GreenTG

Lace Bra

— No way?! Seriously?! — the girl's voice rang out, trembling with outrage, with a surprisingly high and clear tone even to herself.

Akira was crouching in front of the open door of the washing machine, which was now empty—just a bare drum. Turning her head to the side, her eyes landed on this absurd thing, which, apparently, was now the only thing left to support her breasts.

— What is it this time, Akira? — the voice belonged to Jiro, her only companion and, ironically, the one she now depended on. Though “companion” was putting it nicely. After his transformation, he felt more and more like a fucking bastard wearing a mask of friendliness.

— Don’t call me that! — she snapped, rising to her feet and grabbing the poor bra so hard the underwire nearly popped out. — Where are my normal bras? Where’s the grey one? The sports one? Jiro, have you seen them?

— Uh... — came a suspiciously uncertain voice. — No.

— Get over here, Jiro. Right now. — Akira’s voice was as commanding as an officer fed up with deserters. She stood there, stubbornly holding the pink bra trimmed with little flowers like a piece of evidence from a crime scene. In that pose—barefoot, in short denim shorts, and a maroon tank top stretched tight over her overly sensitive tits—she looked damn striking.

Jiro, a 21-year-old guy, slowly appeared in the doorway, scratching the back of his head. His grey T-shirt hung loosely on his narrow shoulders, and both hands were shoved into the pockets of his cargo pants. But looks were deceiving. Jiro was incredibly strong, and with his mastery of martial arts, he was practically unbeatable. Still, at this moment, his face looked more like a guilty kid caught red-handed.

— What? — he asked, avoiding her gaze.

— One more time, — she raised the bra higher like it was a bloody knife. — Where. Are. My. Bras?

Jiro looked up, his eyes landing on the bra, then immediately shifting to Akira. A faint smirk crept across his face before he could even notice it.

— You’ve got one right there in your hand, — Jiro muttered, trying hard not to imagine how that bra would look on her, though it was nearly impossible. His mind was already flashing through imaginary scenes of Akira posing in that lingerie, and that, naturally, sent a rush of blood straight to his cock.

— You fucking pervert... — she hissed through her teeth, stepping closer. Her knees trembled slightly, not from fear, but from pure fury. She shook the bra right in front of his face. — This is your doing. You grabbed this horrible excuse of a bra from that supermarket and hid my normal ones!

— What? No, no-no, come on — Jiro waved his hands, backing away. — That’s... I... I didn’t do anything!

— Give me back my underwear, now! — she shouted so loud that Jiro stumbled and accidentally smashed his hand into the wall, misjudging his strength—and instantly punched a hole in it.

They both froze. Dust slowly drifted down from the fresh crack in the concrete, while Akira still held the pink bra like a prosecutor awaiting a confession. Only her eyes flickered slightly—not from fear, but from a brief, almost instinctive flash of realization: Jiro was dangerous.

Fucking dangerous.

Flashes of memory instantly shot through her mind—Jiro effortlessly taking down a group of raiders back in Sector 45. Those fuckers, covered in tattoos and reeking in their sweat-soaked leather jackets, had barely spotted a lone girl before exchanging glances and heading straight for her. Any one of them, if she’d been alone, could’ve easily knocked her to the ground and raped her—or worse.

But he was there—Jiro.

She didn’t even have time to feel fear before one of those bastards went flying into a wall, the second cracked his spine down the stairs, and the third just passed out from a single precise blow. And he did it all with this terrifying ease, like Jiro was just warming up.

At that point, she'd already spent a week wandering around in this body in Sector 45. Her name used to be Michael James Harrison.

Twenty-seven years old.

Software engineer with combat training from Bunker 95, USA, Arizona. Worked for NeuroGrid—one of the last remaining American contractors partnered with FunGPT, the global AI entertainment system that, after the war of 2123, had adapted and basically governed what was left of the technological zones. He was sent to Japan—or what was left of it—on orders from command.

The mission: retrieve a black module from a complex linked to the GPT core.

His team never made it. He was swallowed by the explosion.

And woke up—with tits.

There was no link to the base from the start. Everyone who knew about the mission was dead. She was alone. On the edge. Hungry, dehydrated, falling apart.

The way Jiro looked at her when he showed up—so open, so disarmingly innocent—made Michael cry for the first time in all those hellish days. Silent tears, while he handed her a flask of water, and she just dropped to her knees and let the hot, humiliating tears stream down her cheeks. They were a woman’s tears.

Just like the voice. Just like the body.

Just like the patience she had left—and whatever was still clinging to the scraps of masculinity.

Akira. That was the name Jiro gave her. And at first, it pissed her the fuck off—especially after realizing she didn’t just look like a Japanese woman now—she actually spoke Japanese.

But Jiro just couldn’t bring himself to call her “Michael.” Every time he tried, it ended in a fit of laughter from him—and a full-blown meltdown from Akira.

And now, here she stood, in this tiny post-apocalyptic corner of what used to be Japan, holding a pathetic pink bra with little flowers in her hand, seething as she stared at the awkward idiot in front of her. She could feel the veins pulsing at her temples and the tank top stretching tight again across her boobs as she took a deep breath, forcing herself to hold back another wave of rage.

— You didn’t hide them. You threw them out, didn’t you? — she said quietly, almost in a whisper, and even though it sounded like a question, there was no doubt in her voice. — Tell me, Jiro. What the fuck made you think you had the right to mess with my stuff?

Jiro looked away. His brows furrowed, lips twitching like he wanted to argue but had no idea where to begin. His hands were still stuffed in his pockets, as if awkwardness could be hidden there.

Akira didn’t rush him.

— You… you don’t even wear them — Jiro finally muttered. — Well, except for this... one. The rest were just sitting there. You said yourself they were uncomfortable.

Akira squinted.

— Goddamn it, Jiro! — she snapped. — I’m sick of your dumbass shit. Half a year... Half a fucking year I’ve been stuck in this body, and every day is fucking torture! You think it’s fun for me to wear bras? You think I enjoy how everything jiggles, pulls, chafes?! — She lifted the bra higher, like she was about to strangle him with it. — I’m an engineer. I was a guy. Since I was sixteen I was crawling under car hoods and writing code, and now... I look at you, and I see you actually want me to put on this pink flowery crap you dragged back and handed to me like it’s some kind of gift!

Jiro, who had already backed off to a safe distance, suddenly smirked—a thin, nasty look that always made Akira’s fists itch.

— Oh, Michael, right — he said, barely holding back a grin. — Sorry, I forgot... forgot that real tough men never wear pink bras!

He couldn’t hold it in anymore.

Laughter—loud, like thunder—filled the small room.

His laughing bounced off the concrete walls, echoed off empty lockers, and scrambled her thoughts completely.

The worst part was that she smiled, too—just for a second—because his laugh was that contagious.

But it was a brief smile, automatic. She caught herself immediately and shot him a glare full of both fury and exhaustion.

— Fucking idiot, — she whispered, lowering her eyes to the pink bra like she was saying goodbye to her last shred of dignity.

Jiro, still wiping tears from his cheeks, took a step closer.

— Come on, Akira, — he said more gently now. — Is it really that bad? Honestly, I thought it would… you know, suit you. Back in the store, you even laughed, remember?

She looked up at him.

Cold.

Like that damn day in the store was just yesterday.

Moldy shelves. Headless mannequins. A sign that said “Lingerie” almost hanging off the ceiling.

They were hiding there from drones, and when it became clear the building was about to collapse, Jiro—completely out of nowhere—grabbed that exact pink bra with the flowers.

— I laughed because I thought you were joking — she hissed. — And then you seriously stuffed it in your backpack. Instead of water.

Water, Jiro.

And now — she shook the bra — this is all that’s left. The only one.

You threw the others out, didn’t you?

— I didn’t throw them out… — he rubbed his neck, like he always did when he was lying. — They just... weren’t like this one.

Akira bit her lip. Something deep inside told her that, in his own dumb way, he actually had wanted to help—even if he’d picked the stupidest way possible. Jiro was painfully simple-minded. But in a world where old supply chains were long gone, factories had fallen silent, and clothing was literally a treasure, the choice between lacy bullshit and nothing at all was brutally simple.

And then came a sound. Not loud—more like a click. Like something quickly darted under the metal locker.

Akira flinched, instinctively lunged toward Jiro, and in the next second was pressing herself into his chest, still clutching the cursed bra in her hands.

— Shit... — she whispered, feeling a tense ringing in the back of her head.

He stood still, surprised, not even fully grasping what had just happened when he felt her tremble.

— What was that? — she whispered, not moving.

— Probably a rat, — Jiro guessed, not moving either. — Or maybe a little scrapper. You know, those that crawl around, battery-powered. From old cleaning drones.

Akira jerked away like she’d been burned, suddenly aware of how close she had pressed against him. Her skin had touched his T-shirt—and that... that was way too close.

— I... — she started, then waved it off. — Forget it. This is all your fault. Yours and your dumbass choices.

— Honestly, — Jiro said, looking straight at her, — I picked it because... I thought it’d be comfortable. And... pretty. Maybe.

— He paused.

— I don’t believe you were a man. I’m sorry, but you... You don’t look like someone who used to crawl under car hoods. You look...

He trailed off.

— Like what? — she snapped, squinting.

— Like how you look now. A woman. Beautiful. Angry. Stubborn. With... — he trailed off again, realizing he’d gone too far.

— Forget it. Doesn’t matter.

She stared at him for a few seconds.

Her head buzzed—not from fear or anger, but from that fucking truth: he still didn’t take her seriously.

He thought she was just being moody. Like all of this wasn’t pain, wasn’t loss, just something she made up.

As if there weren’t her hands, trembling, the first time she struggled into a bra.

As if there wasn’t that silent scream in her soul the first time she heard her own voice sound so damn girly.

As if there wasn’t that night in Sector 32 when she almost...

She stared at him for a long time. Then sighed.

And pulled on that fucking pink bra, feeling it wrap tightly around her breasts, chafe her skin, squeeze something she still couldn’t fully accept.

She caught his gaze—even though he tried not to look, he was looking.

— There. Look. — she said flatly. — Your choice. Happy now?

Jiro said nothing. And whatever it was he’d imagined—there was no satisfaction on his face.

Just that weird, unreadable, embarrassed expression.

And of course, at that exact moment, something rustled again behind the locker.

Just a Trip to the Supermarket

Pasta, sausage, flour... what else did I need? Shit, some guy’s staring at me again. This time way too blatantly. How old is he? He looks like a kid. He’s practically drooling. It’s both ridiculous and creepy as hell. Was I ever like that? No way—I was a decent boy at his age. Although... it’s kind of weird to even think about this, considering how I look now. And not just how I look—how I live.

Now I’m Tori. But I was born a completely different person. My name back then was Chuck Miller. I taught history at a middle school in Atlanta, ran a local political podcast, and collected vintage vinyl. I was 34 when everything... changed. It was that visit to the spa—a gift from my sister. “Relax, Zach. You need to unwind.” I had a bad feeling, but chalked it up to dumb macho ideas like “men don’t go to spas.” But turns out it was right. I don’t know how, but I woke up the next morning... like this. In the body of a woman with small but incredibly sensitive breasts and a narrow waist. And the most insane part—it wasn’t surgery. It was real. I even get fucking periods now. I’ve been living like this for a few months.

Was it magic? Punishment? Retribution? A gift? I still don’t know. My sister apologized once I managed to convince her who I was—we even went back to the spa—but there was nothing we could change. I tried. I searched online, threatened the spa employees—who just looked at me like I was nuts—and cried a lot. But a couple days later, people in suits showed up at my place. I don’t even know how they got in—I just came home and they were already there. They said, “You’re Tori Lynch now. You moved here from Florida. All the documents are on the table.” And then they smiled and added, “You’ve noticed your new desires, haven’t you? Don’t fight them. Tori was designed to like attention. And we’ll be close by. Don’t worry.”

Back then, I didn’t really understand what they meant. What fucking new desires? I just wanted my life back—my vinyls, my cozy boring classroom, the irritating dust on the shelves nobody touched. And then... it started. At first, it was weird wearing a bra. It chafed, irritated me—especially when my nipples started to hurt, maybe from the weather or just because now they were... real. So sensitive I could barely step outside without feeling every breeze, every fold of fabric brushing against them.

Then came the clothes. I felt... not just uncomfortable, it was unbearable if I tried to wear anything loose, baggy, unattractive. Like something inside me started drilling, whispering: Tori doesn’t dress like that. Tori’s meant to be seen. Feel the eyes on you—you need it. And the more I resisted, the worse it got. Headaches, nausea, weird tingling in my tits. Like the very fabric of my new self was rebelling.

There was even one time when I tried to fight it—put on a baggy hoodie and matching pants. I made it to a café, thinking how nice it was that no one was looking at me, and then suddenly stopped. Tears started pouring down right there on the sidewalk. I was shaking. I rushed into the nearest public bathroom, stripped off the hoodie and pants—even my panties—and stood there naked, feeling the cold tiles under my feet and a sharp draft wrapping around my breasts. They responded instantly—nipples tightening on their own. I clamped my hand over my mouth to keep from moaning. Fuck... What’s happening to me? I felt aroused, like a jolt.

I had packed a red crop top with thin straps and a tight denim mini-skirt in my purse ahead of time. I hadn’t wanted to. I resisted. But I thought maybe it was just about the clothes—not about me wearing them. I thought maybe if I just had them with me, I could manage not to walk around like... like a slut?

But in that moment, I realized it wasn’t about the clothes at all. It was about what they did to me. I put on that top and skirt in the bathroom like I was saving myself from going insane. But with every passing second, I felt more like I was becoming part of that insanity.

When I stepped outside, the wind immediately crept up under my skirt, licked my thighs, and I felt hot. People started looking. One. Then another. An old man at the newsstand, a guy with headphones, even a woman with a kid. It was like I could feel their eyes on my skin. And the more they looked—the tighter that... urge twisted inside me. That perverse craving to be seen. To be noticed. Almost exposed.

And now—the store. I’d made it to the produce section, again wondering what I’d become. Oh... cucumbers. Right, I needed cucumbers. I reached out for a pack, and out of the corner of my eye I saw another man looking at me. He wasn’t alone—he was with his wife. I froze. I wondered what he was thinking. Was it just how I looked or... Oh god! Maybe he’s thinking I want to shove those cucumbers up my pussy. That thought flared through my head like a camera flash—blinding and sharp—but… I didn’t reject it. On the contrary, something inside me twitched. Warmth, deep in my belly, between my legs. I was getting hot. I stood there among plastic-wrapped greens and carrots, in a tight white tank top with my nipples clearly poking through, and short black biker shorts, feeling like I’d just been caught doing something obscene.

He was still staring. His wife had turned away, mumbling something about broccoli discounts, but he was staring right at my tits. Maybe he noticed how hard my nipples were, how they pressed against the fabric. Maybe he imagined what they’d feel like if he licked them. Or how I’d moan if he pressed them through the tank top… Jesus. What the hell am I thinking?! I swallowed hard and suddenly realized I’d nearly dropped the pack. Cucumbers. So green, cold, smooth—and he’s picturing it all? Me doing that...

I felt the muscles between my legs tighten. Clench. Wetness. Real, sticky, raw female wetness. Just a few months ago—six, maybe—I never would’ve believed I’d get turned on like this. Standing in the produce aisle, just from imagining how it all must look from the outside.

I moved further down the aisle, trying to keep my back straight, trying not to let all that trembling spill over. But every step sent waves of heat through me. The tight shorts were so thin, so clingy, I could feel the wetness sticking to the fabric. I was almost sure that if someone stood next to me, they’d smell my arousal. And I... I wanted that. I wanted them to smell it. To know I wasn’t just buying vegetables. That my body was demanding attention and pleasure.

I stopped in front of the bananas. I stared at them, my breathing getting heavier. Is this really my life now?

The Fantasy Made Too Real - Episode 1

Happy upcoming New Year to everyone. Most likely I’m taking a pause for a few days, so I decided not to put off the long story until Saturday. Besides, this is the first time I decided to use a different approach for creating images.

In the small holding cell of the Fort St. John police station, it was unexpectedly quiet — too quiet for a place where shifts, raids, and other people’s mistakes usually end. She sat on a narrow bench, knees pressed together, palms resting on top of them, and with genuine pleasure examined how her heavy breasts, pulled tight by a thin mesh, pushed out between the straps. The corners of her lips stretched into a wide, almost childlike smile — from the awareness of the absurdity and from the way this body felt: the weight, the pressure, the constant reminder of itself with every breath.

‘Fuck… they’re really mine now,’ the thought flashed through her mind, and her fingers pressed a little harder into her thighs, feeling the smoothness and softness of her skin, watching how the mesh top cut into it, how her breasts swayed ever so slightly with each breath.

