Welcome To Saturn Beta free porn video

Dennis had the whole thing planned out, start to finish. That's what he told Tyler, the day before, when the two of them had met at Dennis' dingy, makeshift office in Miami. "The rocket leaves tomorrow morning," Dennis said. He leaned forward on his formica desk and pointed vaguely at Tyler. "And you're going to be on it. You blow this part, it's your fault. Not mine." "I'll be there," Tyler said, nodding furiously. Tyler would agree to anything at this point. Anything to get him out of this awful city, this stupid planet, toward somewhere safe. "The guy you're meeting with," Dennis said, pulling a data chip out of his shirt pocket, "is named Jackson. No first name, no last name, just Jackson." Dennis passed the chip to Tyler. "Never met the guy myself - he's a friend of a friend of a friend. We've been emailing. He'll put you up in a room there until the heat blows over. I told him this is a favor to me, and that he can put you to work in order to pay off the favor." "Sure," Tyler said. He slotted the chip into his smartphone and the data spun up immediately on the visual readout. Jackson's picture, his contact information, and his current address - Ringed Amusements Company, spindle #7, forty-eighth floor, Saturn Beta. Tyler looked up from his phone, surprised. "Saturn?" "Is that a problem?" Dennis asked. "Well, no," Tyler said. A smile crept across his mouth. "It's really far away. It's perfect. I didn't expect you to go all out for me." Dennis' smiled. "You've made us both plenty of scratch over the years, man. It's my pleasure. Careful out there in the wild west." ***** And so, without making a big deal of it, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible, Tyler Hillman clambered up the ladder to his rack space on the passenger rocket bound for the hyperspace portal hovering in orbit above the North American continent. Tyler had been to space before, naturally. Nobody in his business survived long without leaving Earth once in a while, after all. Then again, nobody in his business survived long no matter what they did... Tyler thought about this after he reached his rack and laid down on the thin, coach-class mattress there. He liked his job, most of the time - stealing information and selling it to the highest bidder, again and again, sometimes stealing and selling at the same time, changing names and addresses several times a year in order to stay out of public recognition. He'd dyed his hair so often that he couldn't even remember what the original color was. And he'd brokered so much information between industrial competitors that his and Dennis' bank accounts swelled with the promise of early, easy retirement. But then he stole from the wrong guy, and he left a trail, and he had to freeze his bank accounts to keep them from being drained by the more unscrupulous elements of Miami. That's the kind of thing that happened when you stole from the wrong guy, the kind of guy like Gordon Rosenthal, the kind of guy who has his fingers in every economic sector imaginable, including high finance... "Sloppy," he said, to the rack ceiling, a foot away from his face. He listened to the rocket's other passengers climbing the ladders to their own racks. A display at the end of his mattress told him that the rocket was scheduled to launch in twenty-three minutes. A robotic, feminine voice shouted over the intercom system about how everyone needed to be in their racks in three minutes in order to be sealed in properly for takeoff. Tyler groaned. He hated being sealed in for takeoff. The tightness of it, the claustrophobia... something he'd have to endure if it meant getting the hell off this rock and escaping to Saturn. Saturn. He'd heard stuff about Saturn. The orbital stations there were the most recently established, the farthest away from proper civilization. It was the wild west, like Dennis said - a lawless funhouse, unfettered by modern Earth bureaucracy, where you earned your keep or you died of starvation without anyone feeling sympathy for you. Kind of like Las Vegas, back when cities like Las Vegas were still legal. Gambling. Unlimited access to the craziest drugs ever designed. Gladiatorial sporting events, the kind that had gone out of style way back when... "Oh, God," Tyler said to the ceiling. His heart pumped. What if that was what Dennis meant, when he told Tyler that his contact, Jackson, was going to put him to work to pay off this debt? Would he have to fight to the death in some 22nd-century approximation of the Roman colosseum, solely for the amusement of the rich and unsympathetic crowds? Could he even survive something like that? Tyler looked down at his body - untoned, pudgy around the midsection, good enough to get him through his life as an info broker but hardly anything spectacular. He couldn't even win a drunken fistfight outside a bar in Mexico City last month, let alone make it through as a gladiator. This Jackson guy, and his business... what was it called again? Ringed Amusements Company? That sounded like a circus. Entertainment for the masses. And there were only a few kinds of entertainment out there in the wild west of Saturn's orbit... The feminine robotic voice piped over the intercom again: "Passenger sealing will begin in twenty seconds. Please lay flat on your mattress." Tyler obeyed, and he heard the hiss of quick-action sleeping gas being sprayed into the racks throughout the coach class of the rocket. His eyelids drooped as a thin but sturdy layer of 3D-printed plastic formed on his ceiling. The plastic lowered, covered him, and gave way below his nose so he'd be able to breathe. God, he hated being sealed like this. The constriction, the sudden loss of control as the sleeping gas took effect. The last thought to run through his head before he fell asleep was an internal begging: not the gladiator stuff, anything but the gladiator stuff, put me to work but don't make me do the gladiator stuff... ***** He awoke many days later, according to the readout on his smartphone, to the sound of the rocket's robot voice welcoming the passenger cabins to Saturn Beta. Tyler dug himself out of the plastic sheet and tried to shake off the aftereffects of induced sleep and hyperspeed transit. His stomach surged with hunger as he shimmied out of his rack, down the ladder, getting used to the artificial gravity and uncomfortable dryness of the orbital station. At the bottom of the ladder, along with the teeming mass of passengers from the racks, Tyler followed the signs pointing him toward the walkway of the docking spindle. He caught a glimpse of space outside the spindle's window, just a hint of Saturn's famous rings, which he'd never seen before. A few children crowded around the window, oohing and ahhing at the sight, something that might have impressed Tyler more if he hadn't been feeling so sick from the sleeping gas, so nervous about meeting this Jackson character, and so anxious about the retributionary efforts of Gordon Rosenthal. Stealing data from a guy like him was such a bad idea. As far away as Saturn was from Miami, Rosenthal could still reach Tyler with minimal effort and really make him suffer. The frozen balance on Tyler's many bank accounts was the least of his worries. Keep moving, though, don't think about it, just keep moving: that's what Tyler told himself as the crowd from the rocket dissipated around him, walking through the docking spindle toward the station proper. As long as he kept moving, kept a low profile, everything would be fine. But how the hell was a fucking GLADIATOR supposed to keep a low profile? "God dammit," Tyler whispered to himself, as the