MAU: Painting The Town Pink -- Part 8 - Regeneration At The Cuckoo's Nest free porn video

Room 132 was a spartan box filled by four beds separated by thin curtains, and the required medical support equipment. Three of the beds were occupied. I recognized Hutchison in the bed furthest from the small window. He had withered since I'd seen him last, the flesh wasting from his bones under the stress of his body's final fight for survival. He was unconscious, his breath coming in shallow heaves. A heart monitor made a desultory beeping beside his bed. I scanned the room, taking a deep breath. The smell of disinfectant and deodorant filled my nose; and under it, masked but unmistakable, decay and slow death. There was no camera monitoring the room. It didn't surprise me. It would cost Kaiser money to install cameras, and money to pay the people who were supposed to monitor the cameras, and it wasn't required by law. No sense drawing down the profit margin. I'd been feeling it since I got here. This place was rotten, a product of the combination of greed and human fragility. I wondered that patients didn't flee after their first sight of the inside, provided they were still able. Perhaps it was different for me, something about the way I could sense the things close to me inside my head, or maybe even a result of my new gender. Or maybe it was a memory; Dad had taken me to visit his father, my grandfather, on his death bed in a place similar to this, and the sight of him on that bed had stuck in my mind with quiet horror. Whatever the case, I could do something about it. I drew a syringe out of my front pocket and stabbed it in into my arm, feeling nothing through the pain dampening but a foreign presence penetrating my flesh. It ended in a grating sensation. A little too deep; I'd hit the bone. I pulled the needle back out a little, drew back the plunger to fill the syringe with blood. I stood looking at Hutchison for a beat before I stuck the needle into his abdomen. Congratulations old timer. You've won the cosmic lottery. This ought to make up for a few afternoon aggravations, and maybe even for laying helpless on the floor for a day and night. I waited just long enough to see that it was working, to see his flesh begin to tighten and fill out as his body ate into the bed beneath him for raw material, before drawing another syringe full for the next patient. I figured I had little time. The heart monitor was suddenly going crazy, and if anyone was bothering to keep an eye on it back in the nurse's station they would call for help soon. At that point I noticed what the woman in the bed across from us was doing. She was morbidly obese, propped up and supported in the bed on stacks of pillows. She was also frantically poking her 'call nurse' button with one sausage-like finger, her eyes wide in fright as she stared at me. "Relax Ma'am," I said, walking over to her. "This won't hurt a bit." She shook her head frantically, waving her stubby arms at me. "Get away from me, you maniac!" I injected her in her left leg, next to an oozing dressing, and moved on to the next bed without waiting to see the results. It held a middle aged man, his head and face covered with bandages. Burns, it looked like. As soon as I was finished with him I repocketed the syringe walked quickly back out into the hallway. A brief glance at Hutchison in passing revealed a handsome man almost unrecognizable as the old codger I was familiar with. He was starting to wake up, blinking in confusion at his surroundings. I didn't have the time to reassure him, though. Once in the hallway, I walked sedately toward the nurse's station, trying to blend in with my surroundings. At the same time I gave the mental commands with would cause my skin to darken to a deeper hue and change my facial structure. I had designed this face so that a change in skin color and slight shift in features would make me almost unrecognizable to someone who saw me as I looked now. I hoped. I still had to do something about the costume, though. First one, then a second nurse rushed past me. So far so good. I walked by the group I'd come in with, slowed as I came within view of the nurse's station. I could see one person still watching the monitors. Hmm. It looked like I'd need to create a bigger distraction. I checked the rooms I was passing, looking in through the windows, until I found one which appeared unoccupied save for an unconscious elderly patient, then ducked inside and injected the man. I also pushed the his call button for good measure. At first the added alarm seemed to have no effect on the nurse remaining at her station, however as I drew level with her behind her desk it finally worked. She stood up, giving me a brief glance before going up the hall to the room I'd just been in. Well that had been easy. Too easy? I went inside the nurses station, walking past the monitors into the storage section at the back. There were shelves of medical supplies and various personal odds and ends of the people on duty. First thing was camouflage. I selected a set of too large green surgical scrubs and pulled them on over my clothes. When I glanced in the small mirror in the corner I felt the by now almost familiar sensation of looking at a stranger - and a woman - when I looked in a mirror. I noted with approval that