I'm ruined." Jess spun Carrie's desk chair around and straddled it. The chairback hid everything, but I knew her legs were wide open and it didn't make things any easier for me. "I think we should tell her I had to move out of my apartment for a week. And I had to bring my clothes and things with me. Fumigation, right, so you let me move into her room and I had to move her things around." This neared a delicate subject. "I know you two used to be better friends, and I always encouraged that, and I never pried, but I know you two had a falling out awhile back. You're older than she is. I understand. But you don't need to do that, to put yourself in the line of fire, so to speak." She shook her head. "You misunderstand. I think she would be thrilled if she knew I was here. And that kind of brings me to my point. Aaaah." I leaned against the bed. "Be blunt. Blunt is good. We'll deal with the fallout afterward." "Blunt is good. Carrie is not just your daughter - she's an nineteen year old woman with her own life. You have to know, ahead of time, that if you go through Carrie's room then you're going to find things that will make you uncomfortable. And you will have to keep them a secret. Do you understand? It's not just moving stuff around." My mind immediately flashed to the smooth skin between my legs. "I'm in a foreign country. There will be shocks, but I can deal with it one thing at a time." "It's not just Carrie, Dr. H. You said you've ... seen more of me today than, well. The point is that to help you do this right, you're going to see a lot of me. I'm going to have to tell you things and show you things. And I'm going to see a lot of you, too. Things are going to change between us, Dr. H." "That's the first thing," I said. "Call me Harry from now on. Okay? To hell with whoever we were before." I held out my hand. She stood up. The robe closed so quickly I couldn't see anything. I almost didn't care. She shook my hand. "Harry," she said. "You're still exactly who you were before. And so am I. That's what we're going to learn this week. But first things first. Night clothes. And your first shock, Harry." She said it like she was tasting the word. "You gave Carrie a lot of independence and a lot of money when it came to clothes. My dad thought she was taking advantage of you, a little, but certainly couldn't blame her or you." I shrugged. "I wanted her to have nice things. Especially if she was cooped up in here all day. She never went too far." Jess pulled open drawers in the wardrobe, poking around the contents. "Carrie liked lingerie." "So? Girls like having matching things. I'm okay with that." "Not matching things, lingerie." Jess pulled a gauzy purple thing made of dangling straps out of one of the drawers. That I had to see. I took it from her and held it to the light. Like the tank top I wore, it was shriveled as if it wouldn't come alive until stretched over flesh. You'd be able to see everything through it. There was a pale stain in what I took to be the crotch. My fingertips tingled where I held it. My baby girl. "What is this?" "She liked to wear things like that when she was home alone because it made her feel good." She took the purple thing and folded it back into the drawer. "It made her feel like she had a body even when she hated the way she looked." The next drawer was just stockings. The last of the little drawers Jess cracked open and shut again quickly. She opened the second and third again. "I think she took everything with her that she wouldn't mind a roommate seeing. We still have some things I don't think will be too shocking, but it's going to be pushing you." "More than what you put me in earlier?" "Point." She pulled out some scraps of fabric and laid them on the desk. "Bikini cut? Boyshorts? What do you feel like? Probably enough of the thong today." "I ... don't know what any of that means." "Boyshorts it is, and," she darted back to pull something out the dresser. "One of Carrie's old nightgowns. It's practically a t-shirt and boxers." The nightgown was white with little red hearts on it. "I remember this. I didn't know she still had it." I picked it and the panties up. Jess looked like she was waiting for something to happen. The tie on the robe had loosened again, but she kept the robe closed with a clutched fist. "Dr. H -" "- Harry -" "Harry. How ... close ... are we going to be this week?" Her body was tense. "How close. Like ... sisters?" She relaxed immediately. "Then get out while I change." The relevant beginning: I walked out into the hall and next door to Carrie's bathroom. The wine had gone straight to my bladder and it was as good a time as any to cross another milestone - taking the piss. Carrie's bathroom had a wall of mirrors. I could see her everywhere. I could see her hard nipples everywhere. I could see her pert ass in tiny cutoffs everywhere. I pondered starting in my bathroom but, no, that would be cheating. Besides, I was tipsy and kind of wanted to see myself. I sucked in to unbutton the cutoffs and shimmied them down my hips. It was the sexiest thing I ever saw. I ripped the tank top off and my breasts bounced free. In the mirror I watched a teen with a flushed face and blond bob squeeze her thighs over a skimpy black thong. I ran my hands up my sides and slowly cupped my breasts until my nipples slid between my fingers. Fuck, my skin was so smooth. I squeezed each index and middle finger together, lightly pinching my nipples. In between panting breaths I moaned just a tiny bit. It was the moan that set me free. I closed my eyes, spun around, and grabbed the cold sink with both hands. I had to snap out of it. This couldn't be who I was and I had to get control. Yet I knew that if a man walked in right now ... he'd see me bent over, presenting my wet slit, ready to be taken from behind. And I think I -was- wet - I could feel a coldness where something slightly sticky was trying to glue the tops of my thighs together. All he'd have to do is yank my nasty thong aside and penetrate me to the core with hard cock. I wouldn't see him coming. I wouldn't be able to stop it. Even as something spasmed low in my abdomen, that thought was like a dash of cold water. The mood was broken. I opened my eyes and there was just a girl in the mirror, a tired girl. I stood up and she had breasts, just breasts. I pushed the thong down and sat on the toilet and it got weird again. There was nothing there. I even sat on the toiled differently. Instead of the seat cutting into my thighs, my weight was spread all the way around. In the middle there was a hole where there was ... nothing. I closed my eyes and imagined I could still feel the dangling weight. I imagined taking my cock and aiming it and ... there it goes. I sagged with relief and it was over in an instant. That's what having a small bladder means. I had to kick the thong off to wipe. It wasn't just the urine - I