gigantic hub of the station loomed in the distance, lit up with countless LEDs and the reflected light from the planet it orbited. It looked like an enormous, tube-shaped porcupine, what with all the dozens of spindles sticking out of it. Tyler wondered how many spindles, how many floors, how many thousands upon thousands of people were crammed in here with pumped-in oxygen and recycled wastewater and who knows what other unappetizing things. Maybe Tyler would've been safer on Earth after all. Maybe he should have had Dennis find him a different hidey-hole, somewhere in America with a beach... Tyler reached the hub, checked his phone, and looked up at the signage along the walls. Various arrows pointed to various elevators, and he pointed himself at the one that promised an express ride to the 48th floor. That's where Jackson was - the 48th. Convenient. Maybe a little too convenient, having your business on such a frequently-visited part of Saturn Beta that it demanded its own express elevator. The dread of how he'd be working off his favor set in heavier than ever. But Tyler kept moving. He jammed himself into the elevator with thirty other people after waiting in line for fifteen minutes and rode up the central, cylindrical hub, keeping his eyes closed, back against the wall, trying his hardest to recover from the wooziness of hypersleep. A metallic bell sound alerted him to his arrival on the 48th floor. The crowd in the elevator spilled out into a wide foyer, and Tyler wandered along behind. Loud - the first word to entire Tyler's mind upon exiting the elevator. So loud. Slot machines ringing all around him, untalented buskers playing instruments and singing off-key, older Eastern European women passing out flyers for nightclubs and bars. Tyler shoved his way through the tumult and emerged at the far end of the foyer, clutching his smartphone to his chest. Once he reached some approximation of privacy, he held the screen up to his face and tapped through the contents of Dennis' data chip. Spindle #7, his next goal. He looked up for some direction and saw only thick plastiglass windows across the ceiling, disaplying the empty void of black space on one side of the hub and the yellow tinge of the planet on the other. He scanned the foyer for other signs of help and found nothing promising. Tyler slumped, sighed, and dragged a hand through his hair in frustration. "Looking for something in particular, honey?" Tyler turned. It was a young lady, pretty-faced and brunette, makeup expertly done and lips pouty. Her hair was cropped to just above her shoulders, and she had four pairs of earrings in, each pair heavier and more sparkling than the last. She wore what looked like a platinum satin sports bra over her mammoth chest - E cups? F cups? Tyler was never good at figuring out breast size - and a pair of matching hot pants on her waist. Her midriff was bare and toned, her legs almost impossibly long, her feet encased in that same platinum satin material, this time with five inches of stiletto heel. Her whole body was pleasantly tanned, perfectly suited for the silvery clothing she wore. This girl was a true specimen, the very essence of nubile womanhood. Tyler felt his penis shifting in his pants by its own will. "Uh," Tyler said, trying to remain focused, difficult as it was with this vixen before him. "Yeah. Spindle number seven." "Oh, sure," the girl said, leaning forward slightly so Tyler couldn't miss the tops of her voluminous, sun-kissed breasts. "I know exactly where that is. I can take you there myself. Wanna have a little fun first, though?" And the way she talked... not an accent, just the inflection of her words. She was going for upscale California athletic girl, confident but sultry, ready to jump on top of Tyler right this second, slavering over the thought of having his big cock in her pussy... Prostitution. That was the other thing Saturn was well known for. The wild west indeed. Tyler frowned at the silver-clad sex queen and dropped his smartphone into his pants pocket. "Sorry, sweetheart. I'm actually flat broke. Appreciate the offer, though." The hooker crossed her arms under her massive rack, gave Tyler an annoyed smirk, and blinked judgementally at him. "Well. You're no fun. Lemme give you something for when you win the jackpot." She reached behind her bulbous ass, into a pocket in her hot pants, and produced a bent plastic business card. Tyler took it from her and examined it for a few seconds. The left side of the card had her picture, with pouty lips and immaculate makeup, same hairstyle and clothing as she wore now. The right side had her contact information, then her name underneath - Lola. "We're open twenty-four-seven, whenever the need arises," Lola said, and her smirk curved into a genuine, friendly smile. "Hope to hear from you soon, sugar. Spindle seven's right over there." She nodded to her right, toward a wide, dingy-looking hallway down which Tyler could see a few grimy storefronts and desperate shopkeepers, selling old electronics and nearly rotten food. Tyler furrowed his brow and took a step toward the hallway. "Thanks," he told Lola, who nodded and smirked once more. He left her in the bustling foyer and walked gingerly through the entrance to spindle #7, sneaking a few peeks back at her as he went. She kept up that smirk of hers, as if telling Tyler that she knew he'd be back, he'd definitely be back, and soon. ***** Tyler sat in the waiting room of Ringed Amusements Company's office, hands tapping on knees, waiting for the boss man - this "Jackson" that Dennis had talked about - to appear. The waiting room was tiny, underwhelming, with only a couple unupholstered chairs and a banged-up coffee table for furniture. There was a door leading to what Tyler figured was the main part of the office, and on either side of that door stood a burly security guard with arms folded, tiny headset mounted in the right ear, sunglasses on, glowering at Tyler and trying to make him feel as uncomfortable as possible. As if. A successful info broker like Tyler couldn't be intimidated by anything less than three guns pointed at his head, or a forearm locked around his neck... or the threat of a pissed-off target, who had forced Tyler to flee the planet, coming to exact revenge, using Tyler as an example to anyone who might be tempted to try and fuck him over in the future... One of the security guards put a finger up to his headset, listened for a moment, and thumbed at the door at the rear of the waiting room. "Jackson'll see you now," he said. Tyler pushed off his chair and stepped forward as the guard eased the door open an inch. Tyler pushed the door and walked out of the waiting room and into the office proper. An expensive, real-wood desk sat in the center of the massive office - how could an office this huge have such a small waiting room? Tyler wondered this as he scanned the rest of the room, seeing the Roman- styled columns propped up against the faux-distressed paint job on the walls. In front of the desk were several plush easy chairs, each with its own side table in the same wood as the desk. Behind the desk was a grid of giant windows, facing outward into space, with the rings of Saturn on full, glorious display. And on top of the desk, perched on the edge, sat the person Tyler assumed was Jackson. "Well," she said, tapping her long, purple-painted fingernails along the rim of her desk. "You're not much to look at, are you?" Tyler swallowed. He hadn't expected a woman. Jesus, was this station infested with gorgeous women? Jackson had a different vibe about her than Lola did, of course, but her inescapable sexiness radiated