Prisoner's Dilemma: Curiosity Killed The Cat free porn video

Prisoner's Dilemma Curiosity Killed the Cat Professor Ripley's research division of Lockman University's college of biotechnology had a peculiar reputation. All of the students knew that there was good money to be made volunteering for biotechnical research. The department was always looking for warm bodies, and he paid well for the use of them, but volunteering for Ripley's experiments usually left his volunteers with a slightly different warm body than the one they started with. It was all in the name of science, of course; biotechnology advanced the frontiers of human knowledge and was an important field of study. It was Professor Ripley himself about whom students and staff tended to gossip. A mad scientist, they said. A tinkerer with the human body. A man obsessed with unraveling DNA and rewriting to his own ends. He went by Professor Ripley, some students whispered, because he couldn't find an accredited university to award him a true doctorate for the kind of weird studies he performed. But he paid well. Very well. Nobody knew where he got the money, or who funded his unusual experiments with grants or donations. He would take virtually any subject that fit the parameters of his many tests, whether or not they were students at Lockman University. More important to Professor Ripley than fame, glory, or his personal laurels was the purity of the science. Valid, testable results were his holy grail, uncontaminated by personal bias. Ripley had no favorites, some said in his praise; said others: he had no mercy, either. All of these arguments came up in the conversation between Jack Munn and Brandon Booth in June of 2005. "It's five hundred dollars," Brandon said with emphasis. "Five hundred. You're always saying how expensive books and tuition are ? five hundred dollars would go a long way." "Not far enough," declared Jack. "Not nearly far enough. I heard of a guy who went down to Ripley's lab, and got turned into a chick." They were sitting together in their shared dorm room on the west side of the Lockman campus, near the exits. Their dorm building was secluded by trees and landscaping and a few surrounding hills, and had a well- deserved reputation as Party Central. The town of Tilmont with its late- night bars and liquor stores was a short run or a long stagger away. Brandon and Jack had been roommates for nine months, since the beginning of Brandon's freshman year. They hadn't known each other before September. Jack had merely answered Brandon's ad seeking a roommate in the dorms, and their first few telephone conversations had indicated some compatibility. Brandon wanted to spread out his parents' money a bit more wisely and had wanted a dorm companion to keep expenses down; Jack had needed a place to stay after parting company with his girlfriend at that time. Her name had been Daisy, or maybe Dixie ? Brandon wasn't much for names ? and she was kicking him out of their shared apartment in Tilmont. Jack's story of that relationship continued to evolve, however, and soon enough Jack claimed that he had left her. Jack claimed to have had dark suspicions that she had been cheating on him. At some point, when Brandon had mixed up the names Daisy and Dixie, Jack's response was to weave both girls into his story. Dixie was Daisy's sister, of course, and Jack had had both of them, either separately or together. Brandon came to the conclusion that while Jack was a nice enough person, admittedly handsome, fairly intelligent, generally responsible, tidy enough, attentive to his dorm chores, and punctual in making his monthly contributions to their expenses, Jack Munn spent most of his life in a Jackcentric fantasy universe; everything in it swirled around Jack Munn, gravitationally attracted to his ego. He himself couldn't quite wrap his mind around such colossal self- interest. Brandon's attention had always been on other people in his world: how they spoke and sat, what they desired, where their interests and fears lay. He was the first to admit his own imperfections, and the last to trumpet his own successes. Brandon therefore became a student of Jack, the likes of whom he had never met, and he studied his subject in horrified fascination. How Jack could live his life as he did, how he could act in such extreme self-regard, was difficult for Brandon to grasp. Oh, it wasn't hard to see why Jack thought of himself as handsome. Women even seemed to agree there was something to his looks, at least until he opened his mouth. Jack was tall, and Brandon was not; Jack had a disarming, crooked who me? smile, and Brandon's grin was all chipmunk cheeks. Jack had an angular, Slavic look to his face that had an air of sullen indifference, and icy blue eyes to match; brown hair parted in the center and always attractively uncombed. Brandon's own features were ordinary, his eyes flat and gray, his thick, wavy Scottish hair unruly when short, unmanageable when long. On the other hand, for whatever disadvantages Brandon had in looks, he had perception. He could see where Jack's handles were. Jack could be motivated reliably