She had come to her senses about five minutes ago, at first not realizing where she was and muttering something angrily under her breath. But she immediately fell silent when she heard how strange her voice sounded. She understood everything in that very moment, and all the questions that had popped up in her head instantly went quiet.

The lock clicked.

The metal door slid aside, and she, leaning forward slightly, smiled even wider as she looked at the man in uniform who appeared in the doorway.

Tall, young, but with obvious signs of what people call “attractive carelessness” when talking about those whom nature has gifted with model-like looks. But Officer Ryan McKenzie was not one of them. On him, the stubble, the messy hair, and the slightly sleepy look would make a sane woman feel uneasy rather than tempted to flirt.

Taking a sip of freshly brewed coffee, he scanned the cell as if trying to find someone else in there besides this girl, who kept staring at him with a wide smile.

Ryan squinted, took another sip, and finally looked at her.

— Good morning, officer, — she drawled with the same wide grin, then immediately coughed, laughed, and tried to force her voice lower — Or maybe… like this… UGH! Haha. Still sounds like a fucking mouse!

Her laughter filled the walls of the cell, as if someone had suddenly turned an old radio up to full volume — bright, slightly raspy, but absolutely genuine, without a trace of fear or shame.

Ryan winced and leaned back a little, as if the sound had hit him physically.

— Knock it off, — he said curtly. — This isn’t a club.

She was still chuckling, wiping the moisture that had come from coughing from the corner of her eye with the back of her hand. The smile didn’t go anywhere, it just became more crooked, more alive.

— Sorry, — she breathed out. — It’s just… — she waved her hand through the air, as if trying to catch an explanation, — I didn’t expect this to be so… funny.

2

— Funny? — he echoed, raising an eyebrow. — You’re in a holding cell in Fort St. John. People don’t usually laugh here.

— Yeah! So that’s what this “town” is called, huh? Fort-Saint… what? — she tilted her head, genuinely trying to parse the name, as if she’d heard it for the first time and hadn’t really bothered to remember it.

Ryan slowly exhaled through his nose. Not annoyed — more tired. He had clearly already realized that the morning was not going according to the standard script.

— Fort St. John, — he pronounced clearly and deliberately. — Come on, get up. Time to process you.

He said it like he was putting a period on it, not continuing a conversation.

She blinked, still smiling and not moving an inch, looking at him as if he were some kind of museum exhibit.

A second passed. Then another.

Ryan waited. He knew how to wait — it showed in how he didn’t change his stance, didn’t raise his voice, didn’t make unnecessary movements. He just watched. And that silence was slowly starting to weigh more than any words.

— I said get up, — he repeated, his voice flatter now, raised by half a tone.

She blinked again, as if only now realizing the pause had dragged on. The smile twitched slightly, but didn’t disappear.

— Wait, — she said unexpectedly calmly. — I’m just curious.

— About what exactly? — he asked.

— How much do they pay you to stay this convincingly in character? — she tilted her head to the side. — Or are you also—

She shifted her gaze, starting to quickly examine something in the cell, as if she might see anything there besides bare, scuffed walls and a narrow bench.

The pause turned awkward. Too long.

— Fuck, what the hell, are you high or something? — he said, stepping forward, — Or are you asking for it?!

She froze.

The smile was still on her face, but now it looked like something that had been forgotten there. The muscles in her cheeks tensed, her gaze slid aside on instinct, as if her body understood before her head that something had gone wrong.

“Wow… holy shit…” she thought, feeling something she had genuinely never felt before.

Her gaze locked on Ryan for a second, but as soon as he took another step, she immediately raised her hands in a defensive gesture and said:

— Okay-okay-okay! Getting up! — she quickly braced her palms on the bench and slowly stood. Her body reacted immediately and far too actively: her weight shifted, her hips tensed, her breasts swung heavily under the mesh, making her instinctively freeze for half a second and spread her arms out to keep her balance.

Ryan stopped mid-step, watching this strange scene. She stood there with her arms slightly apart, like a tightrope walker who had just stepped onto the wire for the first time and only now realized how thin it was. Her heels trembled slightly on the concrete floor from the unfamiliar work of ligaments and muscles that hadn’t yet adjusted to the new weight distribution. Her breasts, having swung heavily once, now stilled, but each following breath made them rise and fall ever so slightly, pulling the mesh top tight to its limit.

— Ta-da! — as if showing she had handled some difficult task, she flashed a quick smile and looked at the cop with a grin, tilting her head to the side while her torso leaned forward, — all done, officer!

3

— Good job, now follow me, — Ryan replied in a calm tone, writing all of it off as some kind of the girl’s quirks.

She slowly exhaled through parted lips, then lowered her hands and once again widened her eyes, looking down at her breasts, the nipples sticking out through the mesh.

— This is some kind of madness, — she breathed out, and for the first time there was something almost childlike and lost in her voice, — everything is both right and wrong at the same time...

Ryan snorted, then slowly turned, looking at the girl sideways, and took a step out of the cell.

— Follow me, — he muttered.

She stepped after him, but the moment she did, she almost kissed the concrete with her nose. A thin heel slid across the gray floor, her ankle strangely “collapsed” at a new angle, and her entire body weight shifted forward, making her hands instinctively fly up to keep balance. Her earrings swung, lightly tapping against her neck with a soft jingle, and the tattoos on her arms tensed along with the muscles.

— Shit! — burst out of her, and she froze, shifting from foot to foot, trying to catch her balance. Her breasts swayed again, reminding her of themselves with a heaviness that pulled downward, like a counterweight in this stupid circus act.

Ryan, who had already taken a couple of steps, stopped and looked back. His gaze slid over her — from her confused face down to her trembling hips in the tight glossy skirt. For a moment, something like sympathy flickered in his eyes, but it was immediately replaced by familiar fatigue.

— What, first time in heels? — he grumbled. — Or are you still putting on your little show? Come on, move. I don’t want to spend all day messing with you.

— Not the first, — she exhaled through clenched teeth, still trying to lock in her balance. — Just… go to hell with questions like that!

The phrase came out sharp, but along with it her leg trembled again. The heel slipped by a millimeter, and she had to abruptly fall silent, focusing on the most basic thing — not falling. Her knees bent slightly on their own, her torso leaned back, her breasts settled heavily and immediately reminded her of themselves with another jolt, as if her body were deliberately testing her limits.

— Then shut your mouth and walk, — Ryan said evenly, taking a sip of coffee and moving on without checking whether she was following.

She moved after him. One step — short. Another — even shorter. The heels answered with a dull knock that echoed upward, into her hips, into her lower back. The skirt restricted her movement, forcing her to keep her knees closer together than she wanted.

"Fuck it, this really isn’t turning me on at all..." she thought, taking slow steps across the floor, and that thought left an unpleasant emptiness inside.

Ryan reached the corner of the corridor and stopped by a metal door with a sign that read “Intake / Processing.” The door was slightly ajar, and the smell of cheap coffee and old paper drifted out from inside.

4

He pushed the door with his shoulder, letting her go in first.

— Go in. Sit over there, — he nodded toward a metal chair bolted to the floor, its blue paint chipped and peeling.

She walked inside, trying not to take steps that were too wide. The room was tiny: a desk, a computer with a cracked corner on the monitor, a stack of folders, a 2025 calendar with a photo of an oil rig under the northern lights. On the wall — a bulletin board cluttered with flyers reading “Safety First,” “Hotline for Victims of Violence,” and a faded poster saying “Say NO to human trafficking.”

Ryan sat down across from her, pulled out a folder. Opened it. Flipped through it. Frowned.

— Strange, — he muttered.

— What exactly? — she immediately chimed in, perking up while trying to settle onto the chair. — Did the script change?

He lifted his eyes to her. Long.

— Usually it’s simpler here, — he said. — A couple of questions, a check, and out the door. But you… — he tapped a finger on the page, — you’ve got a note attached from a senior.

— Usually? — she drawled, the mischief creeping back as she fixed the hair that had fallen over her face. — What, am I not the first one? Damn, you guys are something! Someone else just as crazy as me ordered something like this too, right?... Actually no, don’t tell me. No, wait, tell me!

Ryan didn’t smile. Not even the corner of his mouth twitched. He just looked at her like he was deciding whether it was even worth continuing this conversation or if it would be easier to call someone from the night shift and dump the responsibility on them.

— Anyway… go stand over there, — he nodded with his eyes toward the gray wall, while opening a drawer in the desk and lazily starting to rummage through it.

She froze for a second, as if thinking over another strange thought or a snide remark, and then stood up. Slowly. More carefully this time. The heels demanded attention again, and she had to take two short steps instead of one normal one. Her back straightened on its own, as if her body already knew that standing was safer than moving.

— So serious, — she tossed over her shoulder, trying to sound light. — Was it Brandy? Oh, I mean, Brandon Barreli, right?

Ryan just gave a short snort at that.

— I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about right now, — he lifted his head from the drawer and looked at her as if checking whether there was a hidden camera behind the joke. — Barreli… Was? Jesus, girl, be honest — do you actually want to sit here even longer?

"Girl. Fuck!" she flinched with her whole body, feeling her cheeks flush bright red and a warm, almost burning tingling spread low in her belly.

She tried to clench her fists, but the key word here was “tried,” because her long scarlet nails immediately made themselves known, digging into the soft skin of her palms, and she just as sharply spread her fingers again, as if scared of herself.

5

— Hey, — Ryan’s voice sounded closer than she expected. — You okay?

The question was more procedural than caring.

— Perfectly, — she answered too quickly, cleared her throat, and turned toward the wall so he wouldn’t see her burning cheeks, — and Gregory… Gregory Morgen. You’ve surely got me… — she faltered, but only for a second, then spun around fast, planting herself against the wall with a wide grin and finished, — I mean him. You know him, right?

She stared intently, her head slightly tilted, as if waiting for this “actor” to crack any second, ruin everything, and for the directors of this show to burst out from behind the door and start yelling angrily at this useless “cop” who had completely blown his role.

But Ryan didn’t smirk. He just calmly looked at her. Even with a hint of interest.

— Gregory Morgen, — he repeated evenly, without any tone. — Yes.

She blinked. Inside, a light irritation appeared, almost like hurt feelings: come on already, give up.

One second. Another. From some strange nervousness and anticipation, her hands still reached for the straps. She hooked them with her fingers and pulled them higher onto her shoulders, awkwardly, a bit sharper than she meant to. The mesh fabric of the top stretched tight, her breasts swung heavily from the movement, and her nails scratched the skin near her collarbones, leaving a thin, unpleasantly sharp sting. She winced, exhaled, and only then let go of the straps, pretending it had been a completely normal, meaningless gesture.

— Aaaand… — she drawled, breaking the pause and raising an eyebrow, almost defiantly. Then she smirked with her usual confident grin, the one that used to make cops like this either nervously justify themselves, or nervously laugh, or fuss.

— Aaaand now you’re going to do what I tell you, — Ryan said calmly, standing up and stepping toward her, holding a camera in his hands, — no performances. Back to the wall. Feet together. Arms at your sides.

Now she was actually offended. She automatically lifted her chin, immediately feeling her long hair slide over her shoulders and tickle her back, making her shiver — this time from anger.

— Seriously? — she breathed out with an annoyed expression. — I think you’re overdoing it!

Ryan only raised the camera and took a quick shot, capturing her displeased face, and immediately the flash hit her eyes with a white spark. In the same second she involuntarily blinked, biting the inside of her cheek.

— Hey! — she jerked, but immediately stopped, because heels on a concrete floor didn’t forgive sudden movements. The earrings on long chains swung and coldly tapped against her neck. — Do you even know how to warn someone?

6

— You even know how to listen? — Ryan didn’t raise his voice, quickly scanning her fingerprints with the device and walking back to his workstation, plugging the camera in with a cable, — spouting all kinds of bullshit. First Barrelli, then Morgen! As if there’s anyone who doesn’t know them! The richest fucking people on the planet. Sit down already, what are you staring at?!

She froze for a second. Just stood there, feeling the white spot still floating in her vision after the flash. Her heart was beating faster than she’d like, and that only made her angrier.

— Don’t yell at me, — she snapped back, but without the old pressure. Her voice came out thinner than she had planned.

Her heels clicked against the floor as she walked to the chair. The skirt rustled softly as she sat down and immediately rode up, but she didn’t even notice.

Ryan clicked the mouse, dragging files around. Names, dates, previews of her face taken just moments ago with the camera flickered across the screen. He worked fast, confidently, as if he’d done this hundreds of times and she was no different from anyone else.

— Barreli, Morgen… — he muttered under his breath. — Hell, even fucking Bezos.

— Do you seriously think I’m just going to take this and… — she cut herself off when Ryan shot her an angry look. The earrings swayed again, reminding her of themselves with a cold touch.

— You done? — he asked evenly.

She blinked. Then again.

— That’s it! We’re done! — she barked, slamming her palm on the table so hard the papers lying there almost scattered.

Ryan didn’t answer, just calmly looked at her in a way that made sweat break out somewhere between her shoulder blades.

— You just struck a table in an official workspace, — he continued evenly, like he was dictating. — Recorded on camera. Want to add that to the file?

She opened her mouth — and closed it again. Her palm was still pressed to the table, the skin beneath it throbbing unpleasantly.

— I… I… — she started, breathless, nervously darting her eyes around as if trying not to realize the obvious, — Professor Cl… Kra… fuck! Why can’t I remember your name?! This isn’t fun anymore! I said — we’re done!

The last word tore out of her too sharply, almost hysterically. She heard it herself — and that only made it worse. The room filled with silence, thick like cotton stuffed into her ears. Even the system unit behind Ryan seemed to hum louder than usual. And Ryan’s stare felt like it was burning her right where she stood.

But it didn’t last long. The speakers of the old computer made a soft sound.

Beep.

The screen in front of Ryan blinked. Then again. The loading bar quickly filled from left to right.

— Oh. That was fast, — he said calmly.

7

She flinched at his voice harder than at the system beep and snapped her gaze up at him. Something in her breasts tightened painfully, her breathing went off — short, shallow, as if her body was trying to breathe for two people at once. Her palm was still on the table, and now she could clearly feel the blood pulsing under her skin, her fingers trembling, how that tremor gave her away completely.

— What… — slipped out of her. — What do you mean “fast”?

Ryan didn’t answer right away. He just looked at the screen, then at her — more precisely, at her face — then back at the screen, and then lazily leaned back against the chair.

— So, Svetlana, you do have a work permit, right? — Ryan asked in such an everyday tone, as if he were checking whether she had change for a hundred.

Svetlana blinked. Then again. For a second the words couldn’t find their way in her head — it was still buzzing from “Svetlana,” from the way he said that name without a hint of doubt, like he’d said it hundreds of times per shift.

— A… work permit? — she slowly repeated, stretching the syllables, trying to catch where the trap was hidden. Then she squeezed her eyes shut, shook her head, tried to stand — and immediately plopped back down, forgetting about the heels, her breasts, her hair, and everything that was hers right now. — Wait-wait-wait! Stop! Fuck! Are you… are you actually stupid or what? Do you even understand who you’re talking to?!

The words came out harsher than she expected. Too loud. Too hysterical.

— Yeah, — he said quietly. — Svetlana Tseban, 25 years old, born in Moldova, three arrests for illegal prostitution in the U.S. and one for disorderly conduct, — he shifted his gaze to the tattoo on her breasts, and the corner of his lips twitched in a barely noticeable smirk, — and apparently a big fan of deep conversations… in the literal sense.

Svetlana jolted as if he’d flicked her with a finger. Slowly lowered her gaze to her breasts, to where black letters in ornate script spelled out “I love it when my mouth hurts.”

For a second it felt like the tattoo was burning her skin, and her breasts — whose nipples, for some reason, instantly swelled after those vulgar words from the cop — became noticeably heavier and more sensitive.

She immediately covered them with her wrist. The soft flesh yielded under the pressure, and that touch only intensified the wave of heat that rolled from her breasts downward, into her belly. Svetlana clenched her teeth, trying to suppress the unwanted reaction of a body that seemed to live by its own rules, completely ignoring her will.

— I am Gregory Morgen, — she said, jerking her hand away as if burned. Her wrist hung in the air, useless and somehow stupid. She tried to speak slowly, pronouncing every word. — I paid more for this experiment than your entire town is worth. You’ll be licking my boots for talking to me like that.

Ryan didn’t even blink. Only the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

8

— Wow. Just… wow, — he drawled, and his gaze lazily slid upward to the ceiling while his fingers scratched the back of his head like he’d just heard an especially exhausting joke. — Are you actually serious right now?