throughout the entire office. Her dark black hair was twisted up into a bun, held together with jeweled, gold-laminated chopsticks. Her face was severe but beautiful, brown eyes adorned with thin-framed glasses. She wore a braided gold necklace and a white blouse under a forest- green jacket that strained against the heft of her breasts - smaller breasts than Lola's, but not by much; prominent enough to get the audience's attention but not so big as to cause anyone to not take her seriously. Her matching skirt ended several inches above her knees, giving way to sheer nude stockings and a pair of green pumps. She eased herself off the desk and went around behind it, swaying her delicious ass as she went. "Take a seat," she said. Tyler obeyed immediately. "Miss Jackson?" he said, swallowing hard again. "Jackson," the woman behind the desk said. "No 'miss' involved. Let's not mess around, if it's all the same to you." She leaned forward a bit and folded her hands together. "Our mutual friend Dennis said you were in trouble. Shitloads of trouble." Tyler nodded. "Something like that, yeah." "Usually I'm not in the business of helping people out, you understand. I'm not in the business of anything but my own business. I'm sure you're the kind of person who can understand that." "Sure," Tyler said. "However," Jackson said, raising a finger. She looked through her glasses at the tablet computer on her desk. "Dennis said you had a certain skill set. He also said I could put you to work with that skill set in mind, so as to pay off the big-time debt you've racked up for your travel here." "Yeah, sure," Tyler said. He caught himself falling over his own words, trying to form sentences that worked, completely entranced by this gorgeous woman across the desk from him. He'd been flustered slightly by talking to Lola... but Jackson was on another level entirely. Sexy, smart as a whip, successful, the kind of girl Tyler would've been attracted to back on Earth. The thoughts of being hunted, tortured, killed - these all disappeared from his mind as Jackson spoke to him in her sultry, authoritative voice. "All right, then," Jackson said, leaning back in her leather highback chair. "It certainly helps that you're so agreeable. Let's see about getting you ready for your first day on the job. Should be pretty simple stuff. Follow me." She rose from her chair, and Tyler rose with her in unison. Jackson crossed her office toward a side door, which she opened and held for Tyler to walk through. Inside the next room was a padded table, a task chair, a few cabinets and drawers, and a sink. It reminded Tyler of an examination room in a doctor's office. "Go ahead and take your shirt off," Jackson said, and Tyler began unbuttoning his shirt as Jackson continued. "I'm not going to inspect you, in case you were wondering. Dennis said you might need to stay hidden while you're here." Jackson shut the exam room door behind her and walked her amazing body behind the padded table, where she opened one of the cabinets. "Which is easy enough for us to do. You've had surgery before, right? To disguise yourself?" "No, actually," Tyler said. He finished taking off his shirt and draped it over the back of the task chair. "Excellent," Jackson said, oblivious. "Well, let me introduce you to the latest and greatest in that department." She turned to him, holding a plastic intravenous bag in each hand. The bags bulged with clear fluid, and Tyler couldn't help but compare the size of the IV bags with the size of Jackson's amazing rack. Each bag was roughly the size of each breast. Tyler tried not to grin. "These," Jackson said, shaking the bags slightly, which caused her boobs to shake in kind, "are filled with nanobots. Tiny itty-bitty robots that swim around in your body and modify it to your heart's desire. Or my heart's desire, as is the case. Rather than go through the nasty business of traditional under-the-knife surgery, we just put a couple million of these little guys in your blood stream and program them to change the way you look. The results can be pretty astounding." "I'll bet," Tyler said. He'd heard of this procedure before - nanosurgery. They had it back on Earth, in some of the shadier independent unregulated clinics in Brazil and Indonesia. It had never been approved for use in Europe or the States, though. You could use it to change your facial features, hair color, even your bone structure and body size. Tyler was excited to give it a try and see the results, especially if it gave him that much more protection against being found by Rosenthal's men. "And no scars to heal, either," Jackson continued. "Acts fast. You'll be all set to go in half a day, maybe fourteen hours. And you can go about your daily business as the surgery happens, too. No need to stay laid up in bed." Jackson pulled a tall, wheeled rack from a corner of the exam room and fastened the IV bags to the top of it. Then she attached the tubing, then expertly inserted the necessary needles in Tyler's forearms. Minutes later, the drips were turned on and the nanobots were making their way into Tyler's circulatory system. He gave a contented sigh and watched Jackson punch something into a tablet computer on the far wall of the exam room. "So," he said, finally brave and relaxed enough to bring up the subject, "what'll I be doing, exactly? For paying off my debt." "We've a convention coming up," Jackson said as she worked. "I have my hands in a lot of different businesses here on the station. I'm primarily focused on renting out human capital for events that require the help. Someone calls me up and tells me they need people to work an information booth, I provide the people. Someone needs some heavy lifting done, equipment setup, I lend them some of my muscle." She turned to face Tyler and smiled at him. "Sometimes I have to create the muscle myself, but that's not a problem as long as a I have a few days' notice." Tyler smiled back at her. How great was this setup that Dennis had finagled for him? Muscle! Tyler had never been a big guy, or anything beyond scrawny, if he was being honest with himself. Not only was Jackson going to change his features to keep him hidden, she was going to beef him up, too! Tyler made a mental note to send a thank-you to Dennis as soon as possible. "Sounds good to me," Tyler said as the nanobots continued dripping down the tubes and into his body. "Whatever you need, Jackson, I'm happy to help. I really appreciate everything you and Dennis have done for me. I owe you both. Big time." Jackson smirked. "I agree. You definitely owe me, Tyler. We'll discuss the particulars of the arrangement later. Meantime, I've a few business matters to take care of. You can show yourself out when the bags are done draining. I promised Dennis that I'd have a room for you, but it's not quite ready for you yet. Come on back when the nanobots have done their job." She opened the door to her office and pulled it close behind her, giving Tyler one last glance at her amazing ass on the way out. Tyler kept his forearms flat against his legs as the IV drips did their work. This was going to end up just fine, he thought. An easy few months of work to pay off his travel expenses, complete with a customized disguise for hiding out from Rosenthal's goons and a fun vacation to the wild west atmosphere of Saturn Beta... and then he'd be right back on his feet, brokering information as he always had, filling up those bank accounts again. ***** Tyler moseyed through spindle #7 feeling like he was on top of the world. He crossed through the giant foyer of the station's 48th floor, passing by Lola and giving her a wink as