I my face now looked very different than when I'd come into the hospital. No one should connect this slightly pudgy black woman with the bland faced latino I'd appeared to be then. Which was good. I might need that face again to get back out. It was true that the fat woman in Hutchison's room had got a good look at me, but I was counting on no one listening too closely to her in the chaos which I intended to sow. I pulled one of those funny looking hospital caps over my now-curly hair and nodded approvingly at my image in the mirror. I would pass for a nurse at first glance, which should be all I needed. Reinforcements would arrive momentarily. Did I want anything else from in here? I scanned the room quickly. The only thing which jumped out at me was a big box of syringes. They might come in useful in the future. I upended the box into a convenient white canvas tote sack from a nearby shelf, slung the sack over my shoulder, and went back out into the corridor. NOW I could run without fear of being accosted. I did, back down the hall, past the elevator I'd come up, until I reached the far end of the building. My plan was to start here, as far as possible from the disturbance I'd already created. I began going from room to room, keeping my head down when I passed a staff member, crisscrossing the floor corridor by corridor, checking every bed for occupants, and injecting those occupants with my blood where I found them. Wearing the scrubs helped a lot. Most of the patients who were sufficiently alert and awake to pay any attention took me for a nurse for long enough so I could get close and stick them with a syringe. There were a few frantic scuffles, and once a middle aged man slugged me in the jaw hard enough to make me see stars for the few seconds that it took to regenerate the damage, but on the whole I had little trouble. It helped that once I got my blood into someone they were usually distracted, in fact almost trance like for a little while, so I didn't have to fight to get away. After I'd done about the fifteenth person I noticed something strange. I had a feeling almost of hunger, but somehow different. It was like my body was crying out for substance. As soon as I paid attention the feeling redoubled, and I realized what it was. I was losing blood with each person I healed, blood which I almost instantly regenerated. But that mass couldn't come from nothing. My body was warning me that if I didn't do something soon it would start to absorb the things touching me; things which included my clothes and shoes. I put my hand on the wall of the empty room I'd stepped into to be alone, and concentrated. Slowly at first, then faster, my hand sank into the drywall as my body absorbed needed mass. I could feel warmth flowing up my arm. When it felt like I had taken enough I pulled my arm out of the wall, leaving behind an irregular enlarged hand print about eight inches deep. The edges looked as though they had been eaten out with acid. It crossed my mind that I would pay good money to get a look at the investigative report and theories the authorities came up with after they had a chance to examine this place. I'd expected and had thus far seen a negative reaction from people, but four or five patients later I saw my first positive one. I was in another of the larger rooms with four beds and had done three of the occupants, when I paused for a moment to watch the last I'd done. Like the woman in Hutchison's room he was quite obese, and I was curious to see how my blood would handle the problem. I was standing beside the forth bed, which held an extremely old and apparently sleeping woman. The fat man was shrinking rapidly, and at first I couldn't see where the extra matter was going. Then I saw that sweat was literally running of his flesh in streams, saw the dampness creeping over the bed from underneath him. The alien magic was breaking down the useless flab into it's basic components - water and carbon with a few impurities. Well, that was one way to lose those extra pounds. I felt something encircle my wrist, and looked down in surprise to see that the old woman had grabbed it in her bony hand. She was looking at me with shrewd intelligence visible in her rheumy old eyes. She was most definitely not asleep. "Aren't you going to give me one of those shots too, dear?" she asked. Her voice was thick with mucus, but understandable. "Er, yes, sorry," I mumbled stupidly. I was rather surprised to have a patient do something other than try to get away from me or kill me. She watched unblinkingly as I drew a syringe full of blood out of my arm. I saw her eyes flick back to the man in the other bed as I held the syringe up. He was looking much younger, and was now down to an almost manageable size. Water was running off the bed onto the floor. "Mr. Jackson appears much the better for it," she said. "Will it help me so?" I nodded. "Well then," she croaked. Without hesitation she extended her arm to me and I slid the needle into one of the veins beneath her wrinkled skin. Or possibly it was a blood vessel. I really had to learn something about basic medicine when I got the time, I decided. She held the arm in front of her face, watching as the changes spread up it, the skin drawing taught and plumping out in a renewed flush of youth; her hands shifting, the