They sat like that for a couple of seconds, staring at each other, until Svetlana suddenly snapped and, with clumsy steps, headed for the exit, throwing the door open so hard it slammed loudly against the stopper.

Ryan didn’t flinch. Didn’t say “stop.” Didn’t follow her. He just watched her over the rim of his coffee mug, the way you watch someone who’s decided to ram straight into a wall on their own — curious how loud it’s going to be.

— Oh, fuck all of you… — came from the corridor, mixed with the sharp clacking of heels.

The first step came out too confident — and was punished immediately. The thin heel caught in a gap between the tiles, her ankle folded at an angle, the skirt pulled her hips so tight she had to make a ridiculous little shuffling lunge to avoid crashing down.

— Shit! — she hissed, sharply grabbing the wall with her palm. Scarlet nails scraped the paint, leaving thin, pale streaks behind.

The earrings on long chains swung and coldly struck her neck, and the unusually long hair started to feel like pure mockery, as if it were deliberately blocking her view when she jerked her head to the side.

— This… this is fucking not funny anymore, — she muttered under her breath, taking two more short steps. Her breasts shifted heavily under the mesh and made her automatically press her elbows to her sides, as if that could somehow keep everything “in place.”

The corridor turned out to be longer than she wanted. A corner, another door, signs, some cheap posters. Nearby — a vending machine that looked like it had witnessed the fall of empires. The smell of sour coffee, paper, dust, and something technical, “garage-like.”

She pushed the outer door and immediately froze.

There was nothing of what she had seen during the secret tour. No hidden cameras on cranes. No streets of something that even remotely resembled a “Town,” where everything was supposed to be built for the experiment like a set, even if it looked like a real city.

In front of her lay real middle-of-nowhere.

Gray sky. Low buildings. A couple of parked pickup trucks, so dirty they looked like they’d been deliberately rolled in oil sludge. In the distance — some industrial structure, pipes, lights. And the air… sharp, cold, smelling of diesel and dampness. Somewhere a truck rumbled dully.

Svetlana stepped onto the porch — and immediately regretted it. The heel slid along the icy edge.

— You’ve got to be fucking kidding me… — she forced out, grabbing the railing. The railing was sticky-cold, and she jerked her hand back, clenched her fingers, grimacing.

She peered around as if, if she squinted just right, the correct image would appear: “TOWN, ENTRANCE,” guards in uniform, a welcome banner about “rehabilitation and neuroplasticity.”

9

But around her there was only Fort St. John — and it wasn’t trying to pretend to be anything else.

— What… what the fuck is this…? Where’s your goddamn… “Town”? — she said out loud, as if saying it would force reality to fix itself.

A car door slammed to the left, making her flinch. Some guy in a work jacket looked at her and immediately froze with an unfinished cigarette right at his lips.

He was pushing forty, weather-beaten face, three-day stubble, eyes used to long shifts and short breaks. A regular shift worker — the kind Fort St. John had by the thousands. He had clearly just come in from the site: jacket smeared with grease stains, boots with clay that hadn’t dried yet, the smell of diesel and sweat.

Svetlana noticed it, first knitting her brows — but when a cold gust slipped under her short skirt and raised goosebumps on her skin, she realized how she must look right now.

Really realized it.

Realized that she wasn’t in the fantasy where Gregory liked to imagine himself as a helpless girl, getting more turned on by that than by any real woman on his yacht or in his Monaco penthouse. Not even in that strange but logically understandable “Town,” which Gregory had learned about about a month ago from one of his friends with government connections, funded by massive budgets, where he’d seen a chance to experience something he hadn’t experienced yet. Something real. But what was happening now was already too real.

— …Holy fuck, — the shift worker muttered quietly, more to himself, but the word made the girl standing at the entrance of the small police station twitch.

She felt sick. But she wasn’t going to give up.

— Hey! — she shouted at him, trying to pack her voice with all the confidence that used to make people drop their eyes and apologize. — Where’s the boss around here?!

The shift worker slowly smiled — wide, lazy, teeth showing — like he’d just seen something very funny and at the same time very useful. He took the cigarette out of his mouth, carefully flicked the ash onto the snow by his boots, and only then answered, unhurried, stretching the words:

— The boss? — he repeated slowly. — And what the fuck do you need the boss for, doll? You sure as hell didn’t come here for a work permit. You need our trailer. You’ll warm up there, earn some cash, and you’ll even say thanks.

He said it almost lazily — and immediately took a step forward.

Svetlana stepped back on instinct. The heel slid along the icy edge of the porch, and cold air instantly crept under her skirt, snapping goosebumps across her skin. Her breasts shifted heavily downward, tugging at the top — if you could even call it a top, more like a fishing net.

10

— Don’t come any closer, — she forced out, holding up her palm. The scarlet nails looked absurdly threatening against his grease-stained jacket.

The shift worker only smiled wider and stepped even closer, as if the warning sounded like an invitation.

— Oh come on. What, you new here? — he leaned in slightly, openly sizing her up from head to toe so bluntly it made her physically nauseous. — You look like I’d fuck you right now—

— I’m not… I’m not… — the words stumbled. “I’m Gregory Morgen” got stuck somewhere in her throat, because right now it would’ve sounded ridiculous, especially after the way he’d just rolled his hips.

He took another step.

— Fuck off! — she snapped and sharply turned back toward the station door.

She bolted — as much as you can “bolt” in a skirt that squeezes your hips and on thin heels that seem to live their own life. But still, a few moments later she was back in the room where Ryan sat, as if he hadn’t changed his position at all.

— Why are you back already? — he said calmly. — Changed your mind about making a run for it?

— What the fuck is going on here?! — Svetlana screamed, and her own shout slammed into her ears. She stepped up to the desk, her heels clacking loudly, like stamping seals on every word. — There’s some… some… He… he’s inviting me to his fucking trailer! Do you even understand what that means?!

Ryan slowly took a sip of his coffee.

— And you act like you don’t know, — he finally said. — This is Fort St. John. Oil, gas, shift work. Girls come here “for the season” all the time. That’s not why you’re here?

— WHAT?! NO! I told you I’m Gregory Morgen! This is all supposed to be a stupid fucking show!

Ryan didn’t even flinch at her shouting. He only narrowed his eyes slightly, like he was trying to spot a crack in glass. Then slowly, unhurriedly, he set the mug down on the desk.

Svetlana stepped closer, her heels clicking sharply. She leaned over the desk, bracing herself on her palms — and immediately felt her breasts slide heavily downward, pulling the fishing-net mesh tight to an unpleasant limit. The anger boiling inside her flared even brighter.

— Listen here, cop! — she hissed through clenched teeth. — I don’t know what kind of game you’re all playing here, but if this keeps going, I’ll make damn sure that for the rest of your life you, that bearded piece of shit outside, and everyone behind this get buried alive — and before that, lose everything they give a fuck about. Got it?!

The room went quiet again.

Svetlana was breathing hard, feeling it herself — how her heavy breasts under the mesh rose and fell with her breath, as if telling everyone: “Whatever you’re discussing here, right now I’m the main fucking thing.”

11

— Phone! Give me the fucking phone! — she finally barked, pushing herself off the desk and trying to straighten up so sharply that her heels slammed against the floor again. She wobbled for a second, swore angrily through clenched teeth, and still straightened up, thrusting her chin forward.

Ryan silently looked her over from head to toe; irritation flickered across his face. After all, no matter how patient he was, everything had its limits.

— No, — he said simply, his brows drawing together.

— What do you mean “no”?! — she snapped. — Are you fucking insane?!

— No, — he repeated in the same tone. — And if you raise your voice one more time, I’ll write you up for assaulting a police officer.

Svetlana froze. Her chin was still raised, but no longer threatening — more out of inertia. Her breasts under the mesh kept rising heavily, and her legs began to tremble slightly, though now it wasn’t from the heels anymore.

— What kind of… assault?.. — she breathed out. — I didn’t even—

— That’s enough, — Ryan cut her off. — I’m not discussing this. I’m warning you.

She swallowed. Her throat was dry, while her breasts, on the contrary, pulsed hotter than usual. Yeah… this was not how Greg had imagined all of this.

— I… I need one call, got it? — she said much calmer now, though a threat still lingered in her voice.

Ryan looked at her for several seconds. Silent. The silence dragged on longer than she wanted, and in that time Svetlana felt too much: how the trembling crept up from her knees, how the heat in her breasts wouldn’t go away, how the mesh scraped her skin unpleasantly with every breath.

— And who do you want to call? — he finally said. — Your psychiatrist?

It was like she’d been doused with cold water.

— What?.. — she blinked, not immediately understanding what exactly in those words had exploded inside her. — Say that again…?

— I asked, — he said evenly, — who exactly you’re planning to call. Because what you’re saying and how you’re behaving looks… — he paused briefly, — like you escaped from a psychiatric hospital.

— You… — she started and cut herself off, hearing how pathetic her breath sounded now. More like some stray draft that had slipped in through a crack.

Her legs were visibly shaking now, impossible to ignore. She shifted her weight, trying to keep herself steady; a heel scraped softly against the floor, and that miserable sound made it even worse.

— I’m not crazy. I—

— Gregory Morgen, — Ryan finished for her with a smirk, — I’ve never heard bigger bullshit in my life, and I’ve heard a lot, — he nodded toward the chair across from him, — sit the fuck down already.

That “already” finished Svetlana off.

12

— Fuck you, — she breathed out, but her voice came out cracked, weak. Her legs were shaking so badly it was pointless to hide it. She did sit down in the end. Abruptly, almost plopped down. Her heels clicked, the skirt immediately crept up. She yanked it down with an angry, jerky motion, feeling her breasts settle heavily as the mesh dug into her skin.

— You know what, — she said, lifting her eyes to him. — Since you’re so smart… look it up online. Morgen. Gregory Morgen. You know how to fucking Woogle, right?

Ryan raised an eyebrow.

— Why? — Ryan asked calmly, tilting his head slightly, as if she’d just been asked to explain something obvious.

That finished Svetlana off completely.

— Because you’re stupid, — she breathed out, and in that “stupid” there was less anger than exhaustion and despair. — Because those assholes said it straight away: the body can be changed, the face — no. The face, you get it?

She poked a finger into her cheek and immediately winced, forgetting about her long nails.

— Ow… fuck, — she hissed, and instantly got even angrier, now at herself. — Shit!

Ryan was silent for a couple of seconds. Then he slowly rolled his chair over to the computer.

— For a foreigner, by the way, your English is excellent, — he said casually.

Svetlana slowly raised her gaze to him.

— Maybe because I’m not a foreigner? — she asked quietly, then, tilting her head to the side, added, — so, what is it? Or are you going to say the internet doesn’t work in this shithole?

Ryan didn’t answer. He was already calmly tapping at the keyboard, but Svetlana couldn’t see what he was typing because the screen was turned away from her — and that irritated her almost physically.

— It works, — he said finally. — Sometimes even better than people’s brains.

Svetlana snorted, but without anger. She sat back against the chair, trying not to move unnecessarily. Every movement reminded her of the body: the skirt trying to crawl up again, the heels biting into her feet, her breasts pulling heavily downward, as if deliberately breaking her posture.

— Gregory… Morgen… — Ryan muttered, reading out loud. — Villas… yachts… girls…

— Look at the face! — Svetlana snapped sharply, and that impatient, commanding tone — the one used to being obeyed the first time — cut through again.

He clicked the mouse. The screen was still turned away from her, and it was driving her almost to an itch under the skin.

— The face… — he muttered more quietly now, looking from the monitor to her and back.

— Well! See! That’s me!

Svetlana leaned forward herself, forgetting about everything — and immediately paid for it. Her breasts swung heavily, the mesh stretched unpleasantly tight, the skirt crawled up again. But she didn’t move, trying to present her face as close as possible.

His gaze slid back to the screen, then to her face, stopped, lingered longer than before. Then he leaned back slightly, as if thinking something over, and clicked the mouse again.

— So, Gregory… — he said neutrally, studying her or pretending to. — Gregory… Morgen…

Arithmetic Progression

'This is getting downright humiliating…' Brad thought to himself, sitting on the cold toilet lid, his skirt pulled down to his knees, a thin burgundy string of a thong cutting into his skin. His feet, awkwardly squeezed into stilettos, hurt so much he just wanted to kick them off and throw them the hell into the corner. But he only curled his toes tighter and looked down at the gray tiles of the restroom. The women’s restroom. Where he sat, trying to do something that usually never took him more than thirty seconds, but now he couldn’t even focus, even though his body was desperate. His muscles strained, his lower belly throbbed, but his brain resisted, as if protesting against giving in and letting it go like a woman.

— Fuck… come on… — he hissed, pressing his elbows to his knees and clasping his hands in front of his face.

The long, burgundy, offensively shiny nails on his thin fingers dug painfully into his palm when he tried to clench his hands into fists. Brad stared at those defenselessly feminine hands, as if they didn’t belong to him but to some kind of living mockery. He tried to squeeze harder, but they only dug even deeper, sharper into the tender skin.

'God… I can’t even make a proper fist…'

Inside, the pressure grew stronger, and he felt that in just a few more seconds, his body would do it on its own. Brad shut his eyes, his breath grew short, his breasts rose painfully, tightening the lace of the bra — but at that moment, a fist banged on the door.

— Cass? — hurried clicking of heels and the voice of a friend. — You in there? Clarkson will be here in five minutes, Layla’s already losing it!

Cass. Cassidy Monroe — an event manager in Miami, a PR girl with a calendar stuffed with parties and presentations. Somewhere across the country, in Milwaukee, her mind was now inside his massive warehouse-shifter’s body. For some strange reason, the two of them had started switching bodies a few weeks ago. First it was a minute, then two, then three… and now here he was, stuck in her body for more than two hours.

— I’ll be right out! — Brad barked, wincing at Cassidy’s sultry voice, and felt the hot stream break loose with a loud, mocking splash into the water.

He nearly bit his lip from the shock. A wave of hot relief shot through his lower belly, his muscles finally relaxed, and the body let out a soft, all-too-feminine sigh of release. Brad froze, feeling the heavy breasts jolt with his breathing, trembling inside the lace bra, while the string of the thong slid uncomfortably between his thighs.

'God, I’m pissing like a woman… sitting here, skirt around my knees, heels sticking out, and it’s just pouring out of me…' — the panicked thought drowned out everything for a moment.

The knocking on the door came again.

— Cassidy, are you serious? — her friend was clearly nervous. Her voice rang with irritation. — Layla’s about to explode, and Mr. Clarkson won’t wait. You know what he’s like!

Brad clenched his teeth, unable to answer right away. He yanked at the roll of paper in a rush, not even understanding why he was doing it. It was a conditioned reflex. The body’s muscle memory. He gripped a piece of paper in his hand, twisted his face, and felt how this ridiculous, embarrassing motion drove him to rage. The paper stuck softly to his fingers, and his skirt-pinned knees made it hard to move properly. Brad dragged in a heavy breath through his teeth, feeling the humiliation become unbearable.

'Goddamn it… I’m a fucking man! I’m not gonna wipe this… pussy!' — Brad clenched his teeth so hard that his temples rang.

— Cass! — Hailey’s voice outside was almost breaking into a scream.

Brad jerked his head sharply, as if her voice had shocked him.

— I’m coming, I’m coming! — he shouted, automatically lowering his hand with the paper and dabbing himself, as if he had been doing it forever. The soft paper slid over the tender skin there, where he had sworn he’d never do that.

The heat in his face grew, his cheeks burned. He hastily crumpled the paper, tossed it into the toilet, pulled the flush without thinking, and jumped up. The skirt slid over his thighs, the thong cut in deeper, his breasts bounced and settled again, painfully swaying inside the bra.

His hand slid the stall latch, the cold metal clicked, and Brad stepped out, moving gracefully in heels as if he had done it his whole life. Hailey was already waiting, her hands on her hips like a strict teacher.

— Finally! — she hissed and instantly grabbed his arm. — You want us thrown out of the project? Let’s go! — she yanked him into the hallway without giving him a chance to gather himself.

Brad barely managed to suck in his stomach, not even knowing why he was doing it. His heels clacked loudly on the tiles, his breasts swung in rhythm with each step, and his skirt seemed to crawl higher with every stride.

In his head flashed a picture from half an hour ago — the call. His own voice, low and harsh, but coming from the phone speaker, already belonged not to him, but to Cassidy in his body. She was begging him, though it sounded less like a plea and more like a threat:

'Listen, man, I’m begging you, don’t screw this up. You’ve got that meeting with Clarkson today. That asshole with millions of followers. You just need to smile and act like you’re in the loop. Got it? Just don’t be an idiot.'