by three subjects: cars, money, and girls. "Nope," Jack was saying, tossing back the last of his Miller and setting it aside on the end table. "Nope, you won't catch me being turned into a chick." "Come on, a chick, so what?" Brandon asked. "Big deal. Only for a couple of weeks, or something. It's an experiment. Being a chick for a couple of weeks, that's worth five hundred bucks." Jack hesitated, and Brandon knew that he was winning the argument. His roommate certainly needed the cash; he was always very vocal about how broke he was. Money would win out over girls. One more push in the right direction could do it. "Probably. I could always go next year," Jack said, wavering. "I want to enjoy my summer. Lindsey would kill me if I got turned into a girl right before summer vacation." He arched his eyebrows in an impish manner. "We're getting together this summer, if you know what I mean. She's gonna want all of Jack." "Maybe," Brandon said slyly. "Who knows? She might like to try it out, with you as a girl. It's hard to say with Lindsey ? remember how she kissed Andrea Newton at the Comstock Street Tavern? And she didn't even know Andrea's name when they went to kiss." "Yeah," Jack said, with a grudging smile. He leaned back on their second-hand leather sofa, which rocked on its three uneven legs and one brick. Jack ran his fingers through his hair once, then left his arm draped, relaxed, atop his head. His other hand fell familiarly into the crotch of his black denim jeans. "I remember I told 'em to kiss again so I could get a picture of it. Andrea's boyfriend Robert was going crazy." "Did your picture come out?" Brandon grinned. "Sadly, no," Jack said. "But it was hot. Maybe Lindsey wouldn't care that much if I got turned into a girl. As long as it wasn't for very long," he added, as if to reassure himself that she prized his masculinity as much as he did himself. "All right, are we good to go, then?" Brandon insisted. "Sure, sure. What're you so interested in this experiment for anyway?" Jack asked. He scratched behind the neck of his t-shirt absently, reached for his can of Miller, found it empty, and tossed it in the direction of the kitchen. "You seem really eager to rush off to the Psycho Scientist department and get your cock zapped off. Something you want to tell me?" "Just curious, that's all," Brandon said with an embarrassed cough. He turned in his chair to see that Jack had completely missed the cardboard box they were using to collect recyclables. "It's not like it's permanent. I just want to find out what it's like. And five hundred dollars," he reminded Jack. "You don't need the money. You have a full ride scholarship," Jack pointed out. "Your parents are paying for everything else. What do you need that five hundred bucks for?" He leaned forward again, and the sofa's front corner came thumping gently down on its improvised brick leg. "I keep thinking, what do you get out of it? You want to be a girl, Brandon?" "I'd like to try it," Brandon admitted. "Wouldn't you? You've got to at least be curious what it'd be like to have a pair of tits." "If I get turned into girl," Jack drawled, "I'll have to have great tits. They've gotta be great to play with ? well, I know Lindsey seems to like hers," he added with a roguish smirk. "Jeez, rub it in," Brandon laughed. "I don't have a girlfriend, yes, I know. Never really hit it off with the ladies, and all that." "You've never had a girlfriend?" "Well. Not for a while. I've had a couple girlfriends, yeah, but ? you know, I just figure I'd learn a lot by walking a mile in a woman's shoes. I hear some girls really go for a guy if he's tried seeing things from their side." "If you say so," Jack said lazily, scratching his belly through his t- shirt. "Me, I hear girls prefer to have a guy that's all man." "And you'd know?" Brandon said, grinning again. Jack laughed ruefully at the jibe. "Get me another beer," he said. "I'ma throw it at you." The next day was Friday, the last Friday in June before the end of the school year. All the seniors would be graduating, or at least all those who remained. Brandon envied them, thinking of the three years he had remaining. Jack, one year ahead of him, had only two. They walked down together to the biotechnical research department in the early afternoon. It was the only free moment they had at the same time, a two-hour break after English Composition, which Brandon was required to take, and Jack's course in Philosophy at four. Brandon had been expecting the building to be more sinister, more befitting a mad scientist with Ripley's reputation: towers, perhaps, backlit by an ominous lightning storm; or a dark, stained concrete building with flickering mercury vapor lights and a creeping fog. Instead, it was just Building 34, the very building he had walked past every day throughout his freshman year. It was three stories tall, with angled white girders and a glass fascia. A bill-bedecked kiosk was posted outside. Wide sidewalks approached the pair of automated front doors in gentle curves. Landscaped shrubbery lined the paths. The discrepancy had also apparently caught the attention