fingers changing in cracks and pops from the distended bony talons of an old crone to the long slim fingers of a young woman. Her face was different already, now showing signs of the handsome woman she must have been in her youth rather than the shriveled up prune-like visage I'd first seen. She was now well into the part of healing where most people seemed to slip into a quasi trance, but her concentration showed no sign of wavering. Her gaze on my face was as bright as ever, brighter even, as her eyes cleared, and when I turned to leave she grabbed my arm again. "Anabel Butler is my name," she said, and her voice was beautiful now, beautiful and full of strength and a quality of assured confidence. "I've paid every debt I've incurred, come what may. I owe you a life. Remember." She squeezed my hand tightly before letting go. I stared at her for a long moment, then glanced at Mr. Jackson, who was struggling to sit up in his soggy bed while making incoherent choking noises. "Go on now, dear," said Anabel. "Help the other people here. But remember me if *you* ever need a helper." I spent a minute leaning against the wall outside the room after I left, getting my thoughts and feelings back in order. I don't think I realized until that moment the magnitude of what I was doing. These were people, individually more varied than snowflakes, as all people are; but old and experienced. They had already played out life's distractions and traps. What might they do with another whole lifetime in front of them, youth and strength tempered by the knowledge and wisdom of age? My progress slowed as I went on. A man had begun yelling over the PA system a few minutes ago, giving orders, and security forces started to appear in the halls, shepherding the little knots of suddenly young and very confused patients which were forming. Twice, staff members told me to go somewhere and do something. Fortunately they seemed to accept it when I nodded and went off in the direction they indicated. I ran into trouble shortly after that. I'd just gone into a private room containing an elderly man, and was standing beside his bed injecting a syringe full of my blood into his arm, when I heard the door open behind me and a loud voice barked, "Hold it!" I finished the injection before turning to face the security guard, a short balding man in a uniform holding a large revolver pointed at me. His eyes flicked from the empty syringe in my hand to the patient, who was moaning softly and arching his back as his body changed. The security guard back away slightly, keeping his eyes - and his gun - on me. "Don't move a muscle!" he shouted. He glanced very quickly at something off to the side, out of my line of sight. I frowned at him. "Nurse Fletcher!" he called. "I got our guy!" There was the sound of hurried approaching footsteps and a severe looking older woman with a wide flat face and a pageboy haircut appeared behind him. I mention her haircut because it was odd, pushing her nurse's cap up in the front almost like two horns. Her eyes swept over the room slowly, oblivious to the guards obvious nervousness, taking in every detail. I saw her gaze linger on the man in the bed for a long moment, watching as the years fell from his frame. "What now, Lou?" asked the guard. "Should I have her get down on the floor with her hands behind her head?" Nurse Fletcher looked me in the eye unwaveringly. Then, very deliberately, she pulled a long heavy barreled flashlight out of her hip pocket and clubbed the guard in the back of the head with it, at the same time sweeping her other hand up under the gun so that it pointed towards the ceiling as he fell. She caught him by the arms part way and eased him the rest of the way down, then knelt and plucked the gun from his fingers. "Why, you're just a girl," she said softly as she straightened up, holding the gun loosely in her left hand, barrel not quite pointed at me. "A black girl." She pointed at the empty syringe in my hand. "I'll take one of those." "What, a syringe?" I asked, grinning, and tossed it at her. She flinched slightly as it bounced off the front of her shirt. Her hand tightened on the gun and the barrel swung a fraction toward me. "No, not a syringe," she said. "One of what you just gave that man on the bed behind you. *Now.*" The last word was peremptory, a command, and that made me angry. I walked slowly toward her, let my grin spread wide, turn nasty. "You're welcome to take a shot, nurse. Take as many as you like. Won't do me any harm." I reached out and grasped the barrel of the gun. "You won't be getting what he got, though, till you've helped me do the rest of the patients in this hospital. And I'll take this." I ran my fingers down the gun barrel, stuck one in the end. I could see a look of suppressed anger cross her face. "What d'ya say, nurse Fletcher? Help me do what I came here to do smooth and easy and you get your youth and health back. Refuse and I'll shove this gun up your ass and pull the trigger." Her lips curled into a snarl. "Even if you aren't afraid of a bullet, you'll have a hard time getting out of the building if I pull this trigger and let everyone know where we are, girl." I took a step back, still holding the gun barrel, cocked my head on one side in mock surprise. "Do you *really* think so? Because *I* don't think it'll be that much of a problem. Why don't you try it. Pull the trigger." I waited a moment before I went on. "You have no power over me. No power but to make me retaliate if you try to harm me." I saw war in her bulging eyes, war between anger and greed, between the desire to dominate and the fear of old age and death. As I watched, fear won, and her face distorted into a false expression of good natured agreement. She slowly released her grip on the pistol, allowing me to take it and shove it in the waist of my jeans, under the scrubs. The barrel felt strange inside my pants, against my changed hip structure. One thing, I certainly didn't have to worry about shooting off my dick anymore. Her tone when she spoke was friendly and helpful, without a hint of the rage which I had briefly seen behind her mask. "As you say, miss." I nodded. I could tell she was dangerous, but she might be just what I needed to get this done right. And I had something she desperately wanted. I gave the security guard she had clubbed a shot of my blood before we moved on. If she was entertaining thoughts of taking what I had and giving me up at the first opportunity, I think they faded when she saw how I was doing it, and what the effects were on the people I helped. As time went on her attitude changed, and I could sense a new kind fear creeping out from under her carefully controlled mask. Fear of me. She was certainly useful, though. She took control of her people as they passed into her sphere of influence, steered me around the security forces, and even the police when they started to show up. It quickly became apparent how dumb an idea doing everyone in the hospital on my own was. Things quickly would have degenerated into a running firefight with the cops. And that's skipping the special wards, like the children and mental patients. It wasn't all Fletcher, of course - the general confusion and the speed with which we were progressing had a lot to do with it - but it would have been pretty much impossible without her. I was learning a lot in a very short time. The next time I did something like this I'd plan it out more carefully, know what to expect. The next time? Yes, it was already at the back of my mind that there would be a next time. Healing people like this had an addictive quality to it, no matter the obstacles. Ever since Anabel, I'd known I would do this again. In less time than I'd feared we were done. Every man, woman, and child in the building had been healed. According to Fletcher. It was getting hairy avoiding the cops, and I briefly considered that she might be lying to get finished faster, but decided not to pursue it. I'd had more luck today than I deserved, and if she thought it was time to go she was probably right. She led me out of the main hospital building, through an underground access which came up in a small structure close to the south edge of the parking lot, and handed me a change of clothes she had grabbed on the way, which turned out to be a drab brown casual dress thing. I grimaced, but changed quickly, stripping off my old clothes in front of her and stuffing them down in the sack which held the syringes I'd stolen, along with the guard's gun, ignoring the unfamiliar sensations that undressing produced in my body. All the action had almost made me forget that I was a girl. I also realized I had to take a leak. Ech, I thought with a shudder. That would be awkward. There were no windows, and it was mostly dark inside the building, which seemed to be related to the electrical supply for the hospital. Fletcher walked to one wall and opened the door a crack to look outside, while I moved my arms and legs back and forth, trying to get used to the feel of wearing a dress. The top part was pretty much normal, sort of like a cross between a tank top and a t-shirt, but the bottom was alien to my experience. The closest I'd felt to something like it was wrapping a towel around my body when I got out of the shower, and I certainly didn't go out like that in public. Fletcher called me, and I walked to the door and peered past her shoulder into the afternoon sunshine. It was irritating to have to look around her, since I should have been tall enough to look over it. I had been yesterday. She was anxious to get rid of me, of course, and get back to the hospital before someone missed her and started to wonder. "As you can see, the police are all over by the main building," she said. Which was true, as far as I could see. There was a group of cop cars in front of the hospital, and more around at the back, but none near us. "If I were you, I'd go over the fence there" - she pointed - "and curve back to town through the fields." She paused for a beat. "If you're going to town." She turned to me and saw the syringe of blood I was holding. Her bulging eyes looked at it greedily for a moment, then switched to my face and abruptly widened. I had started to change my appearance a few minutes ago and my skin was already much lighter, my face significantly different. I grinned at her reaction and reached out one finger and drew it down the front of her scrubs, letting out my body's hunger for mass which I had been saving up for this moment. The fabric vanished under my finger with a faint tearing noise, leaving a clean cut down the front of her