He still hated himself for the fact that, in her body, he couldn’t even answer roughly, not even to “himself.” All he managed was a slightly angry 'Fine,' which came out more like sulky than like a firm, manly agreement. Brad could still feel that stupid tone vibrating in his chest, and it made his insides boil.

— God, Cass, you’re gonna put me in the grave! — Hailey rolled her eyes and yanked his arm again, not even letting him step aside.

Brad wanted to snap back, to say something sharp, man-to-man biting, but his tongue felt glued to his palate. Instead, all he breathed out was:

— Come on… I’m trying here…

The words sounded soft, almost apologetic, and inside he instantly howled. 'Trying? Goddamn it! I’ve never told anyone I’m trying. I either did it or I didn’t. And now… Jesus, I’m like some girl making excuses.'

— Exactly, try! — Hailey stopped abruptly, turning to face him. — You don’t have the right to screw this up right now. This is your client, your project, your style, Cassidy. I get that you’re nervous, but for fuck’s sake, pull it together!

Brad pressed his lips tight, but then instantly caught himself: they had curled not into a fierce male snarl, but into that exact “feminine” pout, with the corner trembling just slightly, and a soft look from under the lashes. He even noticed how Hailey’s irritation softened, as if the gesture worked on her automatically.

'No… no, no, no! That’s not me! I don’t look like that, I don’t move like that! These are her stupid tricks, her habits!'

But the body seemed to know how to act on its own. Muscle memory, foreign reflexes. Or maybe not so foreign anymore? After all, the last switch lasted 12 hours, and by all logic this one should last 24… Probably, yeah — unless this was the last time.

Locker Room Glitch - Page 4-5

The Safest Form

An enormous complex that could truly be considered one of, if not the greatest construction projects in all of human history, built with the participation of every major country on the planet. And the hadron collider, once regarded as the peak of scientific achievement, now seemed like nothing more than a modest predecessor to this giant — the International Chronocenter, stretching underground for hundreds of kilometers, where the old particle accelerator tunnels had been expanded and wrapped with other rings, completely refitted into the foundation of a prototype time machine.

The floor beneath their feet vibrated, as if a giant were shifting below. Inside the central chamber, surrounded by a ring-shaped system of accelerators, stood a group of five armed fighters — the first historical team to jump into the past. They stood fully geared, helmets with open visors, in a combat stance, as if about to storm a room full of terrorists, while glowing spotlights nearby lit up clouds of steam bursting from cooling pipes.

The team commander, American Captain Michael Harris, swept everyone with a quick glance:

— Comms check. Standby countdown in sixty seconds. Ready?

— Ready, — the German Arne Kraus replied dryly, adjusting his rifle strap.

— Toujours prêt, — answered the French special forces soldier Jules Renaud, trying to hide a nervous chuckle.

— Everything according to plan, — the Japanese woman Ayako Morita nodded.

— Let’s go, — the Brazilian Thiago Morales echoed.

At the center of the chamber, the bright ring of the portal had already begun to distort, as if its surface were being stretched by hands from the inside. An unbearable heat radiated from it.

Thick armored glass separated the soldiers from the observation post, where engineers and military program curators stood. Among them was Professor Kuznetsov, one of the theorists whose work laid the foundation for the device.

— Alpha Team, hold formation. Forward, — came through the speakers.

Jules adjusted the microphone in his helmet and quietly exhaled:

"Mon dieu… I really got myself into this… though who else would’ve dared?"

The team moved forward, in sync, like in training. Their boots rang heavily against the metal floor, and the heat from the portal grew stronger with every step.

— Keep your distance, — Harris snapped briefly. — Contact in ten seconds.

Jules walked third. Inside the helmet, it smelled of ozone and sweat, his breathing sounded too loud. His heart was pounding as if it had been amplified along with the accelerators.

"Easy. It’s just a jump. Just… history."

The portal ring suddenly expanded, its surface “collapsed” inward, and the world jerked.

— Move! — Harris barked.

White light slammed into his eyes, sound vanished, his body felt squeezed from all sides. Jules managed to think that he was being turned inside out, but at some point everything abruptly cut off, as if not only the sound had been shut down, but the power to the computer had been completely turned off.

He wasn’t breathing, wasn’t feeling, wasn’t seeing. It lasted only a fraction of a second, but felt like a whole eternity. But even eternity, apparently, is finite, because in the next moment sound returned to his ears along with his vision.

He froze in the same pose he had arrived in — arms hanging down, one leg slightly forward. His gaze professionally began to scan the area, automatically picking out threats, lines of sight, cover… but who was there to defend against? Knights or baboons?

He blinked.

These were jungles. Thick, damp, almost tangible. Mist crept between the trunks, the greenery wasn’t a “set piece” but something alive, pressing in from all sides. No trace of the portal. No team. No concrete, no metal. Only chirring, distant animal cries, and heavy, warm air filling his lungs with a foreign smell.

— Harris? — he finally said in a whisper, but loud enough for the mic to catch. — Renaud reporting. Do you copy?

No answer came.

The silence on the channel wasn’t just the absence of sound — it pressed down on him. Jules automatically touched his ear, expecting the edge of the headset, but his fingers slid over skin. Bare skin. No plastic, no metal. He sharply lowered his gaze, and at that moment it felt like the air was knocked out of his lungs.

He wasn’t wearing armor.

Instead of his uniform, he saw an asymmetrical strip of hide slung over his shoulder. It covered completely something that should never have existed on him. Breasts. Full, unmistakably female breasts, probably a C cup, maybe even a D, though from his angle they looked even larger.

Right then, as if on purpose, a cool breeze brushed his thigh, slipping lower, between his legs, and stirring the rough piece of hide that barely covered anything down there. Jules instinctively squeezed his thighs together, feeling emptiness and smoothness where he was used to something entirely different. Emptiness. Simple emptiness, that was literally felt, especially when he relaxed his thighs and the light breeze slid over smooth skin again, sending a shiver through his whole body — not from cold, but from realization.

The hide didn’t fully cover his breasts, and Jules felt how they reacted to movement — with weight, with soft shifting, too obvious to be ignored. Below — a short skirt-wrap, uneven, with fringe, tied with a rope around the hips. The fabric rubbed against his skin with every breath.

— What the fuck?! — he shouted, as if his brain had only now processed the information and tried at the same time to throw an error, a protest, and a request for a reboot.

The sound of his own voice broke into a high, ringing pitch — completely not the one that should have come from his chest. He himself flinched, instinctively jerking back, but his foot slipped on the wet roots, and his body lurched forward, forcing his breasts to swing with a heavy, far too alive inertia. The soft curves lightly slammed into each other, responding with a painful, unnatural-for-him wave of sensation — so vivid that he even squeezed his eyes shut.

"Calm… calm down! This is… an illusion. Optical. A hallucination. I’m standing in the center of the portal, I have a helmet, armor, everything’s fine… it’s just something wrong with perception. Fuck, this just can’t be happening like this…"

He held his hands out in front of him. Narrow wrists, thin fingers — and no gloves, no reinforced joints. Smooth, tanned skin. His palms were trembling.

— This is a dream. Must be dream. Or sim. Or… fuck… brain go bad from chrono-ra… ra… — he rattled off quickly, stumbling at the end because the words suddenly began to stick in his mouth, his tongue heavy and uncooperative, refusing complex speech.

He swallowed, slowly exhaled, and forced himself to look around.

— Calm… calm, Renaud… — he breathed more quietly now, trying to keep his breathing steady. — Need to assess the situation…

But the moment he turned his torso, his breasts shifted heavily again, as if reminding him of themselves with every gram. Their movement distracted him more than the humid jungle air. Jules lowered his gaze and, with trembling fingers, touched himself — carefully, as if afraid of being burned.

They were voluminous, soft, firm, and excessively real. The softness yielded under his fingers, and a wave of strange sensation ran through his body, making him flinch.

— Calm… — he whispered, even though his voice still shook and his thoughts tangled, despite years of professional experience. — Need to… uh… control… breathing…

He straightened up, squeezing his eyes shut and forcing himself to pull his hands away from his skin. His fingers were shaking, and he lowered them down to his waist, then immediately slid them lower, feeling how narrow his waist was and how smooth the skin felt — however, this was another mistake. His hips were wider than he was used to, as if someone had pumped them up from the inside with a jack and fixed them in place with something rigid. He jerked his hand back sharply, inhaling in short, spasmodic bursts.

— Doux… Seigneur…

His tongue felt like it wouldn’t obey. The sounds of his familiar, native language felt somehow wrong.

He shook his head and stepped forward, clenching his fists — his breasts swung again, painfully pulling at the muscles between his ribs. He grimaced.

"Need to… get used to it… at least a little…" he thought, hearing a rustle behind him.

Jules tensed, freezing as he stared into the trees.

"People? Or animals?" the thought pierced him so sharply that he almost heard an internal click.

The rustle repeated, louder this time.

Jules swallowed, trying to catch his breath. Instinctively, he wanted to raise his weapon… but his hands were empty. The realization sent a shiver crawling through his entire body.

Finally, three huge men emerged from behind the trees, covered in thick body hair and wrapped only in loincloths. They looked like giants to him, and Jules instantly felt his stomach drop somewhere deep inside. They towered over him by a head, maybe more — broad-shouldered, muscular, with rough skin covered in scars and forest grime. In their hands they held spears with stone tips and bundles of fruits slung over their shoulders.

One of them, the tallest, with a thick beard reaching down to his breasts, stopped first and stared at Jules with wide eyes. He muttered something in a low, guttural voice, tilting his head.

— Ugh… kva? (Who are you?) — burst out of him, the sound more like a growl mixed with a rasp.

Jules instinctively raised his palms up, showing empty hands — a gesture that even in this time should mean “I’m not an enemy.” From the sudden movement, his breasts swung heavily, the hide on his shoulder slipped a little lower, and he felt his skin prickle under their stare. His heart was pounding so loud it felt like all three of them could hear it.

— Peace! I come in peace! MIKA-KA KHA! (I peace) — the last words came out on their own, breaking into such a high pitch that one of the men snorted and took a small step back, lifting an eyebrow at the unexpectedly ringing sound, and then, to Jules’ surprise, grinned.

— Ka… ka-kha? (You peace?) — he rasped in a deep bass and added, already smiling, unable to hold back his laughter, — Uh-ha, baba ucho-ucho kha!!! (Woman think, we scared of her!!!)

The men’s laughter only made it worse. He felt not just small among them — insignificant, as if he had already been written off as something no one talked to seriously.

The tall one took another step. The ground hummed under his foot, and Jules reflexively stepped back half a step.

— Ugh… kva? Chavikhi? (Who you? Tribe?) — the bearded man repeated, leaning closer.

Jules swallowed, trying to gather his thoughts. Somehow, he partially understood the words aimed at him. “Who you?” spun in his head like a top. This “chavikhi” was still unclear, but logically it sounded like belonging, a pack, a group. He shook his head side to side, feeling how the hair, tied with some animal bone into a messy knot, swayed on his head.

— No… chavikhi. One. (No… tribe. One.) — he said slowly, the words coming out on their own, shorter, rougher than he was used to, but in that same unfamiliar high tone.

The bearded man squinted, then suddenly spread into a wide grin, baring uneven teeth.

— Ugh-ha! Baba one! Lost! (Ha! Woman alone! Lost!) — he boomed, and the other two hooted, slapping their thighs. The laughter was loud, infectious, but without malice — more like hunters who had found a defenseless cub.

The one with the scar on his cheek stepped forward and pointed a finger toward Jules, not threateningly — more like indicating.

— Pretty woman. Big breasts. No owner, — he said with a grin, no longer hiding his intentions, letting his gaze slide downward and linger on her breasts.

Jules felt blood rush to his face. Instinctively, he pressed a hand to his breasts, trying to hold the fabric in place, but the movement only emphasized the curves, and her breasts swayed heavily under his palm.

A second of silence stretched out and filled the space. Then a short, low chuckle.

— No owner, — the tall one repeated. — No-owner woman no be.

He took a step forward, but the bearded man immediately shot him a stern look and raised his palm.

— Stop, Garg. I find. I first. — he rumbled low, and there was no threat in his voice, only a law that wasn’t questioned here.

Jules felt everything inside him tighten.

"What the fuck?! Are they talking about me like I’m a thing?!" flashed through his mind, but outwardly, facing these giants, Jules could show nothing but wide eyes and a light, convulsive inhale that made her breasts visibly rise again. The hide stretched, slipped a little lower, and he jerked it back in a panic, hating himself at the same time for moving too fast, too nervously, too… like a woman.

— I find, — the bearded man repeated, looking at Garg with calm superiority, as if this were prey that could not be disputed. — Mine!

The bearded man, grinding his teeth, suddenly spat to the side, as if marking a boundary, and straightened so sharply he now looked like a wall. He squared his shoulders, thrust his chest forward — and the wide, heavy muscles under roughened skin made him look even bigger than before.

— MINE! — he roared so hard the sound rolled through the forest like a drumbeat, as if he were claiming not a woman, but a trophy, a beast, prey.

Garg snorted, but stepped back, giving Jules one more long, contemptuous look.

Jules swallowed, remembering who he was and trying to get his voice back:

— I… I not… I not yours! — he finally forced out, and his voice traitorously trembled, breaking into a pitch that didn’t match the meaning at all.

The bearded man didn’t even pay attention. He just grabbed Jules by the hand and pulled her forward.

— Go. Cave. Fire. Protect. — he said confidently, taking a calm step forward, which made two heavy half-spheres sway under the hide and then slap against each other, while her hips involuntarily swayed, lifting the skirt slightly.

— No! Let go! I not yours! I man! — Jules shouted, jerking his arm so sharply that the hide on his shoulder slipped even lower.

The bearded man turned his head, surprise appearing on his face.

— Man… what? — he repeated, calmly leading Jules forward, then smiled. — Funny. Good. Like.

Jules jerked again, this time putting everything he had left into the pull. His wrist slipped free for a split second, but the bearded man immediately tightened his grip — not painfully, but hard enough that the bones crunched. Jules’s body lurched forward, his breasts slammed heavily against his ribcage, and he almost lost his balance.

— Let go! — he hissed, his voice breaking higher than normal. — I not woman! I… I was man! Before! Before jump!

Garg, walking behind them, burst out laughing loudly.

— Woman tell stories! — he shouted. — Woman scream. Like beast. Give woman to Garg. Garg make her quiet.

The bearded man stopped sharply when he heard Garg’s words. His big hand squeezed Jules’s wrist even tighter — now as a warning. He slowly turned toward Garg, his eyes narrowing like a beast guarding its prey.

— Garg shut mouth, — he rumbled low, then dropped his gaze to Jules, — Woman shut mouth.

— NO! I NOT SHUT! I NOT WO—

Jules started, but at that moment the bearded man effortlessly, as if Jules weighed nothing at all, scooped him up with one hand under the thighs, threw him over his shoulder, and clamped his other palm tightly over his mouth.

The world flipped upside down. His head dropped down, his breasts tore downward with a heavy jerk, painfully stretching the skin like two living, unnaturally soft weights sewn under it and pulling it down. The hide skirt flew completely up, exposing his thighs and everything below, and cool air touched the skin between his legs. Jules mooed into the hand, trying to struggle, but his body dangled helplessly, like a sack of prey.

— M-mmf… n-nmmf! — came out muffled, and to his horror, Jules heard how his own voice sounded like a muted, high-pitched squeak.

Jules thrashed helplessly, trying to break free, while the bearded man calmly walked forward, like a robot with metal arms rather than a human. His breasts, flopped forward, felt twice as heavy and slammed against Khar’s shoulder with every step.

He screamed inside, but outside there was only muffled whining under the hand.

— Quiet, — he said calmly, as if Jules were just a noisy animal. — No fear. Khar protect. Bring food. Khar love. Khar your husband now.

The words boomed right by Jules’s ear, low and confident, and everything inside him clenched even tighter.

"Husband?! Love?!"

He mooed louder, trying to force out any kind of protest, but Khar’s palm only shifted slightly, pressing his lips tighter. The sound came out pathetic, high, almost a sob.

Khar didn’t even slow his pace.

His breasts kept slamming rhythmically against Khar’s shoulder, shifting a little each time, pulling downward, sending painful shocks through the muscles. The skin on his stomach stretched tight, the skirt was basically useless, bunched up at the small of his back.

Jules squeezed his eyes shut hard, finally abandoning all attempts to escape and went still, hanging obediently over his shoulder.

The resistance ended not because of sudden submission — his strength was simply gone. His muscles burned, his arms and legs turned weak and numb, and every jerk only deepened the feeling of helplessness. He hung there like a trophy, feeling blood rush to his head, his hair falling messily over his face, the cool air brushing against the exposed skin below.