of Jack, it seemed. "A mad scientist's lair," Jack announced, pointing a finger, "should not have bicycle racks." "Or handicapped access ramps," Brandon said, smiling. Professor Ripley's research laboratory was on the third floor, with a good view of the surrounding campus. From the windows of the third-floor commons they could see the Horticulture building, the daycare, and one wing of the Quantitative Studies complex. Brandon sat on one of the upholstered benches and filled out his research volunteer application carefully, while Jack stood at the information desk with his own application and flirted with the student receptionist. "Are you done?" she asked, as Brandon brought up his form. "I'll just enter in your data. Professor Ripley will be happy to see some new test subjects. Our traffic trails off quite a bit as we approach graduation. Students want to have their summer to themselves." "I'll bet," Jack said dryly, stealing a look down the receptionist's shirt. "Hey, what's your name, cutie?" "Jessica," she said with a knowing smile. She typed at the terminal, recording Brandon's demographics. "Although you might be a bit cleverer to flirt with me after the experiment." "Oh, I will," said Jack suavely. "If you can," Jessica said, and added, "cutie." Jack didn't have an answer for that. "Let me buzz back to see if Professor Ripley is free," Jessica said, reaching for her phone. "He doesn't have any subjects with him, I don't think, but he might be working on something. Have a seat, and I'll let you know when he's ready for you." Jack and Brandon left the counter uneasily. "Don't worry about it," Brandon assured Jack. "Come on. Five hundred dollars. And it's only for a few months." "You said it was a couple of weeks before," Jack said, trying to sound brave. "I've heard all kinds of things," Brandon said offhandedly. "Nothing permanent, but you know ? it depends on the experiment he's running." "What did she mean, if you can?" "Oh ? in case you get changed, I'll bet. Maybe she doesn't swing that way." "Or maybe she does," Jack said, arching his eyebrows again. Brandon rolled his eyes. "Look at you. You've already got a girlfriend, and you're trying to put another one on the string. Keep your mind on Lindsey. Think of her kissing Andrea Newton. That's going to be you, okay?" "Yeah, Lindsey," Jack said, suddenly solemn. "Right." Brandon gave Jack a friendly punch on the shoulder. "Look, dude, I know how you feel. We're both about to get experimented on, probably end up girls for a couple weeks. It's okay, I'm doing it too. Relax. I'm just as nervous as you are. Just keep saying to yourself five hundred bucks." "Five hundred bucks," Jack repeated. The sunlight coming through the glass fascia was tinted, but it made his face look pale and gray. "Brandon Booth and Thomas J Munn?" the receptionist called out across the empty commons. "Come with me, please." She led the two students further into the research wing. There were fewer windows here, and the halls were filled with the hum of equipment. "Thomas J?" Brandon quipped. "I didn't know that." "My dad's name was Thomas John Munn also," Jack mumbled. "All my life, my parents called me Jack, to keep us separate." "Ah." "Right here," Jessica said, stopping at a door marked 311. She opened the door and held it for them. "Go right on inside. He's ready for you." They entered the research lab. Brandon's first impression was that a science-fiction movie had been or would soon be filmed here, for every corner of the laboratory was filled with computers, screens, silver and neon tubing, wires, satellite dishes, prismatic arrays, and other unidentifiable gadgetry. Beneath the madness there was clearly method: cables were bundled together nearly with zip ties, every cable appeared to be color-coded and labeled in neat block printing, and there were index cards and instructions posted by every station. Experimental machines seemed carefully segregated from one another, kept apart by demarcations of colored tape on the floor. BIOSCANNER ARRAY OFFSET 1.2, 0.5, said one index card beside a workstation that overlooked a raised white platform. Another card near a pair of human-sized gray plastic isolation booths read LAST MAINTNC 5/2005. Professor Ripley himself was nothing like the Frankensteinian nightmare that Brandon had imagined. He was an unremarkable man of medium height, with sensible athletic shoes and a pressed white lab coat. Ripley's hair was pulled to one side in a no-nonsense part and held down with hair gel. The man wore small round glasses with silver rims, and he was meticulously clean shaven. "Welcome, welcome," Professor Ripley said, waggling one hand in invitation to enter. "Please, come in. It's good to see new students. I presume that Ms North gave you the full disclosure agreement ? yes," he said slowly, reviewing his computer screen. "Excellent. Very good. Now: for the briefing. I have my speech here somewhere. It's important, you see, that everybody gets the same . . . introduction? Oration? Spiel? That I frame the experiment in the same way for all of the subjects. Lecture ? that's the word. Everyone gets the