he went. She smiled back at him and bounced her eyebrows flirtatiously as he boarded the elevator in the center of the room. The elevator dropped him off on the 73rd floor, which the security guards recommended as a good place to find cheap accommodations for some much-needed rest. Tyler still hadn't quite overcome the hypersleep sickness yet and needed a place to lie down for a while. The nanobots coursing through his body probably weren't helping his recovery, either. Restructuring a man's body was hard work, after all, and Tyler could already feel the warming effect of the disguise being applied. Not just in his face, but in his whole form as well... every inch of him tingled from the nanobots' ongoing work. Jackson had programmed them to alter his body a bit, certainly, making the disguise that much more effective. Maybe he'd wake up a couple inches taller to go along with the muscle she'd promised him. His heart jumped with anticipation. He found a place called Relax-N-Unpack in the fourth spindle of the 73rd floor, paid for a room with his only remaining unfrozen bank account, and collapsed into bed without a care in the world. The nanobots continued their efforts, warming his body as they went along, making his descent into a deep sleep that much easier. He woke a long while later, just as Saturn Beta had rotated enough to give Tyler a pleasant view of the planet outside his tiny porthole. A tiny amount of light reflected in from the gas giant, which let Tyler look at his room in more detail. It reminded him of a cruise ship stateroom back on Earth - small accommodations, not much more than a bed an a tiny, enclosed bathroom. There was a monitor mounted on one wall and a mirror mounted on the other. Tyler pushed off the bed, flipped a light switch, and hopped over to the mirror. He looked... different. Not tremendously different, but different nonetheless. His squared jawline had rounded a bit, and his biggish forehead had shrunk a quarter of an inch. His close-cropped hair had changed from a sandy brown to something darker, longer, maybe even a little bit redder. His skin, burnt and bronzed like a stereotypical Miami beach bum, had lightened into something almost pale. Tyler didn't pay much attention to those modified features, but he couldn't help fixate on another: his ears, formerly big and wide, had shrunken noticeably, and the tops of his ears had somehow moved closer to the side of his head. He'd always hated his ears, which stuck out awkwardly and made him look kind of goofy. They were his defining feature, and now they were receding into something much less pronounced. Tyler was glad for it. It would make this disguise all the more convincing. He examined the rest of his body through the cover of his button-down shirt and denim pants. His pectoral muscles had bulged noticeably - thank you very much, Jackson! - and his stomach was ever so slightly flatter, getting rid of the embarrassing pudge that Tyler had accumulated over the years. His arms felt a bit more toned, if not a mite thinner. His pants hung just a bit looser on his hips, and his feet felt maybe half a size too small for his shoes. "Not a problem," Tyler said, grinning wide at the mirror, still marveling at what had been done to his ears. "Not a problem at all." Satisfied with the image in the mirror, Tyler pocketed his Relax-N- Unpack keycard and left his room with a spring in his step and a toothy expression on his face, convinced that the nanobots had almost finished their job over a dozen hours of some of the best sleep he'd ever had. The warming glow continued to course throughout his person - the surgery winding down, no doubt, and his skin radiating heat from the millions of tiny surgeons patrolling his body in search of the last few jobs that needed to be done. He neglected to look at the mounted clock on the wall as he pulled the door shut behind him, and he completely forgot what Jackson had told him about how long the nanobots would require... Since the IV drips had finished emptying into his veins, it had been only ten hours. Jackson had told him to expect fourteen. ***** The 73rd floor of Saturn Beta wasn't as much of a feast for the senses at the 48th, definitely, but there was still plenty to see and do. Shops, restaurants, jazz lounges, VR sensoriums, and the bustle of people. Tyler felt fantastic after his long sleep in his stateroom, and he shuffled along through the various spindles and foyers with the kind of optimism he usually experienced after a brokering deal had gone as planned, no surprises, with the promise of a big payday. Tyler looked at the balance on his smartphone and decided he could afford taking in some of the amenities Saturn Beta had to offer. His chosen stop was a sports bar, where he reclined in a booth while watching a spotty feed of his Miami Marlins playing against the New York Mets. The waitress arrived at the table with his chips and salsa just as the second inning started. By the end of the fourth inning, Tyler had noticed a slight loosening in the sleeves on his shirt. By the start of the sixth, his pants had ridden up half an inch higher on his waist. Midway through the eighth, two and a half hours after he'd arrived at the bar, Tyler found himself in the men's room, standing in front of a urinal and zipping his fly down. "Oh, come on," he said, looking at his crotch. His dick was smaller. It had never been a mammoth specimen to begin with, but it had definitely lost a bit of length and girth since the IV treatment in Jackson's office. Not much, only a bit, but Tyler was just as concerned with his manhood as any other man would be. He sighed, finished his business at the urinal, tucked his minimized junk back into his pants, and returned to the bar to pay for his drinks and food. He'd talk to Jackson about this, express his displeasure, and ask her to bring Little Tyler back to his former stature... and maybe, once he got on her good side, he could convince her to tweak the nanobots to make him a bit beefier in that department. He grinned stupidly at the idea. After the baseball game ended, Tyler made his way back into the foyer of the 73rd floor, where everything looked... taller, somehow. Was everything taller? The doorways between the foyer and the various spindles seemed to have expanded upward a few inches. The signs above all the shops and restaurants had moved, as well, closer to the ceiling. He watched people closely as they passed by him, and just about all of the men - and some of the women, even! - stood taller than he was. And his clothes, which Tyler had ignored until now, had become loose and unflattering. The truth was there, plain as day: he'd lost several inches of height over the course of the baseball game. "Christ," he moaned, picking at his shirt and pants, unable to ignore how poorly they fit him now. He leaned against a wall on the outer ring of the foyer, stared at the ground, shook his head, and crossed his arms over his chest... His chest. The pectoral muscles under his shirt had expanded further during the three hours of the game, and they were starting to get hefty and pronounced... and sensitive. Brushing his wrists across the top of his chest caused a minor jolt to run through his torso. The glowing tingle of the nanosurgery, which had previously been noticeable all over his body, had seemingly migrated exclusively to his pectorals... and his crotch. A wave of dread swept through Tyler, and he slowly, slowly uncrossed his arms and brought his hands up to his chest, gently gripping what he found there. The muscles were so big now, to the point of literally hanging off his chest, and the nipples were so