…

Epilogue that decided to become a separate episode…

The fire hissed, fat dripped onto the heated stone and instantly exploded with short cracks, splashing onto her skin, which had already grown fairly rough even by the standards of her former male body, yet she still flinched slightly every time, even though she should have gotten used to it long ago. The cave was filled with the smells of fat, hot stone, and smoke from the fire, mixing with wet hides, sweat, and blood from prey not yet cooked. Outside it was quiet and peaceful, as if nothing had ever happened at all — warm rain rustled softly, tapping in a ragged rhythm with drops against the entrance canopy made of branches.

The woman, in whose head a soldier with a gun was still actively fighting against a woman with full milk-heavy breasts, slowly wiped the splashes away with the back of her hand, leaving a dark streak of soot across her cheek.

The child inside kicked especially hard, as if demanding her attention. As if the mother didn’t already think about him constantly, cursing the day when she, still called Jules Renaud back then, stepped into the blinding circle of light, believing it would bring enormous fame, greater than that of the first man on the Moon. And of course she believed she would return. Go on interviews on the world’s biggest shows, sit under bright studio lights, smile at the camera and say: “Yes, it was scary. But we did it for the future.”

How ridiculous it was now to remember those lines she had mentally rehearsed in the last hours before the jump.

— Quiet… — she whispered, placing her hand on her belly exactly where the baby kicked again. This time harder, so much so that she involuntarily sucked in air through her teeth and lost her breathing rhythm for a second. Her palm stayed pressed to her stomach, fingers spreading, as if trying to hold the impossible all at once.

— Hey… why you, — she whispered quieter now, without anger, even forgetting for a moment (or already used to it) how it always pissed her off when she opened her mouth and tried to say something, and what came out was worse than the speech of any Mexican who had just crossed the border illegally. — You angry, yes?

The meat crackled loudly. She lowered her hand to her knee and slowly, almost stubbornly, turned the meat with a stick. Fat splashed again, the fire flared up, she flinched once more, squeezing her eyes shut — and suddenly she heard a sound. That sound. It had been haunting her for eight months now, since the very beginning of her time here, since the exact moment Khar threw her over his shoulder and carried her into the cave like prey.

A thin, high, almost inaudible ringing — as if someone had run a wet finger along the rim of a giant crystal glass somewhere very far away. Sometimes it came at night, sometimes during the day, always for a few seconds, always disappearing the moment she truly tried to listen.

Her gaze darted to the cave entrance, and only she knew what she imagined there. Maybe a special forces unit would appear any second now, fully geared, helmets, weapons. They would see her and call her over. Home. Or maybe, in a split second, that very portal would appear there. Or. Or maybe she would simply wake up and it would turn out to be the sound of an alarm clock.

But, as usual, the moment she tried to listen closely, it vanished, leaving behind only the familiar, calm sounds of rain.

— Zu! — a hoarse voice came from somewhere deep inside the cave, the elder’s voice like a dry branch scraping over stone. Several women sitting closer to the far hearth flinched their shoulders; one even dropped a bone needle she had been stitching a tear in a hide with. Quiet whispering spread, fast, like birds fluttering up.

The woman by the fire didn’t move.

Her shoulders tensed slightly, her fingers tightened around the stick she was stirring the coals with, but her gaze stayed fixed on the dark hollow of the entrance. There, beyond the curtain of rain, the leaves still rustled indifferently, drops knocked against stone, and sometimes, somewhere far away, a night bird cried out briefly. Nothing more.

— Zu-Ra Gha Khara!!! — the elder’s voice broke almost into a shout, and her steps, commanding, especially for a woman, echoed through the entire space.

Zu-Ra. Short, guttural, with a pause in the middle. Zu — because in the first days she had tried again and again to say her name: Jules. The “zh” sound stuck in their throats, turned into “z,” then broke off completely. Only the short, useless “zu” remained — easy to shout, easy to order with, easy to cut off. Ra — because once she said “Renaud.” Slowly, by syllables, but they heard only what they could understand, or what they wanted to hear.

And if she could still make peace with the first two parts of her name, with “Gha” and “Khara” it was completely different. She hated those words more than her weak body.

Even more than these two breasts, which had only grown because of the pregnancy and now constantly pulled downward, got in the way of bending, caught on straps and hides, reminding her of themselves with every step, every breath. She had at least gotten used to the body — it hurt, but it was hers. Those words were worse.

Gha — not a name. A sentence.

The one who is not right. The one who has noise inside. The one who must be watched.

Khara — worse. It meant belong. And not just to some Khar. Not just to a man. But to this Khar — the one who once came out of the forest with her dangling over his shoulder and showed the whole tribe that she was his. Like some kind of thing.

Although soon she understood why he and the other men had behaved that way when they found her. She was different. Full-breasted, wide-hipped, and with a face that still clearly remembered Jules’s male features, yet incomparably more beautiful than any of the women she had seen here during all this time.

Her skin was smooth, without scars from old wounds or burns, her teeth even, white, without chips or black stains from chewed roots. Her eyes — too large, too light, with golden sparks that in the firelight looked almost inhuman. Her hair — long, thick, shiny even under the layer of dirt and grease that everyone here considered natural protection.

She was too… perfect.

For that, she probably had to thank the fact that people in the future lived completely differently. And for the fact that she was now a woman — the cursed “merge” program, which, as they explained to her before the jump, was supposed to “adapt” her to the environment. Temporarily. For just one day. Exactly the time allotted to complete the research mission.

“The program minimizes risks by choosing the safest form. You will look like part of the world you enter. No one will suspect. No one will threaten.”

Form. She had been absolutely sure that meant what it meant. A form. An image. A hologram. Not a transformation, damn it, with changing the damn sex, right?!

The computer, having analyzed data on culture, physiology, social structures, and even how protection and resources were distributed in this tribe, delivered its verdict: the safest form for integration — a young, exceptionally attractive woman of reproductive age, with signs of high fertility and beauty, perceived here as almost supernatural and therefore the most protected.

Perfect camouflage. Maximum survivability. Zero suspicion.

But… a million humiliations. Especially for someone who had been a man his whole life, a special forces officer, used to the idea that his body was a tool, a weapon, a machine — not an object of someone else’s desire, someone else’s looks, someone else’s hands. Where not only men don’t see you as a person, but even women look at you differently: with envy, with suspicion, with cold caution. You are not “one of them.” You’re not even from their tribe. You’re just a very expensive trophy that went to the strongest — and that makes you both privileged and an outcast at the same time.

— I call! You hear?! — the elder barked, planting her hands on her waist with clenched fists, towering over Zu.

Zu lifted a calm, from-under-the-brow gaze to her, stayed silent for a second, then slightly smiled, recalling that very cat owner from the childhood cartoon she had watched — the one who loved standing like this so much: hands on hips, breasts forward, looking down from above, absolutely certain the world was obliged to listen to her.

The smile was barely noticeable. Almost internal. But the elder saw it.

— You laugh? — the voice dropped lower, more dangerous. — I call. You pretend stone?

Zu slowly straightened up. Her back answered with a pulling, familiar heaviness, and she held her breath for a moment before fully squaring her shoulders. Her breasts swayed heavily under the wrap and bluntly reminded her of themselves with pressure, as they did every time. Her belly pulled downward, forcing her to instinctively lean back slightly, catching balance. She didn’t fix the wrap. Let them look.

— Hear, — she said simply. — Hear good.

The elder snorted and stepped closer, looming.

— Then why not go?

Zu raised her eyebrows high, as if she had heard the stupidest question in the world, then slowly lowered her gaze to her pregnant belly.

The cave suddenly became too quiet, as if sound slowly drowned in smoke. The women stopped whispering. Someone stopped sewing. Even the fire seemed to hush, only the fat still crackled softly. Everyone was watching the two of them.

Zu placed her palm on her belly. The gesture wasn’t protective — more demonstrative.

— Because, — she said slowly, choosing the simplest words, — not empty.

The elder faltered for a moment. Just a little, but Zu saw it.

— Child Khara, — she added, swallowing the humiliation tied to that name, that man, those nights with him, desperately wanting, at least here among these women, not to be weak, — You know Khara?

She slowly raised her gaze. Heavy earrings made of large stones pushed straight through her earlobes swung heavily as she lifted her head. The stones were warm from her body, rough, far too big for ears — shoved straight through the lobes, without mercy, the way everything was done here. The weight pulled downward, reminding of status, of the fact that now she was seen and remembered not only by her body, but by the marks on it.

Then, deliberately crossing her arms over her breasts so the tattoos on her wrists — symbols of her belonging to Khara — caught the elder’s eye, she slightly tilted her head.

— Know, — the elder finally said shortly, trying not to show the anger that seemed ready to spill out, like milk from boiling porridge.

Zu nodded.

— Then know this too, — she continued just as simply. — He not like, if his child be trouble.

The elder stared at the tattoos longer than she should have. At the dark, rough lines on Zu’s wrists — lines Zu hated, but at some point understood were her only strength now.

— You speak threat? — she finally asked, barely audible, but it sounded louder than any shout.

Zu slowly shook her head.

— I speak truth, — she said. — I no cry. I no make angry. Child bad. — she placed her palm on her belly again, a little harder.

The elder followed the gesture with her eyes. Irritation flashed there — from being cornered by logic, not by force.

— You become smart, — she said at last. — Too much. Before scream. Speak strange. Was better. Now worse.

Zu barely shrugged.

— What you want from me? — she asked calmly.

The elder squinted. For a few moments she stayed silent, as if trying on different answers and none fit.

— You… — she began and stopped, as if searching for words. — …nothing want. Fry your meat! Love your Khar!

She turned sharply and walked away, stepping heavy on the stone, so that the echo of her footsteps kept bouncing under the cave vaults for a while.

Zu watched her back for several seconds. Then she slowly exhaled — long, careful, as if letting out air that was too hot from her breasts. Only now did she allow her shoulders to drop. Her body immediately reminded her of itself: her back ached, her belly pulled downward, her breasts pressed heavily forward. She absently adjusted the wrap, making her breasts sway and forcing her to wince, then carefully, holding her belly, sat down by the fire, looking at the meat that had already turned into coals during that time.

— Fuck… — she breathed almost soundlessly, scraping the burnt pieces of meat off the hot stone and laying them onto the huge tropical leaves prepared in advance.

Love your Khar. It spun again and again like a stuck record, like a jammed piece of old plastic, scratched but still playing.

Love your Khar.

Love your Khar.

— AAH! — she suddenly screamed, unable to hold in what was tearing out from inside.

The scream came out short, hoarse — more breath than sound. It immediately echoed through the whole cave, making even the elder flinch.

The elder turned sharply. Several women jumped up. Someone dropped a hide, someone instinctively pressed a child to her breasts.

Zu was already bending forward, clutching her belly with both hands, as if she could hold inside what had burst out. Her breathing broke, her breasts heaved heavily under the wrap, her eyes burned.

— Quiet… — she whispered to herself, struggling to steady her breath. — All. All.

The child inside pushed hard and sure, as if wanting to say something. Someone nearby snorted, someone turned away. The elder stood for another second, then silently walked on, as if nothing had happened.

Zu slowly straightened up. She wiped her face with the back of her hand, leaving streaks of soot and grease. Looked at the fire.

— Love… — she breathed softly. — Not love… but live. Just try live…

And she took up the meat again.

Mara the Washer-girl

'Did I... did I really hear that?' — Morzer thought, pressing his ear to the door while keeping one eye on the hallway, making sure no one in the darkness of the night noticed his ridiculous pose. He swallowed hard. His narrow shoulders ached from the tension, and his breasts, hidden under the rough fabric of the shirt, quivered slightly with every breath. And that reminded him again that he was no longer Morzer the thief, the trickster, the master of the body-swapping ring, but some village girl with trembling hands and soft hips that he still couldn’t help but notice every time he moved.

The ring, which once gave him the power to slip from body to body, had turned into a curse. He only wanted to escape his pursuers and, for disguise, took the body of a laundress — but got stuck. It had been three days now that he walked in her body, in her torn tunic, feeling how the fabric pulled unpleasantly across his breasts, rubbed against his nipples, how the belt dug into his waist. And the worst part — Mara, the girl whose body he now inhabited, was still lying unconscious in his own body. Everyone knew that swapping with someone else was only possible if one returned first to their original body.

— ...and he claimed he could stop the war. Can you believe that?

Morzer had caught his own name a moment earlier, but still couldn’t understand how it connected to the politics the two were discussing — Krazus Bergold, the castle warden, and Arvel Torr, the crown’s advisor, a dry old man with long gray mustaches and a voice like parchment rustling.

— Morzer, — Krazus said, leaning back in his chair and slapping his palm on the table, — a thief, yes. He was supposed to run, yes. And I’m not surprised he managed to sneak into my chambers last night despite all the guards. But, Arvel, my dear Arvel, he was very convincing.

Cold sweat broke out on Morzer’s skin. What? Morzer? In Krazus’s chambers, saying he wanted to help end the war? But how? His body — the one that held Mara’s mind now — was lying in the catacombs at the edge of the city, where poor Mara had wandered just at the very moment he, in panic, activated the ring after drinking far too much sleeping potion.

'That’s impossible. She woke up? But...'

— Well, well, well, — came a voice from behind, making Morzer flinch. He spun around sharply, his breasts swaying under the apron, his hair sliding across his cheek. Standing before him in the dark was Agatha.

Agatha, the castle cook, broad-shouldered, with hands scarred and burned from ovens and boiling pots. But her eyes — cunning, piercing — were the kind that made any laundress girl instantly lose her voice.

— What do we have here? — she drawled, narrowing her eyes and crossing her arms over her breasts. — Little laundry girl sitting at the lord’s door? Listening with her ears like a mouse under the floor?

Morzer felt the blood rush to his face. His lips trembled on their own.

— I... I just... — the words stuck in his throat for some reason, and his voice broke into a high note.

Agatha stepped closer, and her wide palm landed right on Morzer’s shoulder. The pressure was heavy, strong. He felt the tunic stretch across his breasts, his nipples painfully scraping against the rough cloth. He sucked air through his teeth, fighting the humiliating sensation.

— Ah, you — Agatha hissed — stupid girl. Do you think Krazus will forgive you if he finds out the servants are hanging their ears at his door? He’ll put you in the stocks tomorrow. And the whole village will laugh at you, standing there... — she gave his apron a sharp tug, making Morzer’s breasts jerk forward in a ridiculous way, — ...with your red face on display.

Morzer nearly groaned from the shame. His own body was somewhere in the catacombs right now, maybe, for some unknown reason, weaving conspiracies and making promises, while he was stuck in this girl’s body — weak, small, unable to fight back even against a woman.

— I’ll go — he turned, but Agatha grabbed his arm.

— Nope. You’re either going to Krazus right now and telling him everything, or you’re coming with me — her voice was low, thick, carrying such confidence that Morzer suddenly realized he had no choice.

Agatha squeezed his wrist tighter, like an iron band, and dragged him away from the door. Morzer followed obediently, feeling his breasts bounce foolishly under the apron. Every step reminded him of this body’s weakness, its softness, its vulnerability. Inside, he was boiling: 'I am Morzer, thief, shadow of the streets, the one who looted Duke Lorrin’s treasury alone! I, who outsmarted the guards in the White Quarter! And now... now this woman drags me like some naughty servant girl!'

— Where... where are you taking me? — his voice cracked, high and pathetic.

Agatha didn’t even turn her head. Her heavy steps echoed through the empty corridor, and her hand clutched Morzer’s wrist so tightly he already knew there would be bruises on this body.

— Somewhere you’ll finally be useful, girl — she rasped. — Since God gave you a pretty face and a pair of tits, let them serve a purpose.

— Wh-what?! — Morzer stumbled, his breasts bouncing painfully under the apron. He froze, staring at her broad back. — You’re insane, I...

— Heldar’s had his eyes glued to you for a while — Agatha cut him off, stopping so abruptly that Morzer nearly crashed into her back.

He blinked, not understanding right away.

— Who?

— The scribe — she turned and smirked, curling her lips. — Heldar. Pale little boy who carries parchments for Arvel. Always sneaking past your laundry room and staring at you like he’s got mice crawling in his belly — Agatha finished with a snort, then yanked Morzer along the corridor again.

— Nonsense — he exhaled, trying to pull his hand free, but instead only jerked his breasts harder, making them jiggle under the tunic in a humiliating way. His cheeks flared hot. — I... I won’t!

— You will — Agatha said simply, as if stating the sun would rise tomorrow. — Or I’ll tell Krazus myself that a servant girl was eavesdropping at his door. Do you want the stocks? Do you want the whole village to watch your tits spilling out of your shirt while the boys pelt you with mud?