same lecture. We are going to begin the first round of an experiment in conjunction with the Psychology department, and as such, it's vital to keep the test results uncontaminated by individual variations. Ah, here's the speech." Jack and Brandon exchanged a bemused look as Professor Ripley unsnapped a plastic-enclosed printout from within a three-ring binder. "Before I begin the speech," Ripley said, reading aloud from his document, "I am to put both of you in the isolation booths. Isolation is crucial for the results of this experiment," he said. "And I underlined it, so it's important. If you, Mr Booth, would like to step into this booth here. The door opens out, of course. You'll find a seat inside. It's fairly uncomfortable, I admit. Dr Kessler assures me this is part of the psychological aspect of the presentation, but you shan't be in there for too long." Brandon entered the isolation booth as directed and found that the bench was indeed only thinly padded. Inside the tiny room there would barely be enough room for two people, if one remained standing and the other took the corner bench. The hum of equipment was much louder in here. Jack was directed to the booth beside him. "What was that, Mr Munn?" the professor asked, looking toward Jack's booth. "Ah, that. It is for internal use only. That audio channel has been disabled. Mr Booth has an identical one in his room." Brandon noticed the card for the first time, a placard reading CHANNEL 2 DISABLED, right above a speaker grille. "It merely indicates that communication between the two booths is inactive," Ripley explained. "The two of you should be entirely unable to see or hear the other once the doors are closed. Ah, I see that's number two on my list. Excuse me while I seal these doors. It will not be for long. I trust you gentlemen do not have any difficulty with claustrophobia." Ripley heaved the weighty door shut, and the rubber seals around the edge of the door closed upon the jamb. There was a distant metallic thump and a tiny hiss of pressure. The hum seemed louder than ever. After a moment, the speaker grille crackled, and Professor Ripley's voice came through. "Now: you will observe that on the obverse side of the door, there is a button. It is a lighted mechanism, and once you have depressed it ? please do not do so now, not yet, the mechanism must be activated from the outside first. As I say, once you have activated it, it will become illuminated. No, Mr Munn, I did say not to depress the button yet. First I must explain to you what it does. "This psychology experiment," Professor Ripley explained, "is known as the Prisoner's Dilemma. Once the experiment begins you will see your button illuminate once per second for five seconds, to inform you the experiment has begun. You will then have ten minutes to decide whether or not to depress the switch. During this ten minutes, as you are completely isolated from your partner in the opposite booth, you will have no apprehension whether your partner has already depressed his switch, or whether he plans to, or to coordinate efforts between you. To this end, you will discover that the Faraday cages installed in each isolation booth make it impossible to send or receive electronic data signals. Cellular phones and wireless networks, I'm afraid, would invalidate the results of the test. "Only after the ten minutes are up will you discover whether your partner pushed his switch. You will discover this primarily because at that time, after the time has elapsed, the biomorphic reorganizers will carry out their commands according to the following schedule. "In the first case, designated Cooperative Outcome A, neither of you push the button before you," Professor Ripley explained, his voice sounding tinny in the hidden speaker, "in which event, both of you will find your gender has reversed. This is a light reversal, hardly noticeable to the casual observer; your body's sex will change but your features will become androgynous. Your secondary sexual characteristics will not be pronounced. You will, if you choose, be able to carry on your life as before (except in the event of extensive facial hair," the professor added parenthetically, deviating from his prepared remarks, "which neither of you appear to have). Only by your close friends, or under careful inspection, will you be recognized as your new gender. This change will last for six months." Six months? Brandon thought to himself. Holy shit, I thought we were talking weeks, not months. "If both of you push your buttons," Ripley continued reading, "then again, both of you will have your genders reversed. In this second case, designated Cooperative Outcome B, your change will be more pronounced. Secondary sexual characteristics will be enhanced. You will be subject to suitable adaptations in height, musculature, sexual orientation, and other changes. These changes will be difficult, if not impossible, to disguise. Any casual observer will say without hesitation that you are definitely this new gender. This change will last for four times longer: twenty-four months, or two years." "Two years?" Brandon yelped. "Jesus, nobody