shirt. "Keep your mouth shut about what you saw. I'm giving you a gift, but I can take it back just as easily as I give it. I can be anyone; man, woman, innocent little child. You'll never see me coming and you haven't seen half of what I can do. So keep quiet." She nodded vigorously, looking at me with wariness and - I thought - respect. I guessed she had finally put me in that section of her mind where she put people who couldn't be dominated or controlled, only subtly influenced. I gave her the injection and then walked out the door, taking a quick look around to make sure no one was watching. In my last glimpse of her, she was sitting crossways in the doorway, her body firming into renewed youth - and her face was writhing with awful hatred and rage as the healing trance temporarily stripped her of her self control. The terrible thought crossed my mind that perhaps I should kill her, not heal her - that killing her might make the world a better place - and I pushed it aside in disgust. That was not a decision I should be able make about another person, no matter how much power I had. That was what I thought then. It's easy to think like that when the potential enemy is little of concern to you. It's a lot harder - maybe even impossible - when it's personal. . The land on the other side of the fence was undeveloped for a distance, falling to a seasonal creek fringed with cottonwoods and willows, then rising again into rolling fields for a bit, before it finally turned to crop land. I scaled the fence with a little difficulty, since I wasn't used to moving in a dress, even one as short and casual as this one, then jogged down the slope and in among the cottonwoods, ducking the low hanging branches. There I turned and began making my way downstream at a walking pace, back towards town. The trees should screen me from view most of the way, and in a few minutes I would be back to my 'normal' quasi-Gabrelle female shape. If anyone accosted me I'd ditch my bag and profess total ignorance. I took off my shoes and socks and waded down the gravel bed of the stream barefoot, looking at the foliage around me. This time of year it was in full growth; nettles and rushes trailed out over the water in the deep shade, and the round leaves and tiny white flowers of miner's lettuce sprang up so thickly beneath the trees that it crowded out the grass. Dense thickets of mouse smelling poison hemlock hedged the banks in the sunny areas, mixed with other things I couldn't identify, and occasionally the ubiquitous blackberry vines would rise up in a choking mass of sharp thorns, dark green leaves, and white flowers swarming with bees. It was another world, short lived; lasting only for the month or so that there was sufficient water and sunshine. A world that was invisible to those who never took the trouble to get out of their cars and explore the byways and hidden crannies of the land. The air was full of the chatter and chirp of birds. I watched a bright green and red hummingbird dart among the blackberry flowers before zipping off in a blur of motion, and could hear and see innumerable small birds flitting among the bushes and tree branches. And the insects. They were everywhere, beetles and sap feeders crawling over the leaves, hoverflies skimming just above the flowing water of the stream, clouds of gnats spiraling around seemingly fixed points in the air. Patrolling dragonflies crisscrossed over my head; iridescent streaks of brilliant color searching for food. Shoals of tiny minnows flashed away from my feet to take shelter among the willow roots as I splashed down the center of the creek. I breathed deeply, taking in the good smells of water and flowers and wild rank green growth. It was beautiful, life incarnate, the natural habitat a man was meant for, such a contrast to the cold sterile death that flowed through the halls of the hospital. I'd done something good today. I'd helped a lot of people, made up for what happened with Hutchison and Julia to some extent. I also had to pee, I realized. And I lacked a penis to do it with. Which would mean squatting. Damn. Well, it was something I would just have to get used to. I was a woman and sitting to piss with the territory. I started to head towards the bank, then stopped. I vaguely remembered something about... Yes. During one late night web surfing session I'd run across some sites about devices which enabled women to urinate standing, and I'd followed a link from there to an article in some scientific journal about how the rising incidence of female incontinence in the developed world was caused by the practice of sitting to pee. Apparently women in primitive cultures like in Africa and such generally did it standing. I was hardly going to become incontinent, but if savages could do it I could damn well still do it There had been instructions about how it could be done without a device. I couldn't remember them too clearly, what harm was there in trying here? I slipped off my panties one leg at a time and stuffed them in my bag. Then I pulled up my skirt and looked at my feminine equipment. There wasn't too much to see, just a slit in the middle of a patch of short blond hair, set lower than where my male genitals had been. All the good stuff was under the surface, now. Here goes nothing, I thought. I stood