Agatha spoke so calmly and confidently, as if this was a conversation about something obvious.

' I need to get to the catacombs, not all this crap! Damn that bitch!' Morzer tried to pull free, but Agatha only squeezed his thin wrist tighter, and a smile flickered on her lips.

— He’s in the catacombs behind the castle — she said evenly, as if nothing was happening, while dragging Morzer forward.

— In the catacombs? — Morzer squeaked, feeling a sudden rush of hope. That was exactly where he needed to go.

— In the catacombs — Agatha repeated, as if savoring the way his eyes lit up. — But first, you need to dress up.

She yanked him forward, and soon they were in the pantry by the kitchen. Morzer — once a thief and master of every trick, once the owner of the body-swapping ring — now looked like a trembling little girl. His past victories — slipping into Duke Lorrin’s treasury, the daring theft of the altar chalice in the White Quarter — all of it now seemed like a silly fairy tale. Because not a single one of his skills could help him against Agatha’s heavy hand and the soft body he was trapped in.

Agatha opened a chest, the lid creaking, and with a smirk pulled out an outfit.

— Here — she said, holding it out — just for you.

Morzer stared. It wasn’t a dress, it was pure mockery: a bright yellow skirt down to the floor with embroidery, a rough lace blouse with a deep neckline, and over it all a corset clearly meant to push up his breasts so much that even the blind would stare.

— You’re mocking me — he rasped, stepping back. — I’m not...

— You’re going to the scribe — Agatha cut him off. — And he needs to forget that a servant girl was sneaking under the lord’s doors. Which means you need to look pretty. And... compliant.

She stepped closer, pressed the outfit to his breasts, the fabric sliding cold against his skin under the tunic. Morzer felt his nipples stiffen from the touch and looked away in panic.

— I’m not a whore! — he hissed.

— Nobody’s making you a whore — she snorted. — At least no more than you already are. Put it on.

She pressed the bright yellow outfit harder against his breasts and yanked sharply at the collar of his old tunic. The fabric rustled, sliding down, and Morzer felt the cold air of the pantry brush against his skin.

— Agatha! — he squeaked, clutching his hands to his breasts, but that only made him look even more pitiful, the soft flesh pushing forward awkwardly between his fingers.

The cook snorted with satisfaction:

— Oh, come on. With your curves, trying to hide is like putting a chest in the middle of the street and thinking no one will notice it.

She shoved the skirt at him. Morzer, blushing, struggled to force his legs into the heavy fabric, stumbling and tangling himself. The skirt rustled across the floor, the tight waistband squeezed his waist, and for the first time the thief realized that any attempt to run fast or slip into the shadows would now look like pure comedy.

— Gods... — he muttered, feeling the rough lace of the corset scratching his skin. — In this, I won’t even fit sideways through a doorway!

— You don’t need to — Agatha said calmly, starting to tighten the laces. She pushed his breasts up so they spilled from the neckline, displayed as if for show.

Agatha stepped back, narrowing her eyes as she looked him over.

— There. Beautiful.

Morzer clenched his teeth. 'Just get to the catacombs and to my body. Then switch back. The main thing is that I still have the ring in my pocket and I...' The thought broke off, his eyes widening in sudden realization. His gaze darted to the laundress’s dress lying on the bench. Mara’s dress — its pocket turned inside out. Empty.

— Where... where’s the ring? — the whisper escaped in a squeak.

Agatha didn’t hurry. In the candlelight her fingers lazily played with something dull and metallic. She raised her hand. On her thumb was the familiar black band. The swapping ring.

— Looking for this? — she turned it slowly, as if testing its weight with her teeth.

Blood pounded in Morzer’s temples. The corset, tightened to the point of creaking, wouldn’t let him breathe, his breasts heaving heavily from the neckline.

— Give it back — he rasped. — It’s mine.

— Finish the job, I’ll return it — Agatha said casually, as if she were talking about a spoonful of sugar.

And at that moment Morzer realized just what kind of shit he had gotten himself into.

Christmas Chaos

Ho-ho-ho, Merry Christmas everyone! I totally forgot about it and only remembered today, haha. I also decided to try a new comic format at the same time =)
The story came together during the process and today as well, so overall it’s easy to call it a fully Christmas-themed one =D

Thank you for following me and for your support, once again. And once more — Merry Christmas.

Not very happy, but already a little bit Christmasy GreenTG

Recognize Me

Text in attachment

Just for a Day

— Yeah, yeah, yeah, and then that steak ended up on Monica’s tits! You should’ve seen her face! — Zak burst out laughing, wiping away tears. His voice was an octave higher than usual, and every time he laughed, the breasts under his sports bra bounced in rhythm. He was sitting directly on some rolled-up towels, legs stretched out in front of him, and had almost completely forgotten that he was, technically, a pregnant woman at the moment.

— Jesus, Zak, enough, — groaned Trevor, glancing at his friend’s belly. — Those aren’t tits, they’re milk bombs. Quit laughing or you’re gonna pop that kid out right here.

— Yeah, sure, — Zak waved it off, squeezing a juicy piece of mango between his fingers. — It’s just for the day. Tomorrow morning I’ll be back with balls and without this damn drum, — he slapped his belly, and the baby inside shifted reluctantly.

Kevin was just walking into the room, carrying two plastic cups. His eyes drifted over Zak’s pregnant body — the tight athletic shorts hugged his thighs, the belly protruded like a round crescent, and the sports bra highlighted his heavy breasts pressed tight against the fabric.

— Maybe you shouldn’t be drinking? — Kevin muttered as he passed by and placed one of the cups at the edge of the table.

— Chill, bro, — Zak waved him off and licked the mango juice off his fingers. — I always do it like this. If I have to take on a random body every six months for the club contract, then at least I’m not gonna deal with a hangover tomorrow!

Kevin just let out a silent sigh, not wanting to watch Zak pour another whiskey and coke into that hormone-flooded female body.

— Do you even realize how irresponsible this is? — he muttered, settling into the green armchair. — Sara, right? That’s what we’re supposed to call you?

— Don’t start, Kev, — Zak waved him off, lips pulling into a sarcastic pout. — Yeah, yeah, “Sara,” waitress from Denny’s, lives in a trailer park with a dog named... shit! The dog! I was supposed to feed her! — Zak smacked his forehead, making his breasts bounce noticeably under the sports bra.

"Sara" reached for the bottle of Jack Daniel’s, swayed slightly, and poured herself more whiskey into the plastic cup. Slim feminine fingers, coated in pale pink polish, trembled a bit, but Zak didn’t care. A sip, then another. The body warmed up pleasantly, though the belly began to ache more.

— Fuck, — Zak muttered, wrapping both hands around his belly. — The baby’s not a fan of whiskey, apparently... Ha! Wimp!

Trevor winced:

— Zak... I mean, Sara... seriously, this isn’t funny anymore.

— Don’t be so dramatic, — Zak waved him off, absentmindedly playing with his feet. — Everything’s under control. She’s — he pointed at his chest — off today. I’ve got a Friday night. And I’ve got every right to have a little fun in her body. Tomorrow morning I’ll wake up, back to my junk. And her body, apparently, gets passed on to someone else. Along with the hangover!

At that moment, the door burst open with a bang. A tall, lean but muscular man appeared on the threshold, his face tired, eyes burning with fury. He wore a denim shirt, baggy pants, and prison boots. In his hand was an old smartphone with a blinking GPS signal.

— …Sara? — he breathed. — What the... fuck... is going on here?

Zak froze instantly, the cup halted mid-motion. All three of them stared at the newcomer.

— Who the hell are you? — Kevin was the first to speak, jumping to his feet.

But the man was already moving toward "Sara," eyes wide.

— Is that... you?! Sara?! What the hell… with the belly… And these guys… Are you drunk?! — his voice trembled. — I... I got out this morning. Fucking prison, five years! I thought you… you...

Zak blinked. His head was swimming from the booze.

The heart — foreign, female — suddenly clenched with an unfamiliar panic. He felt the breasts tighten, the lower belly pull with a dull ache. No words came out.

— Hey, man, calm down! — Trevor tried to step in. — This isn’t what it looks like...

— Shut the fuck up, asshole! — the man roared, and there was something… predatory in his voice. — I did time for her. And now what? She’s drinking, knocked up, hanging around with a bunch of fuckboys?!

— My name is Zak! — "Sara" blurted out, instinctively raising his hands, the tits visibly lifting again. — You… you don’t understand. It’s a body swap club… I just took this body for a day!

The man blinked. A second of silence.

— …What the fuck are you talking about, Sara? — he hissed, stepping closer. — What bodies, for fuck’s sake? What kind of bullshit is this?! That’s how you love me?! Which one of them knocked you up?!

— Hey, keep your hands to yourself! — Trevor immediately stepped between them, arms out like a barrier. His voice was tense, but steady. — We don’t want trouble, man. Just… maybe take a seat, alright?

— Move! — the man roared and shoved Trevor aside with ease. Trevor flew back, hit his head against the wall, and almost blacked out. — I did five fucking years! Five! For this dumb bitch! And now I get out and she’s… with a belly and drunk, surrounded by a bunch of dickheads?!

A ringing silence fell over the room. Zak, even through his alcohol-dulled mind, instinctively understood: this just turned fucking dangerous. The guy was on edge, veins bulging in his neck, fists clenched so tight his knuckles had gone white.

— Zak… — Kevin hissed, barely moving his lips. — Pretend to be Sara. Just… play along. Got it? For all our sakes.

Zak turned his head toward him. His heart was pounding in his throat. He wanted to argue, wanted to scream Are you fucking insane?!, but… the heavy tits, the belly that kept aching stronger, the pink nails, and the soft feel of the thighs as he tried to stand up… Everything around him screamed: there’s nowhere to run.

— I… I was just… — he tried to say, feeling his voice crack, turning into a whiny female squeak.

— Just what?! — The man grabbed “Sara” by the wrist. His palm was warm, calloused, smelling of sweat and cigarettes. — You look like you don’t even fucking know who I am — he leaned in closer, and Zak suddenly realized how massive this guy seemed from above. — It’s me! Jimmy! Your fucking husband!

Zak tried to pull away, but the weak female muscles were no match. And the alcohol wasn’t helping either.

— I’m not… — he managed to say, but Jimmy already yanked him up. Zak let out a scream — instinctive, feminine, a high-pitched, frightened sound that startled even him.

— I said get ready! — Jimmy growled. — We’re leaving! I’m not going back to prison, you hear me?! I’ve got it all figured out. We’re going to Mexico. We’ll have a trailer there. Start fresh, without these... — he shot a glance at the guys. — Punks.

— Wait! — Kevin shouted, jumping up. — You can’t just take her… take her and leave!

— And you can? — Jimmy thrust a finger into Kevin’s chest. — She’s my wife! My shit! My woman! Yeah, not my kid, but I’ll deal with that too! And if I wanna take her all the way to fucking Arizona, that’s my goddamn right!

Zak stood there swaying. His legs trembled. Everything was happening too fast.

Jimmy looked back at the others and practically shoved Zak toward the door:

— Say goodbye to your little boyfriends. We’re outta here.

— Wait! — “Sara” sobbed, gasping like he’d just realized this moment might change his life forever. — I… I can’t just leave — he whispered, looking up at Jimmy.

— What do you mean you can’t? — Jimmy froze, a dangerous edge creeping into his voice.

— I… I have a dog! — Zak blurted the first thing that came to mind, clutching his belly and wincing. — She needs to eat… she’s in the trailer…

Jimmy frowned for a second, then smirked like he figured something out — but still yanked “Sara” by the elbow:

— Alright, fine! Let’s go get your dog!

Zak cast a glance at his friends, a silent plea for help in his eyes, but they only stared back, frozen, clearly realizing that arguing with Jimmy now would only make things worse.

— We’re going — Jimmy growled through clenched teeth, and without waiting for an answer, jerked “Sara” into the hallway.

— Guys... — Zak’s voice cracked into a high, unexpectedly whiny female tone. He flinched at the soft little “ah” that came out instead of his usual baritone.

The door slammed shut behind them.

The room fell into a suffocating silence. An empty cup rolled across the floor, bumping against the leg of the table. Trevor slowly stood up, clutching his head, blood dried on his lips. Kevin stared at the closed door, unblinking.

— Fuck... — Trevor exhaled quietly. — He’s gonna take her... Or him… Shit, you get it.

— We gotta do something — Kevin hissed, fists clenched. — He’s seriously gonna drag him off to fucking Mexico.

Sweet '50s

— Theresa! What is it with you again? — said Mrs. Henderson with her usual haughty and condescending tone, as if Theresa wasn’t a person but a careless maid caught stealing sugar again.

Theresa froze at once, holding a fork above a slice of toasted ham. She blinked a few times, surfacing from her thoughts, and looked at Mrs. Henderson, who was standing by the fridge with an expression of weary irritation.

— I… uh… — mumbled Theresa, suddenly aware again of how tangible her hair felt, how heavy the earrings were, and how her small breasts now felt even more weighty. Just like always in these moments. A brief pause before she swallowed and quietly said — What... what’s wrong now?

— She’s asking, can you believe it! — Mrs. Henderson threw up her hands and rolled her eyes so hard Theresa could almost hear the pearlescent eyeshadow creak. — Look at how you're sitting. Elbows on the table, slouched back, and legs apart! You’re wearing a skirt, not pants! You’re not Tommy from the gas station, for God’s sake!

Theresa slowly, like in slow motion, removed her elbows, straightened her back, and pressed her knees together. Everything inside her was boiling, but she only nodded and muttered dully:

— Sorry, ma’am.

And there it was again. That voice. High, soft, almost melodic. She still couldn’t believe it was hers now. That she was Theresa. Theresa Maynard. Living with her “aunt,” Mrs. Mary Henderson, a widow who had graciously taken in a poor “relative from Georgia” who’d run away from a hard life. At least, that’s what it looked like in this reality to everyone else.

But in truth, just a few weeks ago she had been Tom Jennings — a tall, confident guy who liked to rant in bars, loudly and with way too much beer-fueled fire:

— Being a guy nowadays is one giant pain in the ass. Fucking trainings, complaints, feminists. You can’t say a damn word — you’re toxic right away. Back in the fifties, a man was a man! It was simple: work, dinner, wife at home, kids — and nobody was fucking with your head.

He even chuckled, picking up an old, patina-covered coin off the ground near the café:

— Wish I could live in the ‘50s, where everyone knew their place...

And the next morning he woke up not in his bachelor apartment with chips on the floor and football on TV, but in a bed with a lace canopy. The sheets smelled like lavender, and everything around reeked of a terrible sense of nightmare looming. In the mirror above the dresser, he saw a frightened girl with tousled morning hair, a sweet face, and big, beautiful eyes. Tom Jennings was gone, and in his place was Theresa Stone — and this goddamn year, 1955.

— …Do you even understand how that looks?! — Mrs. Henderson exploded again, slamming the fridge door with a sound like she’d smacked Theresa on the nose with it. — I’m not going to explain to Mr. Winslow why my niece looks like… like she just ran off from some roadside motel instead of getting ready to meet a respectable gentleman!

Theresa flinched at the mention and winced in hopelessness, glancing down at her dress, then instinctively adjusting the hem of her vest. The floral patterns, the puffed sleeves — all that tacky pastel “femininity” she was forced to wear every single day.

— I didn’t… — she began, but stopped short, unsure how to finish. What? Didn’t mean to? Didn’t do it on purpose? Didn’t have time to pull her knees together?

— Silence is golden, Theresa, — Henderson cut her off. — Go wash your face. And if in fifteen minutes you don’t look like a lady, I’m making an appointment with the doctor. Maybe it’s your nerves. Or God forbid — hysteria.

Theresa stood up despite the hunger. She wanted to say something, to ask if she could at least eat first, but immediately remembered another one of her “aunt’s” favorite lines about how a woman should watch her figure. The hem of her dress clung to her hips as she pushed the chair back. God, even that movement she now tried to do the way she’d been taught — and somehow, it had already become… ceremonial. Feminine. She felt every damn thing: the weight of her tits, the squeeze of the belt, the tingling from the tight clips in her hair. Even in the bathroom, staring into the mirror, the feeling of masquerade never left her.

— Fucking… hell — she whispered, looking at herself. — Is this forever?

Mary Henderson was the widow of a district judge, living in the suburbs of Atlanta, in a proper house with curtains and geraniums. She had a reputation as a “woman of principles” and absolute faith that “a girl’s goal is to get married, not laze around.” That’s why Theresa now had a schedule: Wednesdays — sewing lessons with Miss Edna, Saturdays — baking at the church. And Sundays — family dinners, where old men squinted at her cleavage and said, “Mary, what a lovely niece you have…”

Every day felt like a trial. Her memories of beer, jokes, and the roaring motorcycle now seemed like a dream. And with each passing day, they faded more and more.