much bigger, so much more sensitive... "Oh, god," Tyler whispered, realization dawning on him at last. Those weren't pectoral muscles. They were... they were... they were something Tyler refused to acknowledge. Not now. Not before he had a chance to talk to Jackson. He sprinted through the foyer towards the elevators in the middle, nearly kicking off both of his loosening shoes in the process. He mashed the down button and tried his best not to look at himself in the polished, reflective chrome surface of the elevator doors. He couldn't help it, though. He glanced, and then he stared, and he didn't recognize what he saw. The elevator bell chimed before Tyler could further study his new reflection, the doors opened up, and an older man who had been waiting for the elevator alongside Tyler motioned him aboard. "After you, miss," the man said. ***** Tyler hugged himself through the longest elevator ride of his life. It seemed to stop at every floor on the way down to the 48th, and Tyler had to endure the constant stream of people getting off, more people getting on, cramming his shorter, lither frame into the back corner of the elevator car. Looking at him, at the tiny little person wearing clothes that didn't fit. Tyler was certain that everyone was watching him squirm. He tried to hide his face behind his longer, redder, darker hair. He tried not to think about his situation, tried to keep his mind focused on what needed to be done, tried not to notice the shrinking organ between his legs... The 48th floor finally came around, and Tyler squeezed through the crowd in the elevator, hiking his pants up as he went, flaring his toes out as a means of keeping his shoes on - his heels kept slipping out as he walked. The massive foyer of the 48th floor seemed that much bigger now that he was... that much smaller. He tried not to pay attention to the minor change in scenery as he muddled his way to spindle #7, holding his pants with one hand, using the other to hold his ever-loosening shirt downwards and outwards, to keep it from brushing against his pronounced nipples and the growing globes of flesh behind them. He stumbled into Ringed Amusements Company several minutes later. Jackson's burly security guards still flanked the door to her office, arms folded and sunglasses perched on their noses. Tyler looked up at the two of them. They, like everything and everyone else on Saturn Beta, were half a foot taller than Tyler remembered. "Let me in," Tyler said, speaking a full sentence for the first time since he left his stateroom. His voice came out lighter, not as rough around the edges. Almost feminine. "Nope," the guard on the right said. "Not without an appointment." "You have to!" Tyler pleaded. Whining made him sound even girlier than normal talking did. He swallowed hard, as if that would change his vocal cords back to the way they were before the surgery started. "Don't have to do a damn thing," the guard on the left said. He lifted his glasses and smirked down at Tyler. "Why don't you relax, sweetheart. Try not to get your panties into a twist. It ain't good for your circulation down there." The guard on the right chuckled, and Tyler tried to maintain his composure. He briefly considered throwing a punch at the guard, but that idea quickly vanished. The guard could have wiped the floor with Tyler without breaking a sweat, and that was before Jackson had dumped these nanobots into his system. No way could Tyler do the slightest shred of damage to the guard now, with this body, in this situation. "Please," Tyler said. He could feel the tear ducts in his eyes beginning to produce, and he fought back as hard as he could. "I have to talk to her." "Oh yeah?" the guard said. "And why's that?" Tyler thought of a good way to answer this question. There was little chance the guard would believe him if he told the true story. I was just in here a few hours ago, six inches taller, with a different hair style and a different face and the same clothes and I didn't have tits... "Please," Tyler tried again. "I have to see Jackson. She put... I just have to see her, okay?" The guard on the right sighed and put a hand to his earpiece. "Ma'am?" he said. Tyler straightened up, or did the best straightening-up he could handle while holding his pants with one hand and his shirt with the other. The guard continued: "Sorry to bug ya. Pretty little thing out here, telling us she needs to see you." Tyler reeled at the words the guard was using. Pretty. She. And the other guard had used words in the same vein - panties, sweetheart... The guard let go of his earpiece and addressed Tyler directly again. "What's your name, doll?" Doll. Oh, god... "Um," Tyler said, drumming up a good lie to use. Lying was his job, back on Earth. You don't get much valuable information out of other people by telling them the truth. But lying wouldn't get him anywhere with this security guard, or with Jackson. A fake name wouldn't open that door between the waiting room and the office on the other side. "Hillman," Tyler said, in his newly-raised register. "My last name is Hillman." "Pff. Nope," the guard said, shaking his head. "We just had a Hillman in here earlier in the day, and you ain't him. Buzz off, girly. This ain't the kinda place you..." The guard put his hand up to his earpiece again and listened. Tyler tightened the grip on his clothing and hoped for the best. "Well," the guard said, after a few idle seconds. "It's your lucky day. Jackson'll see you now." The guard opened the door and held it out for Tyler in a gentlemanly fashion. Tyler looked through the doorway, at Jackson's office. It was bigger and taller, too. The woman who sat behind the desk looked over her thin-framed glasses at Tyler and waved him in. Tyler took some tentative steps forward as the security guard shut the door behind him. Jackson sat up straight in her leather chair and smiled. "Well. Looking good, Mr. Hillman." Tyler seethed. "I'm not looking good! What have you done to me? What the hell was in those IV bags?" "Nanobots," Jackson said. "Just like I told you. Seems like they've done quite an extensive bit of work on you since we saw each other last." "Extensive? They've turned me into a wom..." Tyler couldn't get the word out. No matter how thoroughly he had changed, no matter how much certain extremities had shrunk and certain other extremities had ballooned, he still refused to fully admit what had been done to him. It was just too embarrassing. He felt his voice catching in his throat, felt his tear ducts welling up again... "Okay, okay," Jackson said, seeing the obvious distress of her new employee. "Come on. Come over to the exam room with me. I'm sorry. I shouldn't be joking about this..." Jackson rose to her feet and came around the desk, gently grabbing Tyler by the shoulders as a means of comforting him. He wouldn't be comforted, though, not with what had been done to his body, not with the fact that Jackson now stood several inches taller than him. As they walked to the exam room, one of Tyler's shoes finally fell off his foot, which simply just wasn't big enough to occupy it anymore. Tyler left it on the office rug and hobbled along with Jackson, holding his pants up and his shirt down, wearing just a single shoe. ***** "Go ahead and strip for me," Jackson said. She pecked at a tablet computer on the far wall while Tyler stood motionless in the corner of the exam room. "I'd rather not," he replied, in his ever-raising voice. God, he sounded so soft, so girly... "Don't care. Take it all off, Tyler. And jump up on that exam table when you're done. If we're going to do this, let's do it properly." Tyler resisted