said two years!" Ripley continued as if he hadn't heard. "The last case is where one of you presses his button, and the other does not. In this final case, such an action is labeled in the clinical documentation as Betrayal Outcome. The one who fails to depress his button will find his gender reversed quite strongly. Secondary sexual characteristics will be extremely pronounced; sexual orientation and desires will be strongly aligned with the new gender. These changes will be quite impossible to disguise, as they include extensive behavioral modification as well as significant biomorphic reorganization. This change will last four times as long: ninety-six months, or eight years." By this time Brandon found himself pounding on the door. He only hoped that Jack had the sense to do the same. Experiencing a female perspective for a few weeks was a lark, an experiment ? no, not an experiment, get that thought of your mind, he told himself ? a whim, an impulse. Eight years was . . . well, it was the remainder of his college career for a start, and five years beyond that. Eight years in a souped- up high-performance hyperfeminine body? That was about seven years and fifty weeks too long. "Ripley, you bastard, let me out!" Brandon shouted, hitting the inside of the sealed door with his fist. "?who does depress his button will be rewarded with enhanced biophysical characteristics suitable for his present gender," Ripley's voice went on. "In the case of a female subject . . . no, I can skip that part. In the case of a male subject, yes, here I go. In the case of a male subject, the Betraying individual is rewarded with additional height, hand-eye coordination, musculature, looks, charisma, and secondary sexual characteristics, including . . . ahem. Well, I believe precise details are unnecessary here, I'll probably modify this part of the introduction at some point. The change . . . revision . . . where am I? The enhancement, yes, here's the paragraph, in this case will last only one quarter of the shortest duration, only for six weeks. Yes?" There was a pause from the speaker. Brandon paused in his frantic pounding, hoping that perhaps Ripley had heard his cries. But Ripley must have been talking to himself, or to his receptionist, because after a moment, the professor's voice sounded again. "All right, gentlemen, you will see the lights on your door begin to flash. After a five-second count, the mechanisms will be activated and the ten minutes will begin. To restate your choices: six weeks enhancement if you betray your partner, eight years strong reversal if he betrays you; six months light reversal if neither of you betrays the other; two years medium reversal if both of you betray the other. Please consider your options carefully. "The ten minute testing period has begun." Brandon watched the illuminated button flicker red for the final time and then fade to white. Professor Ripley hadn't heard him. He was stuck in this room for the duration of the experiment, and ? and depending on what Jack did in his both, he might be stuck for quite a bit longer than that. Eight years? He hoped not. Eight years was far more than he had been expecting. "Jack, you asshole," Brandon said, gritting his teeth. "I should push this button right now, just to show you. I just know you're going to betray me. You didn't want to do this, I made you do it, I just know you're going to push your button and walk away. If I hit my button, here, you'll end up just as femmed as me." Jack, of course, could not hear a word of Brandon's irritated soliloquy. Brandon stared at the white button. "I hope Lindsey really likes you as a girl," he muttered. "Because if I push this button?" He hesitated. "He'll could end up a girl even if I don't push the button." Brandon put his face in his hands. A sentence stretched out before him, a sentence that ranged from weeks to years, a sentence over which he had no control. "Jack knows that Lindsey likes to kiss girls," he said slowly, setting one argument before him. "That's how I convinced Jack in the first place. He seemed to get off on the idea. Hell, why wouldn't he? Lindsey's a bit bi-curious, that's a fact. And if Jack ends up a girl for a few months, is she going to care? He'd probably have fun like that. I know she would. "And I told Jack I only wanted to try this for a few weeks," Brandon went on, speaking aloud in the booth. For a moment it occurred to him to wonder if his ramblings were being recorded by the meticulous professor, but he dismissed it. He preferred to think aloud, and there wasn't anything he could do about it, even if Ripley were listening in. "So Jack knows," he said more loudly, carrying on, "he knows that I only wanted a few weeks. And the only way to give us both what we want is for him to leave his button alone. So I should leave mine alone too." Brandon took a deep breath. "Okay. I leave it alone. I'm fine. As long as?" He stopped in mid-thought, repelled, and backed away from the mental abyss. "As long as Jack doesn't push his button," he explained to himself, "and he has no reason to, then I'm fine. We both get turned a little