— You still standing there like a statue? — came Henderson’s voice from the kitchen. — God almighty, Theresa! What do you think you’re doing?!

— Coming — Theresa replied and immediately flinched again at the sound of her own voice.

Tom inside her wanted to scream, while Theresa obediently lowered her eyes and fixed her hair. Everyone here really did know their place. Especially her.

Discord server

Hi. Looks like the start went pretty well. So I’ve decided to open access for everyone now.
At the moment there are three public channels + three channels that are only available to subscribers.
So yeah, if you want, feel free to join =)

https://discord.gg/xXUvctRuye

Oh, and yeah, I’m not always there, but for now I’m trying to show up every day =)

Heroes of Ashford - Part 4-11

“Holy sh… how did we not notice this earlier?” flashed through her head while her body seeped through a small. crack in the rusty metal structure of the trash container.

Inside it was dark, damp, and smelled like someone had mixed bleach with rotting algae. But once she flew a bit farther, literally just a couple dozen meters, the smell hit her like someone had punched her in the nose.

Exogen.

But not the refined kind injected in sterile labs under government control—raw, crudely extracted from those very colonies of microorganisms that were found fifty years ago beneath the surface of the Red Planet. The same ones that at first looked like nothing more than primitive biomass, and then accidentally turned the first test subject into a human capable of walking through walls.

Flora reflexively pressed her palm to her face—and immediately clenched her teeth.

“Fuck… I forgot that I smell like fucking chamomile now!”

The smell of her own skin, sickly sweet with obvious floral notes, mixed with the sharp stench of the underground farm, and it was so absurd that she almost burst out laughing right there in midair. But the laugh got stuck in her throat when she saw a dull red light flicker ahead, behind a partition made of old metal shelving.

She glanced around. Her wings fluttered in the air, and despite her attempts, a green glow still appeared from them from time to time. Yeah, she probably should’ve spent more evenings studying control and the possible abilities of her body, instead of whining while staring into a tiny mirror in the dollhouse, as she called her living space at the base of the “heroes.”

—…that’s how it is, boss. Don’t worry. Little accidents happen,— a hoarse voice rasped from the room, and Flora immediately pictured a short, fat man with unshaven stubble and a cap on his head, smiling as he tried to justify some screw-up, explaining that it was even good that this screw-up had happened.

The second voice, colder and sharper, cut him off:

— Don’t take me for an idiot, Rico. One more thing like that happens—and you’ll become fertilizer for the next batch yourself. How long until it’s ready?

— Two hours, maybe three max. The colony’s stabilized. Look how it bubbles,— Rico, as it seemed was the name of this underground lab tech, fell silent, apparently waiting for the “boss’s” reaction, and that gave Flora time.

She carefully flew as high as possible, hugging the ceiling but not too close so she wouldn’t get stuck in mold or something worse. Once inside the room, she landed on an old rectangular lamp hanging from the ceiling on thin rods—the kind usually found in warehouses—and slightly stretched her head forward.

From this vantage point, the view was perfect: the entire basement lay open like the palm of her hand, and the red light from the rectangular boxes bubbling at the bottom—boxes that looked like they were made for growing seedlings—didn’t reach far enough to give her away right away.

The scene almost matched her fantasy. Several rows of tables with boxes set on them, rather carelessly, filled with red biomass that periodically flared with green, violet, then yellow light. Between them: wires, hoses, microchips. And off to the side—two people. That same fat little guy in a dirty jacket, and indeed wearing a cap pulled down over his sweaty forehead, was fussing around a console. Next to him stood the other one: tall, gaunt, in a long coat despite the stuffy heat. Gloved hands. Straight back.

— This time it’ll be more, boss… — the fat man hurried to say. — I used a new method. It leaks a bit more radiation, but the filters are holding, honestly. The girls in the tanks are calm…

Flora flinched.

“Girls.”

She felt that wave rise inside her again—the one that had become all too familiar since waking up in this body. A wave of heat that started somewhere in her breasts and spread through the entire tiny body, making her skin tingle and her wings flutter on their own.

For a second, Flora blacked out.

The world shrank down to the stupid white-and-green bodysuit that unpleasantly, yet already familiarly, clung to this body, emphasizing everything she wished she could cross out. Down to the heels, on which even standing on the old lamp was torture. The voices, the flowers in her hair, and that damn smell.

She came back to herself, realizing that her wings had started fluttering and glowing brighter than they should.

“No. Not now. She won’t let this body set the rules. Twenty years in the FBI, operations in hot zones where one wrong step—and you’re in a body bag. Big tits and wide hips, so what. Use your advantages. You’re small. You can fly.”

Professionalism took over. Flora carefully lifted herself on the lamp, stretching her neck and balancing as if she’d done it her whole life, instantly switching on those skills that can’t be replaced by anything. The ones that had already been stitched into her at the level of genetic memory. The ones called by a simple word: “professionalism.”

She slowly swept her gaze across the room, no longer as a “girl,” but as an operative used to surviving in far worse places.

Two doors—Marcus could “knock” through one of them. There, a video camera, which means there’s security. Next to those two is a control panel, definitely with an alarm button. Boxes with the colony, about twelve of them, with red glow but the bubbles burst in different colors, which means she could mask her green light as part of that. Only two people in the room, no visible weapons, but the “boss” in the coat clearly has something under his arm.

Still. If Marcus bursts in loudly, they’ll have time to raise the alarm or, worse, destroy the batch. She needs to understand where Marcus is—who knows what he’s gotten into his head now. The one in charge, even with this size, is still Alex. Nothing has changed.

Flora carefully took off, trying not to give off any light, but at that moment behind her—up near the ceiling where rusty cables stretched and moldy webs hung—there was a rustle, like someone had shifted a bag of trash… only in midair.

Flora jerked with her whole body.

Her heart skipped, her wings instinctively flared with a bright green light, lighting up the entire basement for a moment like a sudden magnesium flash. She immediately tried to dim the glow, but it was too late.

— Hey, what the… — Rico rasped, lifting his head. His eyes widened when he saw the tiny figure hovering under the ceiling. — Boss! There’s… there’s something flying!

The tall man in the coat spun around sharply, his hand darting under the hem of his coat, but Flora had already shot upward, weaving between pipes and wires, trying to reach the exit of the room and then the crack she had come through. Her wings buzzed at their limit, throwing green reflections onto the bubbling boxes with the colony.

In flight, her overly lush tits bounced under the white top so hard that she herself lost her rhythm for a moment. But worse than that, the crown of white-and-pink flowers slid to the side, caught on a wire, and painfully yanked her hair in the ponytail.

— Ow… — she hissed through clenched teeth, stopping to fix the decoration.

— Catch her! — the boss barked in a cold voice, as if sensing the perfect moment.

Rico didn’t hesitate and shot his arm forward. Out of the corner of her eye, Flora saw it and managed to think that the fat guy was just waving his fist, but the arm suddenly stretched in a split second, like rubber, lengthening—and almost immediately the fingers closed around her tiny body. She squealed in surprise, trying to break free, but the grip was iron.

— Let go! — she squeaked, and immediately got angry at her own squeak.

— Oh! Got her! — Rico breathed out happily. — Look, boss! It’s a… a fairy!

Flora thrashed.

Her wings flailed, but they were pinned to her back. Her heels scratched his palm, and she felt how the little shoes uselessly slid, finding no support.

— Let go, you pig! — she kept squeaking, realizing she sounded like a little hysterical toy. Or even worse.

Rico giggled.

— She swears! — He brought his clenched hand closer to his face, examining her like a rare butterfly. — Wow… a real one… like from a fairy tale…

The tall man in the coat stepped closer. A dark silhouette slid through the red glow of the biomass.

— Who are you? — he said coldly. — Are you from the “heroes”?

Flora froze in Rico’s fist, feeling his hot breath wash over her face. Panic surged: the tiny body was trapped in the vise of his fingers, her wings pressed so tightly that the light in them almost went out. She tried to take a deeper breath, but the white swimsuit top stretched even tighter, reminding her of every hateful detail of this body.

— Answer me, — the boss repeated, starting to scan every corner of the room. — If you’re from patrol, are you alone? Or is your partner here? How many of you are there?

Rico was still holding her in front of his face, smiling stupidly. His face was already unbelievably huge because of his excess weight, but from this angle, with her squeezed into his sweaty palm, it looked like the very embodiment of some insanely massive mountain troll from Scandinavian fairy tales.

Flora’s ears rang, as if a grenade had gone off nearby, even though nothing like that had happened. Her tiny eyes slammed shut, and she squeezed them tight, as if that could help calm the panic. Her heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was about to burst out of the tight white top. Heat rolled over her again in a wave—that same familiar and hated one—starting somewhere in her breasts and spreading through her entire body, making her skin burn and tingle. Her wings, pressed to her back, trembled, trying to unfold, and a bright green light flared in them, seeping through Rico’s fingers.

— Hey, what’s wrong with her? — Rico muttered, loosening his fist slightly out of curiosity. His hot breath washed over Flora again, and at that moment she felt her scent—the same sickly sweet one, with strong notes of chamomile and freshly cut meadow grass—grow several times stronger, filling all the space around his palm. It burst outward like a dense cloud and hit Rico straight in the face.

The fat man froze. His nostrils flared, he took a deep breath—and his eyes went glassy. The smile that had just been curious and a little mean slowly melted away, replaced by an expression of complete, unconditional awe.

— Oh… my God… — he breathed out softly, almost reverently. His fingers opened completely, carefully, as if he were holding the most fragile treasure in the world. — I’m sorry… I’m sorry, my precious! Are you… are you okay?

Flora didn’t immediately realize she was no longer being held.

The pressure vanished so suddenly that her body jerked from inertia, and she almost tumbled in the air. Her wings, finally freed, snapped open convulsively, unevenly, blindingly. At once the green light flared brighter than before, cutting into her eyes, and only Rico’s other hand, placed just in time under her back, kept her from falling.

She was breathing hard. As hard as you can even “breathe hard” with tiny lungs. Her breasts were still heaving under the white top, the fabric sticking to her skin, and that made her feel ashamed, angry, and… scared.

— You… you… what the hell?!

she shouted, lifting her gaze to Rico’s huge, sweaty, round face. He was looking at her with some unexpected warmth and… remorse? Flora’s blue eyes widened. She wanted to hit him with her tiny fist, blind him with a flash of light, fly away as far as possible—but instead the words got stuck in her throat. Because something inside flipped over.

Rico was big. Very big. But now he was looking at her not like moments ago, but as if she were the only light in his life.

“Why the fuck am I not flying away?!” flashed briefly through her mind, but at that moment the boss’s voice sounded behind her:

— Rico! What the fuck?! Have you lost your mind?!

Flora flinched with her whole body. Her wings jerked, flaring unevenly, and for a fraction of a second she was knocked sideways, but the big hand shifted in that direction, caring, almost like the automatic backrest of an expensive chair.

Rico slowly blinked, as if trying to understand what mattered more: her or his own life. Both mattered.

— I… — he lifted his gaze, slightly shielding his “my precious” from the tall man. — She… boss, she almost fell…

— I don’t give a shit whether she fell or not! — the “boss” barked, stepping closer. — Put her in some kind of jar if you can’t hold her!

Rico’s eyes flew open so wide it looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets.

— Don’t talk like that, boss! With all due respect, but—

— Bend down, Rico! — Flora suddenly cut him off, not expecting it from herself, noticing how the “boss” pulled a silenced pistol from under his coat.

Her high voice sounded unexpectedly firm, almost commanding. Rico, without hesitation, obediently crouched and turned his back to the “boss,” covering her with his massive body. At that very moment, two dull pops rang out — the bullets whistled over his head and slammed into the shelving behind, shattering one of the boxes. Red biomass splashed out, hissing and flaring with violet sparks.

Flora launched off his palm. Her wings buzzed at their limit, the green light slashing across the boss’s eyes in a blinding flash. He squeezed his eyes shut, cursing and staggering back.

And, as if someone behind the wall had been waiting for exactly this moment, Granite burst into the room. Granite, not Marcus — because Marcus wasn’t capable of smashing through a basement’s concrete wall a meter thick as if it were just the wooden wall of a village outhouse.

The concrete exploded inward in crumbs and dust, the air compressed from the shockwave, and Flora was thrown back as if she’d flown into a hot gust of wind. Her wings howled, barely keeping her in the air, her breasts painfully jerked under the white top, and for a moment she lost all sense of direction.

Rico screamed, getting up and running toward her with his arms stretched out — not thinking, not choosing a path, just rushing to where, in a cloud of dust and light, a small glowing body was dangling.

— MY PRECIOUS! — his voice broke, turned hoarse. — Hold on! I’m here!

— DOWN! — Granite’s voice roared, his super-hearing catching the flutter of Flora’s wings as he snapped his gaze that way. — FLY HERE!

— NO, MY PRECIOUS! FLY TO ME! — Rico immediately shouted over him, his voice breaking into a hoarse cry full of desperate pleading. He spread his arms wider, forgetting everything around him except the tiny figure swaying in the cloud of dust.

Flora didn’t think. She just surged forward, through the thunder of collapsing concrete, the whine of bullets still ricocheting in echoes off the walls, and Granite’s roar as he was already charging through the breach. Her wings buzzed at the limit, green light cutting through the dusty curtain like a beacon. Her breasts bounced under the white top, her heels dangled uselessly in the air, the crown of flowers slid to the side again, but she didn’t notice. Everything in her head blurred together: “My precious… hold on… fly here… to me…” — Rico’s and Granite’s words merged into a solid hum, drowned out only by the pounding of her own heart.

She flew straight into Rico’s outstretched palms, breathing hard, and he immediately closed his fingers—not squeezing, but gently, like a bowl, shielding her from the whole world. The warm skin of his hands wrapped around her, and Flora, without expecting it herself, pressed against his thumb, feeling the heat in her breasts spread stronger, sweet and frightening at the same time.

— I’m here… — Rico murmured reverently, ducking into a sheltered spot and pressing his palm to his own chest, where his heart was pounding like a drum. — Are you okay? You didn’t hurt anything?

Flora blinked, trying to pull herself together. “What am I doing? He’s the enemy… an underground farm…” flashed through her mind, but she couldn’t fly away. She wanted to stay here, in this huge, reliable palm that smelled of sweat and metal, but for some reason felt safer than the whole world outside.

Through the gaps between his fingers, she saw Granite’s massive figure. Under his arm, he was holding the “boss” like a rag doll: the tall man in the coat was hanging limp, arms twisted, the pistol lying somewhere in the rubble.

— Let her go! — Granite barked, and there was no longer just a demand in his voice, but a warning. The kind after which someone usually breaks.

Flora’s heart clenched painfully, and for a moment her vision darkened.

— Don’t… — she breathed softly inside Rico’s palms, then immediately added, louder and more commanding — Don’t tou-u-u-u-uch h-i-i-im!

That squeal made not only Rico’s ears ring, but Granite’s too. The flasks standing nearby cracked. Even the metal on the ventilation boxes vibrated.

Granite’s hand froze dangerously close to Rico’s neck, and Rico, stunned by that squeal, forgot himself and slightly opened his palms—from which Flora shot out already, like a spark from a campfire, glowing with bright green light.

The green light blasted upward in a sharp, painful surge, her wings clapped so hard that the air around her turned into a vacuum.

— Shit… — Rico breathed out, staring at his empty palms as if something living had been torn out of them.

Flora hovered between them, trembling. Her heels dangled in the air, her legs buckled, tiny palms clenched into fists.

Granite’s hand was still raised. His fingers hung centimeters from Rico’s neck, as if someone had hit pause on the movie.

— Back, — Flora said now not with a squeal, but hoarsely, forcing the words through a clenched throat. — Both of you… stay.

Granite slowly lowered his hand. His super-hearing was gradually returning to him, but logic hadn’t caught up yet, and he didn’t understand what was happening.

— Uh… Alex, what the fuck? — he rumbled, raising an eyebrow, forgetting himself.

— Alex?! Your name is Alex, my precious? — Rico immediately picked it up, his eyes lighting up even brighter, as if he’d just been handed the most valuable treasure in the world. He took half a step forward, stretching his palms out again, as if asking permission to catch her back. — Beautiful name…

Flora flinched, hovering in the air. The green light of her wings pulsed unevenly, throwing reflections onto Rico’s sweaty face and Granite’s harsh one. She felt the heat inside rise again, sweet and heavy, making her skin burn and her breathing falter.