for a moment, having no interest whatsoever in seeing his insultingly modified body, and certainly not wanting anyone else to see it, either... especially someone like Jackson. He remembered how sexy he'd found her when he first walked into her office all those hours ago. She wore the same outfit as before - forest green women's suit, chopsticked hair, nude stockings, high heels - and she was as gorgeous as ever, with the same no-bullshit attitude. And she was remaining awfully calm about Tyler's current predicament. Too calm, perhaps. "Off, Tyler," Jackson repeated. "Let's go." Tyler let go of his pants, and they drooped over his hips, just enough to not fall off entirely. He picked at the buttons on his shirt slowly, not wanting to see what was underneath even though he sure as hell could feel it. He pried open the first three buttons and peeked into the opening there... "Jesus," he whispered, unable to look away from the breasts under the shirt. His breasts. His pale, milky white breasts, bulging attractively from his chest, the nipples brushing against the rough fabric of his shirt. Jackson watched him with a blank expression as he unfastened the rest of the buttons and exposed his torso to the open air. He reflexively put a hand over each breast, sending jolts of pleasurable surprise through his chest as his fingers ran over his pronounced nipples, skin to skin, for the first time. "Pants," Jackson said. Tyler grudgingly let go of his breasts and hooked his thumbs below his belt, then pulled down. His pants fell to the floor without him having to undo his belt or unzip the zipper. Jackson had a tinge of anticipation on her face as Tyler did the last deed - removing his underwear, which hung just about as loose as his denim pants did. Tyler took this final step with his eyes pointed elsewhere. He didn't want to see it, didn't want to touch it, didn't want to admit what was going on down there... "Fine," Jackson said, seeing the full results of the nanosurgery as Tyler averted his eyes and tried his best not to cry. He padded barefoot over to the exam table and lifted himself on top of it, unable to ignore the full weight of his new breasts, the feeling of the cool space station air whispering around his exposed nipples, the mop of reddish-brown hair framing his cheeks and lower jaw, and the ever-vacating space between his legs. His shrunken testicles rubbed against his inner thigh as he turned over on the exam table. They hung so much lighter than he remembered, closer to his body, smaller than kernels of corn... "Something went wrong," Tyler said. He leaned back on the exam table until his body was flat along its paper covering. "With the surgery." Jackson gave a non-commital "Hmm," tapped a few buttons on her tablet, and looked over Tyler's new body from head to toe. Staring at the ceiling, Tyler continued trying to ignore what had been done to him, put it out of his mind, and think about getting his old body back. This wasn't an easy feat since his ever-expanding breasts were now leaning off his chest and rubbing against his upper arms. "How long will it take to turn me back?" Tyler said, his soft voice proceeding from his lips in panicked gasps. "A few hours, right?" "Twelve to fourteen hours, same as ever," Jackson said. "Okay. Well, let's get the nanobots moving, then. Tell them to revert to previous form, or whatever. Do what you need to do." Jackson leaned her skirted behind against the countertop, set the tablet computer down, and folded her arms. "What I need to do, Tyler, is have proper employees available for this convention that's coming up." Turning his head toward Jackson, Tyler said, "What convention? What're you talking about?" "Convention coming up, like I said. Lots of people coming in from Earth, Mars, the orbital stations around Jupiter and Venus, and what have you. There's a big to-do happening with all the valuable gas and minerals discovered on one of Saturn's moons recently. Everyone's coming to talk about it. Vendors are coming to sell their extraction and conveyance equipment, and buyers are coming to purchase it. In a week, this whole station is going to be crawling with people looking to do business." Tyler glared at her, more confused than ever. Jackson smirked back and took off her glasses. "My business," she said, "is going to capitalize on their business. That's what I do here. That's what we all do here." "Do what?" Tyler shouted. "What do you do? What does that have to do with the nanobots turning me into a..." "A woman," Jackson said. "Suck it up, Mr. Hillman. This is the best disguise available to you, and the only disguise that I provide to people who need the services of my nanobots." Tyler shot up on the exam table, his breasts bouncing free. "I don't want to be a... a... a woman! This wasn't part of the deal!" "The deal was to hide you. And you said it yourself when you were in here last time: you owe me, and you'll do whatever I need you to do." "But..." "I'm not in the business of arguing. Now, you can either accept things the way they are, let your body finish changing without any more ruckus - because it hasn't quite finished yet, if that situation between your legs is telling the truth. Or I can have my men in the waiting room come back here and tie you to the exam table and leave you there for a few hours. Your choice. One way or another, you're working for me until your debt is paid, and you're doing it in the body I select for you." Tyler's heart pounded under his breasts. Jackson had done this to him on purpose. He was so angry, so miserable... and completely unable to do anything about it. He couldn't fight off those security guards if his life depended on it. Even if he did, what then? His body was still changing into a female whether he wanted it to or not. He thought about finding another medical clinic on Saturn Beta to reprogram the nanobots, but that would be difficult... and exceedingly expensive. He was stuck. He looked down at his bounteous new breasts, hanging off his chest like two half-gallon jugs of milk. He looked through the space between his breasts, down past his flat, hairless tummy, to the bush of reddish-brown pubic hair that had formed over the last several hours, to the dwindling presence of his penis. He placed his tiny, dainty hands on his widened hips and looked at his hairless legs, his knees, and his thin, undersized feet. He had to admit: it was a killer disguise. Nobody in the solar system would ever mistake him, in his current nubile form, for Tyler Hillman, the middle-aged, pudgy info broker from Miami with the big awkward ears. He had spent so much time and energy being upset by the change that he hadn't stopped to consider the advantages of it. His anger subsided somewhat. "How long?" Tyler asked, placing his hands over his shrinking crotch. "I mean, how long until I've paid off what I owe you?" Jackson shook her head. "Not how long, Tyler. I don't pay by the hour. I pay by the job. The more work you do for the company, the faster your debt is paid off. I'm guessing you'll want to start working sooner rather than later, if you're in a hurry for the nanobots to change you back. You don't have to start working right away. It's probably in both of our best interests if you take a few days, get used to your new body and your new place in the world. Things will be different for you. Trust me. All the historical progress of feminism and equality and so forth is nice, but the fact of the matter is that women's lives are different than men's. It'll take you some getting used to, I'd imagine. Hell, most of my new girls need a few days to get situated even if they were girls