bit female, only for . . . what, six months? That's nothing. Nothing. I could do that, easy. That's what I wanted all along, I told that to Jack last night." Again came the unwelcome thought. "Jack knows I won't push my button," Brandon realized. "He knows I won't, because I wanted to try being a woman. For a few weeks only, remember," he said sternly, as if Jack could hear. "And if I push my button, there's a chance I won't end up being able to try it. There's a chance I'd end up being some super- buffed masculine dude. That'd be okay, I guess, but that's not what I came here for. So Jack knows I won't betray him. So he has no reason to betray me. We'd both get what we want." He stared at the white button. It was the longest ten minutes of his life. Brandon had only a vague idea when the experiment had started, but even so, he checked the time obsessively on his cellular phone. Every time the minutes digit ticked over, he expected the hum of the equipment to begin to rise. True to the doctor's word, his phone received no signal in the confines of the confinement booth, but Brandon felt he had to try. If he could just get a text to Jack and explain the situation, to coordinate his efforts? Zero bars, his phone said. Searching for signal. He inspected every inch of the booth. There was nothing to help him. The walls were solid and seamless, the triangular bench was affixed in the corner. In the center of the door, the white button watched him blindly. Would it glow red, as it had before, if Brandon pushed it? Was Jack's button glowing red this very moment? Was there any way to know? Brandon climbed onto the bench. There were no handholds, so he braced himself with his palms against the smooth walls of the booth. His head came up a few inches below a metallic grating set into the ceiling. The hum was louder up here. It might be a way out, he thought to himself. If I could just get this grating down, maybe there's an emergency exit. Like in the movies. A vent, or something. As he was reaching up for the grate with one hand, pressing in as tightly as he could with the fingertips of his other hand, he heard a click nearby, and a deep drone as if some giant toy were being wound up. The ten minutes must be almost over, he thought. Better hurry? He suddenly felt the strange sensation that he had been clubbed by the world's largest pillow. Brandon's vision went momentarily dark, and he felt a dull racing in the back of his brain as a number of competing sensations queued up for his attention. Something had happened, something so fast that it hadn't registered, and now his mind was trying to sort through the aftermath. Had there been a light? Perhaps. Was there a burning sensation? Yes, but the urgency of it was already fading. A noise, a hum? Brandon thought so ? yes, it was cycling down now. Brandon blinked stupidly in the turbulent wake, and tried to remember what she'd been doing. She looked up at the grate above her head, and reached up for it with one tiny hand. It had moved up out of reach. She stood desperately on tiptoe, pushing her rounded body against the wall of the booth, trying to remember when it had suddenly grown so tall. Below and behind her, the professor's voice cut through the mental static, re-orienting her on reality. "The ten minutes is up," Ripley announced, "as you both have probably guessed." Oh, Brandon thought, shaking off the disorientation. It's over. Don't need to escape now. What had Jack done? she wondered, and cast her gaze downward. Oh, shit. "Dude," she said, hearing the sound of her feminine voice. "Dude, I'm a girl!" Maybe this is the light version, she thought, but it was a vain and desperate hope: this was no androgynous, almost-but-not-really-male form. Brandon's body was female with a capital F. Two capital Fs, perhaps. Her breasts rounded out the fabric of her two-tone cotton shirt, untucking the hem from the waistband of her jeans, and popping open two buttons at the bustline. Her Wranglers had fallen from her waist and caught on her accentuated hips, and the trouser legs gathered awkwardly around her feet. She was definitely shorter now. Brandon reached down and felt her legs; her thighs and calves were very different. She tried to roll up her cuffs to keep them from entangling her feet. Long hair, chestnut brown just like Brandon's own untamed Scottish hair but wavier and more lustrous, hung down around her eyes and ears. She brushed it back irritably, trying to see her cuffs clearly, but her hair fell to gravity's call. "Damn it!" A sudden suction in the booth alerted her to the opening of the door. Professor Ripley stood there with a clipboard and a look of detached interest. Jack? Jack looked amazing. "Oh my God," Brandon said, staring at Jack's enhanced physique. "Oh my God, you look incredible!" "So do you," Jack said with a smirk. Jack hadn't ever been particularly attractive to Brandon ? oh, he realized that Jack had had a certain roguish quality to his face, a certain lanky swagger that the ladies seemed to like, but now from Brandon's newly altered perspective, Jack had the appearance of a god. He towered over her by a good