had to dry off my inner thighs. It's just a vulva, I repeated to myself. It was ... plumper than I saw before, not that I got a good look. There was more labia showing, more of ... everything. I could barely feel anything through the layers of toilet paper I used, but from the inside it felt ... like I was rubbing my balls? The thought reassured me. It wasn't good or bad, just sensitive. Just skin. The boyshorts looked like regular jockeys, but when I pulled them up they slid right into place, stretched across my ass but cut away to leave a little bit of cheek at the bottom. The front was totally smooth. Smooth I could live with. The old nightgown was tight around my shoulders, taut across my chest, and came down to an inch below my crotch. No wonder I never saw Carrie in it. Between the heart prints I could see the shadows where my nipples were. "She does this on purpose," I muttered. I brushed my teeth. I picked up the thong to leave with the rest of Jess's borrowed clothes. It was ... moist. I sniffed and detected a pungent, spicy odor. My baby girl. I had to leave it - there was nothing I could do. Back in Carrie's room, Jess was at the desk going through those drawers, too. She had on a matching pair of boyshorts and a little spaghetti- strap tank top that stopped well above her bellybutton. She looked like a Victoria Secret model. She was way too hard on herself. "Took you long enough. I found some things that might help you the next few days." She pointed to a stack of small books on the corner of the desk. "You have any problems in there?" "Nothing more than what you'd expect." She turned to look at me, no, stare. I could feel it happening again, the beginnings of a blush, a tightening in my nipples. She picked up the top book. "They're diaries. She liked to write. She liked that you encouraged her. She's probably got the most recent one with her. Looks like this one runs up to about six months ago, so right after you took that scan of her." "Treatment diaries." I smiled. "I told her they'd make for a great memoir one day, after the machine went public. The gripping race to completion side-by-side with slow tragedy of the steps to keep her alive." My smile faded. "I told her that long before I even hoped the machine would work. I wanted to give her the hope of looking back on all this one day." She handed it to me. "And she will. And so will you. But now it's more than that. It's a window into who you can be this week." "Thanks, Jess. But that's it for now. I can't handle much more." I looked around Carrie's room. "I assume you're in here tonight?" "I'm in your room. You're in here tonight." She laughed. "Unless you've got an objection besides 'I feel like cheating?'" "I didn't make the bed this morning. I haven't even changed the sheets in a week." "I can deal. Anything else?" I thought for a second. The book weighed heavily in my hand, but I wasn't sure I wanted to look for answers inside. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to, but, you two were such good friends. I thought. It seemed. You knew about the lingerie, the diaries, and I don't know what else. What happened? You don't have to answer." "No. We should ask each other hard questions." She took a long moment before answering. "I'm five years older than her, but I still loved her. We were like sisters. Of course we were - no one else in the whole world has dads like ours. I think she got started on the lingerie because it made her look and feel older, more in control. When she couldn't leave the house I'd pick up her packages and bring them over here. We'd play dress up for each other and lounge around imagining what boys would think if they could see us, silly stuff like that. Then she started getting a little older and really developing and, on days she felt well, I think it started turning into something more for her. And I didn't want to hurt her feelings." All this, under my nose. I almost couldn't believe it. "Was Carrie - is Carrie ... gay?" "No." Jess shook her head quickly. "Or if she is she doesn't know it yet. She was just young and stuck in a small town and, well, ... horny. And confused. And I was in college and just as horny - this lingerie does stuff to you - and a little less confused. But I was older and I knew she wasn't really feeling what she thought she was, and it was easier for me to walk away than hurt her feelings. And I knew I had to do it when she was ... pretty, because when things got worse - she hated when her hair fell out - well, she'd think I thought -" "Jess, I - thank you. Thank you for being what ... she needed." I thought of another thing I needed to know. "I don't even know how to ask this. Are -you- gay? Was that why you had to ... break things off?" She laughed again, maybe a little sharply. "No. I'll admit to ... curiosity," and she stared right at me, "but I prefer to lodge my affections in unobtainable places, in people who don't really notice I'm alive. It's ... safer." "Thank you for taking care of my daughter." "Night, Harry," she said with a bit of a sigh. I closed the door behind her, then lay in bed on my back with the diary. I flipped open the diary at random. The spare, treatment details I could skip over. I knew them almost by heart. Between them, slices of her daily life leapt out. She wrote in a straightforward tone, all the more compelling because they were things I never knew about her. - Pushed myself to nine miles today. Hour and a half. Dad would kill me. I feel fantastic. - Dads had dinner together. Pictures of Jess all over their house. I wish I could apologize and tell her she was right without sounding like a baby. Then there were touching things that threatened to bring tears to his eyes: - Daddy works so hard. I wish he didn't feel like he had to. If wishes were horses ... A mention of Tom caught his eye - he was a boy between Jess and Carrie in age who's family spent summers up the road from us. - Tom caught me sunbathing in the field. Thought about letting him watch me finger myself. Wouldn't have looked at me twice last year. He doesn't deserve it. Got dressed and he offered to walk me home. Quel gentlemen! But he stuttered the whole way. I quickly flipped the page. Then there were things that made no sense to me at all: - Home waxing kit sucks. You can't see anything down there. Results still worth it. - top row, last drawer was my best friend all day. I put the book aside. It was a window, but not into who I was, not even this week. I didn't need to take that from my daughter, and it was a relief. Thirsty, I headed to the kitchen for a glass of water. It was the closed door to my room that reminded me it was the wrong one. Score another one for the home team, but, was that moaning I heard from the other side of my door? I leaned closer, straining to hear ... just heavy breathing. Jess was asleep. That was all. The faint cry of, "Oh God, oh fuck," sent