when they arrived on the station." The words rang in Tyler's head - new girls. She meant to include Tyler in that statement. And how many men... former men... had she done this to before? His pulse jumped even as he tried to calm down and accept his new circumstances and the body that came with them. As if reading his mind, Jackson said, "For your information, most of my employees are girls. Were girls. You know what I mean. Some of them were men before, though none of them had come to Saturn Beta for the reason you did. You're the first of your kind, Tyler. Congratulations on being such a brave pioneer." Jackson fiddled with her tablet. "Okay. We have a bed for you upstairs. Let's see if Amber's available to show you around. I'll buzz the dormitory and we'll see what we get." She tapped a few more buttons. "Your... my nanobots are reporting that they'll be all finished up in 90 minutes. Not too long, now. That should give you enough time to get yourself sorted out and cleaned up. I'd certainly recommend a shower. Take that robe off the hook. You can borrow it." Looking at the wall behind him, Tyler saw a pink, kimono-styled silk robe hanging from a plastic hook. Of course it had to be pink. Tyler hopped off the exam table, took the kimono off the hook, and wrapped it around his nude, feminized body. He tied the belt tight around his minimized waist, which caused his breasts and hips to appear even more prominent. The pink material of the robe was offset by graphics of white chrysanthemums. It was such a feminine thing to be wearing, but Tyler had little choice. He needed something to wear, and his old men's clothes wouldn't do the trick anymore. Despite himself, he enjoyed the slippery, sensual feel of the silk against his hairless body and hardening nipples. There was a knock on the exam room door. Jackson opened it, revealing a cute, 20-something girl with wavy blonde hair. She wore a breezy purple sundress and white sequined cowboy boots, and had a big smile on her face. Tyler caught himself endearing to her instantly. "Amber," Jackson said, smiling as well. "Sorry to bother you. I know it's your day off." "Oh, I don't mind," Amber said, with an adorable southern drawl. Tyler guessed she was from Mississippi or Alabama. "Wasn't doing anything too interestin' anyway. Somethin' I can help you out with?" "If you don't mind," Jackson said. "New arrival, needs to be shown around the place. There's an available bed on the second floor, correct?" "In my room, believe it or not." She turned to Tyler and put her hands on her hips. "Well, sugar, looks like you 'n' me are gonna be roommates! What's your name?" Tyler's voice caught in his throat. He'd changed his name countless times, given himself a dozen aliases over the course of his career, and this was the first time he'd ever had trouble with producing a fake name. He sure as hell wasn't going to introduce himself as Tyler - that'd just make things weird between Amber and him. Unless Amber had undergone the same... treatment that he had experienced today. Jackson mentioned that some of her employees were former men... surely it wasn't worth the risk to admit that, though. Seconds passed as Tyler searched his mind for inspiration. Certainly he had a woman's name stashed away in that brain of his. He could conjure it up, apply it to himself for as long as was necessary to pay off his debt. He thought about his childhood, his old school friends, and his cousins, singers, movie stars... He came up blank and started looking around the exam room for inspiration. Jackson, Jackson's skirt, Amber, Amber's dress... "Violet," Tyler said, absentmindedly noting the color of Amber's dress. As quickly as he'd said it out loud, he began to regret it. Taylor was at least an androgynous name... but a flower? Why would he want to be named after something as feminine as a flower? "Ooh, I like it," Amber said, nodding excitedly. "Violet. It suits you." Jackson smirked, noting Tyler's discomfort. She placed her tablet on the countertop. "I agree. It's a very pretty name. Now, Amber, why don't you show Violet around the place. Dorm, showers, all that fascinating stuff. I myself am coming up to the end of an obscenely long day of work, and I'd like to get some sleep." "Sure, ma'am, you've earned it. Well, c'mon, Violet. Let's get you all re-combobulated." Amber held the door open for Tyler and pointed an inviting hand into Jackson's office. Jackson nodded at Tyler, as if giving permission for him to leave. Made sense. She was his boss, after all, however temporarily, however insane the circumstances were. Tyler glanced as the now-worthless pile of clothing on the floor, the only things he had brought to Saturn with him apart from his smartphone. "Dear Lord, I hope you haven't been runnin' around wearin' that awful stuff," Amber said, following Tyler's gaze. "Don't worry, darlin', we'll get you somethin' proper to wear. C'mon." Jackson bent over, causing her tight green skirt to ride up slightly, and extracted Tyler's phone from his pants pocket. She handed it to Amber and said, "See if you can find something for Violet to carry that in, as well." "Sure," Amber said, palming the smartphone and opening the door a few inches wider, urging Tyler along through it. "Let's get movin', then. Only so many hours of daylight left!" ***** The dormitory was accessed through another door on the other side of Jackson's office, one Tyler hadn't noticed before, behind a Roman column and next to the big bay windows looking out on the planet beyond. Amber minced along the hallway in her sequined cowboy boots, light on her feet and humming to herself pleasantly, her dress swishing around her thighs as she went. Tyler kept hoping the dress would flutter up some, giving him a front-row view of her behind. It was easier for him to do that inconspicuously, now. He was at least half a foot shorter than he was before the surgery started. "So," Amber said, "Violet. What brings ya to Saturn?" "Oh, uh," Tyler said, still surprised to hear such a feminine voice proceeding from his own throat. "Just... looking for work, I guess." "Well, there's plenty of that to go around out here," Amber said. "Pretty lil thing like you, you won't have any trouble findin' somethin' to keep you occupied, that's for sure. Jackson do any work on you yet?" "Huh?" Tyler asked. Amber stopped in the hallway and turned to face him. "Work. I mean, she put those nanobots in your body yet? Or is that the rig you cam here with?" "No, no," Tyler said, looking down at his pink-robed, buxom, lithe body. "I mean, yes. She gave me the nanobots, but this is what I usually look like." Tyler felt a twinge of guilt, lying to Amber like this. The truth was a much worse prospect, though. He was hoping to keep his former identity a secret to everyone other than himself and Jackson (even before she... changed him), and the path of least resistance for that particular plan was to keep the story as simple as possible. He'd done plenty of lying over the course of his info brokering career. It wouldn't be hard to keep it up on Saturn Beta. Still, though, he felt guilty about it. He felt guilty about lying for the first time in his adult life. "Well, you're one of the lucky ones," Amber said. She began walking again. "You're just about the cutest thing I've seen since I set up shop with Jackson. I wasn't exactly a spring chicken, y'understand. Jackson had some work done on me to bring me up to snuff. Most of the other girls have had at least a few tweaks done to 'em. I basically don't look nothin' like what I came here lookin' like. Okay, first stop: showers." Amber stopped again, standing in front of an