ten inches, and each of his arms was the size of Brandon's thigh. Jack's Slavic features had been perfected, giving him a more chiseled look, like Ivan Drago with Jack's center- parted brown hair. She found herself wondering if the little balding spot he had on the dome of his skull had been fixed too. What else had been enhanced about Jack, her brain asked her treacherously, and she thrust that thought aside. Thrust, her brain told her wryly. Bad choice of words? "You pushed your button, didn't you?" Brandon demanded. "Yeah," Jack said. That crooked smirk that she had found so annoying was suddenly so endearing, and she couldn't explain exactly why. Jack was immense, a great hunk of muscle and a jaw made of stone, Brandon was tiny and soft and round and peculiarly helpless before him. Somehow, strangely, something in her mind found that shift of power and perspective perfectly acceptable . . . "I believe I have everything I need, gentlemen," Professor Ripley said politely. "Now, I have two other students waiting to participate in this study, so if you would care to exit. Unless you have further questions?" That caused Brandon to drag her eyes away from Jack's improved physique and onto the professor. "Further questions, hell yes I have further questions," she said. Her new feminine voice quavered, and she tried to steady it. "How long does this last again?" "Eight years," Ripley said, a trifle reproachfully. "I'm sure that was on the card. Yes, and it's on the disclaimer that you signed as well." "Eight years like this?" Brandon said, her temper rising. "It's okay, Brandy," Jack said, putting one arm around her shoulder consolingly. "We'll just come back in another time and get you all reversed up. No problem. Tomorrow, maybe," he suggested with a wink. She thought for an instant about shaking off that arm, but decided for some reason to let him keep it there. It was heavy and warm, and it gave her a sense of protection. Jack wanted her, she thought, and shivered. But her active brain had picked out a word that she could not dismiss. Aloud she asked, with a sardonic lilt to her voice, "Brandy?" "Sure. Brandy. Works for me," Jack said offhandedly. "You're definitely not a Brandon anymore." "I'm still Brandon," Brandy said, though she sounded much more faint and submissive than she'd intended. "Sure you are," Jack said. She found his deep voice as hypnotic as she found his condescending tone repellent. "You can be Brandon again tomorrow, maybe. Or Monday. You might want to stay like this all weekend." His big hand dropped down to pat her rear. "I'm afraid that multiple trips through the bioreorganizer are definitely contraindicated," Professor Ripley explained, ignoring Brandy's look of surprise. "The interference effect from two conflicting morphic directives are, shall we say, chaotic." "Chaotic? Really?" Brandy tried to ignore the feeling of Jack's hand on her ass. "What do you mean, chaotic?" Ripley was unperturbed. "It is difficult to predict the outcome. It is not a recommended procedure." "Not a recommended procedure," Brandy repeated, becoming annoyed. Here she was, female, and Jack the Adonis was suggesting the most awful, tempting things. She felt her fear rising. She couldn't stay like this, there was no telling what she might do. In her sudden terror and annoyance, she grabbed at her prodigious breasts, and said, "Oh yeah? Is this a recommended procedure?" "Believe me," Ripley said delicately, "repeated use of the bioreorganizer is strictly on an experimental basis. The best-case scenario, I'm afraid, is that you are affixed permanently in your existing form." Brandy's jaw dropped, and she stared at the professor, her tiny hands still cupped futilely around her breasts. "Permanent?" "Best-case scenario, yes. Research is continuing, of course, but clinical trials are not yet open to the general public," the professor noted. His eyes wandered to one side as he contemplated Brandy's eight- year sentence as if it were no more than a minor detail. "Yes. One day we will attempt to interrupt an ongoing transmutation, but only when we understand the consequences better. So, I would recommend allowing the procedure to wear off in its allotted time. Naturally, if there are any breakthroughs?" "Fine," Brandy said, disgusted. "So I'm titted up for the duration. Eight years." "Sorry," Jack said, although he didn't sound very sorry. The professor adjusted his glasses, apparently unworried at Brandy's prospects for the better part of the next decade. "So, as I said," Ripley carried on, "there are other students waiting to participate in the experiment. If you would care to inspect ? examine ? you know, look around the general vicinity, gather up all of your personal belongings, I must ask you to excuse yourselves at this time." Later that evening, after Jack's class, they were together in their dormitory. Jack was sitting backward on the kitchen chair, draping his arms over the back, holding a bottle of beer idly in one large hand. Brandy was seated on the leather sofa, wearing her suddenly oversized clothing. Nothing fit, not in the way it was meant to. She couldn't help