with my legs apart and used both hands to spread my labia lips by pulling on the skin beside them. I could feel a cool breeze puff up inside the strange opening which now existed between my legs. Then I tilted my pelvis forward and pushed with my bladder muscles. It took a few seconds to find the right muscle to relax to let it out, but when I finally did I was rewarded by a thick ark of urine which surged out of the pee hole at the top of my vulva and landed a foot or so downstream. It actually didn't feel that much different than urinating as a man, except of course that there were none of the sensations of the urine flowing through my penis. Okay then, quite a bit different. But not as terrible as I'd imagined my first time taking a leak without a penis would be. It was just too bad I wouldn't be able to do this in town. I'd have to buy one of those aid devices ASAP. Score one for not accepting the limitations of my new body. Now I'd just have to find a way to break some of the other ones... A little ran down my leg as I finished. I'd have to remember to stop suddenly from now on, instead of letting it dribble off. I washed it off with the water flowing around my feet, then slipped my panties back on and continued downstream, toward town. . I took my time, and it was over an hour before I clambered up a steep slope and set foot back on main road just a little ways from the high school. I felt good - both for what I had done in the hospital and for my time sightseeing in the creek - but I had discovered an annoying little drawback to my regeneration ability. It made it nearly impossible to kill mosquitos or flies for some time after they bit me. If I swatted one before it got a taste of me then all was well, but let it get a good dose of my blood and holy *CRAP*. Immortal mosquito! Swat it, squish it, smear it out in a long grey/red smear on my arm, it springs back together good as new. I eventually started using them as targets for PK practice. When I could the PK working right I'd hold the mosquito suspended in midair and psychokineticly burst it into a cloud of tiny particles. As long as I could keep the particles - or more specifically the particle containing the mosquito's brain - from touching any material until the effects of my blood wore off, the insect would be dead. Apparently air didn't have enough substance to it to support complete regeneration. Or something. Fortunately it seemed the blood *did* wear off after a while, otherwise there would have been some *very* puzzled and rather anemic strollers in the future. Nothing like a few good unforseen consequences to make my life even more interesting. It took me a while to remember that there was an even simpler remedy to the problem - I had made it so I could turn off the regeneration. I was a little afraid of that, though. I mean, I had given up my manhood for this. Suppose I couldn't get it working again? Stupid I know, but even so... . It was strange walking in a skirt among people. I kept expecting - hell, almost hoping - that someone would look at me oddly as if they were wondering why a man was wearing woman's clothing, but nothing happened. Apparently I looked perfectly normal. Damn. I had decided to go back to Julia's place and see if she would forgive me for the murder thing. I didn't want her to stay mad at me if I could somehow fix it. So I turned in at the closest entrance to the Lakeview subdivision, wondering what she had been up to in my absence. That question was answered a bit sooner than I expected. I was still a mile or two from her house when I heard her old blue pickup coming up the road behind me. I turned to watch her go past. She was driving slowly, and her face through the window looked worried. She looked right at me without recognizing me, which was rather disappointing considering I was back to the female shape she knew from that morning, and I thought she was going to drive on out of sight when suddenly I saw her brake lights flare red and she screeched to a stop. She reversed until she was beside me and leant over part way into the passenger seat so she could see me closer. "Mike?" she asked doubtfully. I cocked an eyebrow at her. "Don't I look like I should, now that I'm a girl? Something different?" "Well, you're wearing a dress - Oh, never mind. I'm so glad I found you. I saw something on the news about a possible terrorist attack at the Kaiser hospital and, well, for some reason I just couldn't get it out of my head that it had something to do with you, so I drove out to take a look. I couldn't get anywhere close though; there were police and fire department everywhere. Where have you been?" I put on and expression of surprise. "Me?" I asked innocently. "Oh, just here and there. I'm surprised you went out looking for me after I smushed you against a wall. Aren't you mad or something?" She frowned. "Yes, Mike, I am mad. And hurt. And afraid. And I don't know what all else. I mean, you *killed* me." She paused, looked around. "Here, why don't you get in before people start to stare or something." I shrugged and climbed inside, and she shifted into gear and started off down the road. "I know you brought me back, and I know it was an accident, but you still killed me over nothing." She took a deep breath, and braked to a halt in front of a stop sign. "What