unmarked blue door. She handed Tyler his smartphone and grinned. "I'm guessin' you could go for one of these right now, huh, Violet? You look fresh off the boat. Don't worry none - the water's nice 'n' hot. Ever since they dug up all that natural gas from that moon, things have gotten a lot more comfy around here. I'm gonna go find you somethin' to wear." And just like that, Amber was off in a flurry of swishing purple skirts, down the hall and around the corner, leaving Tyler by himself in front of the blue door. He opened it tentatively and walked inside. Automatic lighting flickered on, showing four separate shower bays, each with their own pair of privacy curtains and a dressing area. He decided on the one farthest from the door, walked into the dressing area, and pulled the curtain shut. Tyler sighed, knowing what needed to happen next. This would be the first time he'd been by himself, naked, with his new body. He knew he had to get used to it, though, and he wouldn't be able to stay wrapped in this girly pink robe forever. He loosened the belt around his waist, peeled the robe off his shoulders, and let it fall to the floor. There was a full-body mirror in the dressing area, and Tyler placed himself in front of it. The reflection displayed a young woman, probably in her early twenties, at least ten years younger than Tyler actually was. The girl in the mirror had reddish-brown hair, slightly curly, which hung an inch below the tops of her shoulders. She had smoky green eyes and a small, cute nose. Her mouth was narrow, her teeth perfectly aligned, her chin smooth and rounded. Her neck was long and shapely. Tyler studied his new, feminine face for several minutes, partly because he was so fascinated (and terrified!) by it, and partly because he really couldn't believe this girl in the mirror was him. He touched his cheek with his hand, and she did the same... he licked his lips, and she repeated the motion instantly. Looking downward at the reflection, Tyler got a full view of his new breasts for the first time. They felt huge on him, but the mirror showed they weren't as big as he originally thought. They hung down over his rib cage, the nipples sticking out enticingly. He held his breasts in his palms, felt the unfamiliar weight of them, lifted them and let go again. He traced his fingers around his areolae, shivering from the unfamiliar but enticing sensation of it. He pinched each nipple lightly between a thumb and forefinger, sending a shock of pleasure and pain through his breasts that caused him to utter a surprised, feminine gasp. Tyler found himself enjoying this, maybe a little too much. The girl in the mirror was smiling. Under his breasts was his hourglass-shaped waist, certainly much more attractive than the beer gut he'd left behind. His flat, toned tummy sported a cute innie above a pair of freckles that Tyler had always possessed. Apparently, not all of the features of his old body had been wiped away by the nanobots. Tyler would have to ask Jackson why that was, if he could remember to. The hips on either side of his torso seemed higher than he was used to. And between those shapely, child bearing hips... He skipped looking at his lower privates for the time being - not quite ready to face that little issue just yet, he told himself - and instead looked down at his feet. Tiny things, they were, half as big as the ones he'd walked in with when he first arrived on Saturn Beta. Tyler flicked his toes and the nubile girl in the mirror followed suit. The girl's calves were statuesque and devoid of hair, and her thighs were perfectly shaped, creamy in complexion. Tyler brought his knees together and saw that he now had a tiny gap just above the place where his thighs touched each other. And above that gap... Tyler still had a hard time admitting to himself what had happened, there between his legs. He let go of his breasts and reached down to his nethers with one hand, slowly drifting along his flat stomach, into the tuft of auburn pubic hair, beyond which he found the dwindling remains of his penis, then the unmistakable folds of a vagina. His vagina. Tyler edged his middle finger into his labia, and tensed at the unfamiliar feeling of it. He knew what to expect when his hand traveled downward to his new crotch, and yet he was somehow still surprised at what he found there - this wondrous organ, familiar to him in his previous life but entirely alien to him as he experienced it now. The girl in the mirror looked perfectly normal with that feature between her legs, but Tyler's mind still had difficulty grasping that the furred mound belonged to him. His penis had almost entirely disappeared, reformed, and settled on his new sex. It responded to his probing hands by flexing slightly, relaxing again, and then accepting his finger into itself. Tyler felt his finger penetrating his pussy one knuckle at a time, slowly, slowly taking more of the appendage in until he had it all the way in. The sensation was so strange, having something inside his genitals like this. Strange, foreign, and yet so pleasurable and so... appropriate. As though he was supposed to have something in there, as though his body was built for it. He swirled his finger around inside his vagina, brushing his minimizing penis with his thumb, gasping and moaning as he explored his new depths... Tyler snapped himself back to the present to finish his examination. He retracted his hand from his slick, warm cunt. "Enough of that," he said. Turning away from his reflection, he took one more good, long look at the wavy-haired bombshell in the mirror. Now he could see himself from behind, see the tresses of hair hanging past his shoulders, the bumps of his spine, the dimpled small of his back, the toned and rounded shape of his ass, and his glorious legs, which may have looked even better from the back as they did from the front. Incredible, the things that nanotechnology could accomplish. As horrified as Tyler was when he first realized what was being done to him by Jackon's surgery, he now found himself fascinated, mesmerized, perhaps even excited and eager. What he would have given to fuck a girl this attractive back in Miami, a city with no small amount of eye-bogglingly hot women. Now he was her - cute enough to be a girl- next-door, sexy enough to be a supermodel. There wasn't a shred of masculinity on her, and Tyler at last merged his mind with his reflection. He was Violet. He was this girl. His heart raced with dwindling anger at Jackson for tricking him into the surgery, trepidation at what would be asked of him by his new employer, fear of this new body, relief at being that much safer from Gordon Rosenthal, misery at the reality of his penis ebbing away... so many conflicting emotions, none of which could battle out the others to remain in the forefront of his mind. He couldn't juggle all these thoughts racing through his head, and he did what he found was the most natural thing to do in this situation: he started crying. It was just a few quiet tears at first, enough to streak his smooth, hairless cheeks. But soon he found himself wailing into his cupped hands, kneeling on the cold ground, peeking through his fingers at the girl in the mirror, and wearing nothing but his pale, flawless, depilated skin. His breasts bounced in time with his shuddering nubile body as he wept, and it was only after many minutes of this that he felt his composure returning. Trying to get a grip on himself and his emotions, he wiped away his tears, stood on his dainty feet, and entered the shower. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. At least he wasn't going to be a gladiator.