picking at her jeans, trying to smooth out the wrinkles, or plucking at her shirt to make it lay properly. Her large breasts kept moving around beneath her shirt. Jack tried again with the same line that had never failed him before with women: compliments. "I keep telling you, you look great. Better than great. You might get to like this." "I thought for sure you wouldn't push the button," Brandy said with a sigh. She rubbed one thigh absently. For some strange reason, she felt that she wanted Jack to put his arm around her again, but she couldn't say it aloud ? he might actually do it. Jack took a swig of his beer. "Nope, not me. I couldn't do it. Six months as a girl. No, I just couldn't." "You don't seem terribly sorry that it happened to me." "You're you," Jack shrugged. "Besides, looks good on you. Me, I was counting on getting to live in the fraternity house next school year. What would happen if I turned up with tits? I wouldn't get in." "Tits like these?" Brandy asked archly, straightening her back and thrusting them forward. Thrust, her brain said, there's that word again. What's on your mind, girl? Nothing! she told herself. Nothing at all. Jack watched as the motion made interesting shifts in her anatomy. "They'd let you in." "Why would I want to live in a frat house, looking like this?" Jack gave her a naughty grin. Brandy felt a secret thrill, knowing immediately what he was imagining, and then a wave of shame for thinking it herself. Whatever that machine had done to her, it was extremely difficult to shake off. All her male thoughts seemed to spiral off into new, unwanted directions. She was fortunate. Whatever had prompted Jack's grin, this time he was mature enough not to let his dirty mind speak for him. Instead, he returned to himself, his own favorite conversation topic. "Eh, that might work for you. Me, I couldn't do it. I don't know if I'd want to be let in, not on that basis, anyhow." "What about Lindsey?" she asked. "Didn't we talk last night about how much Lindsey might like it if you were a girl for a while? You even said it this morning. Hot bisexual action, you said. That was going to be you." "Yeah, we talked about that," Jack said. His eyes took on the distant look that suggested to Brandy he was about to reorder his Jackcentric universe in new and exciting ways. Whatever he said next, she decided, would probably not be wholly true. Jack finally spoke, saying, "So I texted her this morning, and it turns out she wasn't all that wild about me going in there." "Really?" Brandy asked. "You should've told me she wanted you to call it off. I might not have gone in there." At least not with you, she added silently to herself. "I'm glad you did," Jack said. His eyes dropped to her breasts for the hundredth time. "Gee, thanks," she said, flashing him a sarcastic smile. "You're pretty when you smile like that," Jack said reassuringly. He unfolded his unfamiliar, hypermasculine body from the chair and headed toward the kitchen. "Can I get you anything? Beer?" "Beer, yeah. Do we have any of that IPA?" "I think so." He rattled around in the refrigerator to the clink of glass, and came back in with a bottle for Brandy. "It's hard to believe," Brandy said, grimacing as she wrapped her delicate hand around the bottle top. The ridged edges pinched her skin as she tried to twist it. "I thought she would've been all over you. Isn't she into girls too? The way she kissed Andrea, I was pretty sure." "Oh, I think she is," Jack said. He reached for Brandy's bottle, taking it from her unresisting hands, and twisted off the top effortlessly for her. "Oh yeah, Lindsey loves girls. Definitely bisexual. See, the thing is, she just didn't want me going there without her. She's always making stupid rules like that. Lindsey wanted to do the experiment with me, and I said I was going to go no matter what. She texted and said I was being a stubborn ass, and she said I was being rebellious for no good reason. That's why you love me, I texted, but she didn't answer that, and finally I said I was going and that's that. If she couldn't let me live my life, then we might as well not be together. And she said fine, then let's not be together. So I dumped her." Jack took a drink of his own freshly opened bottle. Brandy felt a sudden welling of sympathetic emotion for her roommate, and her heart went out to him. She couldn't help it; it just did. Jack and Lindsey had been together for almost the entire school year. "Why didn't you tell me it was over between you?" she asked, concerned. "Never really came up." Jack shrugged. "I told you just now, anyway." She frowned, trying to recall what she'd said about Andrea in the commons. Hadn't Jack been flirting with Jessica, the student receptionist? Suddenly that made sense to her, it was illuminated in a way for her female brain that Brandy was certain would have escaped her notice before. "So it's over between you?" she asked again. "Yeah, pretty much," Jack said, and gave Brandy an inquiring look. "Why do you ask?" Brandy started to answer, stopped, and finally replied, "Oh, just curious." What she had wanted to say, but hadn't: good.