happens the next time you get irritated with me over some little thing? You'll chop me up with an axe and stuff me in the fridge while you get some peace and quiet, then bring me back to life when you're good and ready? Or hell, maybe you won't even bother bringing me back. Maybe you'll just dump me in the lake and find some other girl. Power corrupts as the saying goes, and you've suddenly got more power Carter's got pills." I was waiting for her to get it out. When she stopped and looked at me I gestured at the stop sign and waited until she got the pickup back up to speed before I spoke. "I *was* at that hospital, Julia." She glanced at me sharply and I saw fear in her eyes. I hated the sight of that. "While I was there I healed more than a hundred and eighty people. Not just little of things. The old and infirm and dying, I gave them back their youth, enough for another whole lifetime. If that's the way power corrupts, then I wish there were more powerful people with that kind of corruption. I'll bet a lot of people do." I reached out and lay my hand on her shoulder. I could feel her muscles tighten through her t-shirt, could feel her shaking slightly. "I'll never do anything like that to you again, Julia. I swear it. And it *was* an accident. And I'd say an understandable one, if you look at it from my point of view. I'd just given up my manhood and my future for what seemed like nothing." She looked at me angrily. "You call my love nothing?" I shook my head. "Your love?" I touched my breasts. "For this body, you mean? You love me, but only like this? You think I'm nice enough as a man, better than Jack for what *that's* worth, a stepping stone to your dating other girls. But now that I'm a woman I've gained you're love? That's what you're saying?" She shook her head. "You're changing it, twisting what I mean. I love that you would give that up for me, I love what I experienced with you. And yes, I love that body you've got. Take that all together and to me that means I'm falling in love with you. But you make it sound so - And now *I'm* defending myself. I didn't kill *you*!" I didn't reply for some time, a minute or two. Finally I said, "Julia, look at me. Do you still love me?" She looked, and her eyes widened. My hair, which a few minutes ago had been blond and fairly short, was now long and raven black. "How did you do that?!" "I can change my appearance to some extent. Do you still love me like this?" "Your hair color makes no difference. And that isn't what this is about. You killed me!" "Yes, I killed you. I'm sorry, I'll never do it again. But don't you understand that to me *you* were killing me when you tried to change my name? Can't you see how I feel?" She revved up the engine, pushing down harder on the accelerator in her agitation. "How you feel!? Did you feel what it's like to have someone snuff your life out on a whim? Huh?" We pulled up in front of her house and she shut off the motor, sat looking down at her hands for a minute or two. It was late afternoon, and the sun was low in the sky, shedding a warm glow over the pavement and the houses across the street, but leaving the side of the street where her house was in shadow. I stayed silent, grinding my teeth slightly. I wanted desperately to say more, to defend myself, to tell her what it had felt like to be stuck like this with no power at all. My instinct said to keep quite, though. I had argued as much as I dared, and she had responded better than I expected. Finally she looked up at me and reached out one hand to touch my long black hair. It was hard to tell, but I thought there might be a hint of tears in her eyes. "I was worried about you. That's why I drove out to look for you. I know I got you stuck like this, and even though you... Did what you did, I'm still responsible for you. You said you healed the people in that hospital?" I nodded and told her what happened, starting with my finding out about Hutchison. When I finished there was something changed in her eyes, something new. "You really did all that?" she asked wonderingly. Huh? My mind worked frantically as I tried to fathom what she was thinking. I mean, I could understand that reaction a bit, but it seemed too strong, too - Oh. I saw where she had gone. She was thinking that what I had done was penance, a grand gesture born out of guilt and love for her. And maybe she was right. "Yes," I said. "I really did all that." I reached out and grasped her hand, gave it a squeeze. "Do you want to go inside?" She looked at her house. Its shadow was growing rapidly, had almost reached the houses on the far side of the street as the sun fell toward the horizon. She shivered slightly. "I don't know if I'm ready to be - I mean I don't feel like staying in tonight. Can't we go out some place?" It was painfully obvious what she was really thinking. Even if she was calmed by what I had done today after the... murder, she wasn't ready be trapped alone in the house with me all night. She wanted to be out among people as a sort of buffer against my going haywire. And she was afraid to say it outright, afraid of what I might think or do about it. That kind of fear could lead to dread of being around me unless I allayed it quickly. I smiled at her warmly. "Of course. Lets go somewhere. Do you want anything from the house first?"