— Shut up, — she hissed at Rico, but there was no real anger in her squeaky tone. More confusion. — Both of you. And you too, — she turned to Granite, poking a tiny finger in his direction. — Don’t touch him, got it! — then she shifted her gaze back to Rico, knitting her brows. — And no Alex here! For you it’s only Flora, got it?!

Rico froze, his palms still stretched forward, but now he slowly lowered them, as if afraid of scaring off a bird.

— Flora… — he said reverently, tasting the name. — Flora. Beautiful. Just for me…

— Not just for you, you idiot! — Flora barked louder than she meant to, and her squeaky voice echoed off the rusty basement walls. She sharply flapped her wings, flying a couple of meters back to get farther away from Rico’s outstretched hands. The green light flared brighter, lighting up his round face from below, and in that glow he looked even more lost and in love.

Rico immediately hunched his shoulders, as if he’d been slapped, but there was no offense in his eyes — only remorse.

— Sorry, Flora… sorry, — he mumbled hurriedly, dropping to his knees and lowering his head, as if he’d just broken every sacred commandment. — I didn’t mean to… it’s just… you’re so… I get it. Only Flora. For everyone. As you say.

Granite, still holding the “boss” under his arm like a bag of trash, snorted — the sound came out heavy, almost like a laugh.

— Alright, that’s enough of this circus, — he grumbled, shifting the captive more comfortably over his shoulder. The man let out a weak groan, but Granite didn’t even look down. — Backup’s already on the way. I can hear it. And you — tell me what the hell this is. What, do you two know each other?

Flora hovered in the air, her wings humming more quietly now, though the light still pulsed unevenly. She looked at Granite, then at Rico, who was still kneeling, and let out a heavy sigh — thin, almost like wind whistling through leaves.

— No, we don’t know each other, — she answered sharply, crossing her arms over her breasts. The white swimsuit top stretched tight, and she immediately dropped her arms, irritably slapping her thigh. — I saw him for the first time when he… caught me. Like a fucking fly.

Rico lifted his head, his eyes widening in horror.

— I didn’t mean like a fly! — he blurted out quickly. — I… I just didn’t let you fall, Flora! You were so fragile, so beautiful in that light… I—

— Shut up! — Flora squeaked, and Rico immediately clamped a hand over his mouth, nodding apologetically.

Granite snorted, shifting his gaze from one to the other.

— Then what is this? — he nodded toward Rico. — He’s acting like you’re his fairy queen. And you’re protecting him like… I don’t know, like you care about him.

Flora felt the heat spread through her body again — from her breasts to the tips of her wings. She turned away, looking at the shattered boxes of red biomass that were still faintly glowing.

— It’s… an ability, I guess, — she said quietly, almost under her breath. — When he grabbed me, I got angry… — she exhaled, not wanting to say “scared,” then continued. — And suddenly my stupid smell got stronger, the light flared… and he became like this. I can give him orders, and he listens, like… — she faltered, shooting a quick glance at Rico and blushing even harder, — like he’s in love.

Rico nodded so hard he almost smacked his forehead on the floor.

— Not like — for real, Flora! Forever!

Granite raised an eyebrow; a strange mix of surprise and the urge to laugh crossed his stone face.

— So you enchanted him? Like in a fairy tale? — he scratched the back of his head with his free hand. — Then why are you… like, worried about him too?

Flora froze in midair. Her wings trembled, the green light dimmed to almost nothing, nearly fading out. She slowly turned toward Granite; her big blue eyes widened, and her cheeks beneath the thin skin burned with a bright blush, visible even in the red flicker of the basement.

— I… — she started and immediately cut herself off. Her voice broke into a high, almost childlike squeak. She wrapped her arms around her waist, as if trying to hold that heat inside. — Let’s not talk about this… I think… I think it’s temporary.

Granite watched her for another second or two, then slowly nodded, understanding that jokes would definitely be out of place right now.

— Alright, — he said quietly, trying not to add “my precious” and to look serious. — Temporary means temporary. We’ll sort it out at base.

He turned to Rico.

— Get up. Hands on your head. One step left, one step right — and you’re considered to be trying to escape.

Rico lifted his eyes to Flora, not moving, looking at her as if waiting for her personal permission rather than the order of this massive Granite, who could cripple him with one little finger. His hands were still resting on his knees, his sweaty face showing complete submission.

Flora met his gaze and felt the heat inside stir again. She swallowed and gave a short, almost imperceptible nod.

— Get up, — she said quietly but firmly. — Do what he said.

Only then did Rico rise, slowly and carefully, put his hands behind his head, and stand straight. He didn’t say a word, but there was such sincere faith in his eyes—almost gratitude—that Flora immediately turned away, pretending to inspect the breach in the wall.

Granite snorted with satisfaction and stepped toward the exit, still holding the “boss” under his arm.

— Let’s go. Backup’s already here.

Indeed, the first beams of powerful flashlights appeared in the breach, and right after them silhouettes in hazmat suits emerged. Heavy boots thundered against the concrete.

The squad captain, wearing a helmet with a visor and an eagle patch on his shoulder, entered first, instantly assessed the situation, and nodded to Granite.

— Granite, Flora. Brief report.

— Farm neutralized, — Granite rumbled, handing the unconscious “boss” over to two agents. — Twelve containers with colonies, one damaged. One detainee surrendering voluntarily, — he nodded toward Rico. — Biohazard team required and immediate extraction to base. Flora has… a newly manifested ability. Psycho-emotional class.

The captain looked up to where Flora hovered near the ceiling, trying to stay in the shadows. Her green light was dimmed to the minimum.

— Confirmed, — she said, descending lower and trying to sound professional. — Initial reconnaissance was conducted by me. And I ask that with him— uh, — she jerked her head to pull herself together, — more precisely, I recommend handling the second detainee with caution. He is cooperative. And possesses abilities that require study.

The captain nodded without asking unnecessary questions and issued orders over the radio. Agents in suits began moving toward the boxes, setting up containers, scanning the air.

Rico was led outside under guard. He walked without looking back, but she knew he felt her gaze.

Granite approached the exit and glanced at Flora, then at his massive shoulder.

— So, shall we go? Or do you prefer to fly? — he said simply.

Flora hovered beside him for a moment, then settled onto his shoulder. She had no strength left to fly. Her body was spent, and her head was a complete chaos of unclear emotions, feelings, and contradictions.

— Let’s go, — she repeated quietly, staring somewhere into the distance and wishing she could just sink into the ground, imagining how she would report all of this to her superiors.

The Peasant Prince - Episode 2

PDF, Word version and Caps in PDF — in attachment

Everything is also duplicated on Discord in the corresponding channel

As Good as It Gets

— Brian, darling, I’ll just take something from your study, — Catherine, his “perfect wife,” said softly. She fixed a lock of hair, leaned over, and kissed her husband on the cheek. Everything looked flawless: a suburban house, the sunset glowing behind the curtains, the smell of fresh pie from the kitchen — a picture straight out of a 1960s American ad.

— But darling, you know that women…

— Don’t belong in a man’s study, — Brian finished the phrase, adjusting his tie and smiling with the very confidence that his “perfect marriage” was unshakable.

Catherine gave a soft chuckle, as if agreeing, but her eyes flashed with a faint shadow of mockery.

— Catherine… — Brian frowned slightly, but didn’t turn around, still studying his reflection in the perfectly polished silver coffeepot.

Behind him, the lock clicked quietly.

— Yes, darling? — her voice came out soft, almost sing-song.

— You remember the rules… — he smirked, staring into the glass of amber whiskey. — A man’s study is sacred territory. Women have no business there.

— Just for a minute, — her voice sounded even, almost innocent, — and then I promise I’ll do for you what you’re too shy to tell your friend about, — Catherine tilted her head slightly, as if hinting at something ambiguous.

Brian chuckled smugly, glancing back at his reflection again, but something uneasy flickered in his eyes. She had said that line with too much confidence.

There was a thin sound of a key turning in the lock.

Stepping inside, Catherine slowly closed the door behind her and turned the key all the way. The metallic click was so sharp that Brian flinched, though he tried to hide it behind a strained smirk.

— Catherine, you… — he turned, holding the glass in his hand, — this all looks… unusual.

She, however, turned her head toward the wardrobe and took a few confident steps. Her heels tapped distinctly against the parquet. Catherine opened the wardrobe door, and from within — among perfectly pressed men’s suits and polished hangers — she pulled out a rifle. Cold metal gleamed in the soft light of the lamp. Her lips curved into a light, almost playful smile, which only made it more terrifying.

— Oh yes, baby, long time no see, — Catherine ran her hand along the rifle as if it weren’t lifeless steel, but her old friend. Her fingers lingered on the bolt, as if she felt almost intimate pleasure from it. Then, unhurriedly, she turned toward the massive desk, on which two old computer monitors stood, and her smile grew wider.

The monitors, square and mute, came alive as if they had been waiting just for her touch. Dim green letters danced on the black screen.

— Well, you dumb piece of junk, — she whispered, as if speaking not to her husband behind the door, but to the very heart of the study, — it’s time to bring me back.

Words appeared on the screen:

“WELCOME, CATHERINE SMITH. PLEASE PUT DOWN THE WEAPON.”

— Oh, so now you’re not just some computer that a “silly woman can’t handle”? — Catherine drawled, raising the rifle a little, almost playfully, — But then again, who am I?

The green letters on the screen flickered, as if the machine hesitated, unsure how to respond.

ON THE SCREEN:

“STATUS CONFIRMED. YOU ARE THE PRIMARY SUBJECT OF THE EXPERIMENT. SERGEANT WALTER DAVIS. ACCESS LEVEL: MAXIMUM”

— Kat, honey, is everything alright in there? — came a voice, muffled by the door and the wall.

Catherine froze for a moment, her eyes locked on the green letters, while the corners of her lips slowly curled upward. The rifle swayed lightly in her hands, more like a toy than a weapon.

— Everything’s fine, darling, — she sang in a melodious tone, then added half a note lower, — if only you knew how much I hate you.

Brian didn’t hear that. Outside the door, he noisily gulped his whiskey and whistled something — pleased, smug, absolutely certain he had this house, this world, and this woman under control.

But Catherine — or rather Walter Davis, a Marine stuffed into a skirt and high heels after taking part in the quantum computer activation experiment — stood in the middle of the study with a rifle in her hands, unable to tear her eyes from the green lines on the screen.

— Well, come on then, send me back.

The computer blinked and printed new words:

“REALITY STABLE. CHANGES NOT RECOMMENDED. RECOMMENDATION: CONTINUE LIFE AS CATHERINE.”

— I’ll fucking smash you, you dumb piece of scrap, I’ve already been stuck here for two damn years. Do you think it was easy to find you?! — Catherine hissed, tightening her grip on the rifle. The metal was pleasantly cold against her palms, and that sensation only fueled her rage — the Marine inside this female body wasn’t about to accept the role of a “perfect wife.” — God, if I had known from the start you were in my husband’s study, then… ugh! “My husband,” those words still make me sick!

The monitors flickered faster, as if the machine itself grew nervous under her shouting. Slowly, new green letters emerged on the screen:

“SUBJECT SHOWS INSTABILITY. CORRECTION POSSIBLE. PROPOSAL: STRENGTHEN INTEGRATION.”

— Strengthen?! — Catherine slammed the rifle butt against the desk. The heels of her shoes clacked sharply on the floor again, and for a moment she felt the skirt betray her, riding up to reveal smooth thighs. The sensation only enraged her more. — I am not your doll for ‘integration’! I’m a Marine, Sergeant Davis!

Her voice rang in the silence, but from behind the door came Brian’s muffled call:

— Catherine? Is everything alright?

She bit her lip, suppressing the urge to fire straight into the screen, then suddenly shouted back in a sweet, sing-song voice:

— Everything’s fine, dear! Just… dropped something.

— Be careful, darling, — her husband’s smug voice once again drowned in the creak of his chair and the clink of pouring whiskey.

Catherine turned her gaze back to the screen.

“OTHER REALITY VARIANTS DIFFER IN QUALITY OF LIFE. FOR SUBJECT ‘WALTER DAVIS,’ THE MOST OPTIMAL LIFE SELECTED: ‘CATHERINE’ (DIMENSION 547893).”

Catherine snapped her head up toward the monitor, as if the green letters had just spat in her face.

— Optimal?! — her voice broke into a rasp, her breasts heaving under the light gray jacket, each breath only amplifying the absurdity of the situation. — You call optimal a life in a skirt, with pies in the kitchen, and that drunken peacock behind the door?!

The screen flickered and displayed:

“ALTERNATIVE VARIANTS:

— DIMENSION 201948: SOLDIER, BATTLEFIELD, DEATH AT AGE 32.

— DIMENSION 390117: PRISON, LIFE SENTENCE.

— DIMENSION 711200: STREET, HOMELESS.

— DIMENSION 547893: WIFE, STABILITY, PROSPERITY, SOCIAL RECOGNITION.

— RECOMMENDATION: CONTINUE AS CATHERINE.”

The words pressed against her temples like a vice.

— You… want to say… — her lips twisted, though her voice trembled, — that everything else is even worse? That my only “happiness” is tits and fucking pots?!

The letters flashed instantly:

“YES. VARIANT 547893 IS THE MOST STABLE REALITY FOR YOU.”

She slammed her palm onto the keyboard, plastic keys flying in all directions. The rifle swayed, and for a split second her finger almost squeezed the trigger.

— No… — Catherine whispered, a shiver running down her spine. — I won’t agree to that. I won’t live for “social harmony.” I’m not an “optimal wife,” I’m a soldier!

At that moment the study door opened. In the doorway stood Brian with a mug in his hand, his smile vanishing instantly as the mug slipped and shattered into pieces.

— Catherine?! — his voice wavered, though he kept his gaze steady. — What the hell…

The door slammed shut with a heavy thud. The automatic lock clicked into place on its own, as if pulled by an invisible hand. Brian was left outside — cut off from what was happening inside.

On the screen of the old computer new lines appeared:

“STABILIZATION REQUIRED. YOUR SITUATION DEMANDS CORRECTION.”

Catherine, reminding herself she was still Walter, gripped the rifle tighter, feeling the fabric of the light gray jacket stretch over her breasts, emphasizing the shape of her new body far too much. Breathing inside this female cage was suffocating.

— Listen, you piece of junk, — her voice grew harsh, almost hoarse, — I want the second optimal variant. One where I’m a man. Where I’m me again.

On the screen appeared:

“CALCULATING. PLEASE WAIT…”

A loading bar blinked, letters flashing rapidly. And then:

“CALCULATION TIME: 5 DAYS LOCAL TIME.”

— Five days?! — Catherine slammed the rifle butt against the floor, heels clacking, her skirt riding up even higher. She felt the cold air of the study against her bare legs. — I can’t wait that long, do you hear me?!

— Catherine, what’s going on?! Open the door right now! — her husband raged from outside the door. Catherine cast a glance that way, then turned back to the screen.

The screen responded indifferently:

“CALCULATION CANNOT BE ACCELERATED.”

Catherine clenched her teeth, her gaze darting between the keyboard, the blinking letters, and the door that looked like it might give way any second. Her fingers trembled, her breasts rose higher with each breath.

— Fine… then throw me into any other reality! — she shouted, slamming her palm against the keys. — Anywhere I’m a man, for fuck’s sake!

Words appeared on the screen:

“CALCULATION REQUIRED. TIME TO CALCULATE: 5 DAYS.”

— Fuck! Then just anywhere else!

“CONFIRM: RANDOM SELECTION.”

— Confirmed, goddamn it…

Everything around her flickered. A void pulled at her, as if the carpet beneath her feet had vanished. The rifle slipped from her hands but never hit the floor — it simply dissolved into the air.

…and Catherine crashed into another body.

She gasped sharply, and at once the pounding of music hit her ears. Bass, beats, the whistles of a crowd. Her nose filled with the smell of cheap perfume, powder, and alcohol. A splash of bright pink light struck her face.

She was sitting in front of a mirror in a dressing room. A glittery sequin skirt clung to her lap, barely covering her thighs. Thick lipstick painted her lips, her lashes heavy with mascara.

In the reflection, she saw a girl with long wavy hair and the same Catherine face (Walter’s female version), only now… more slutty?

Catherine — Walter — stared into the mirror, her eyes wide. She instinctively ran her palm along her thigh, feeling smooth skin beneath a thin stocking, and yanked her hand back.

— What… what the fuck…

The dressing room door burst open, and another girl poked her head in — heavy makeup, pink feathers in her hair.

— Hey, Candice, you’re on in three minutes! Move it, the crowd’s hot tonight!

And the door slammed shut again.

Catherine lifted her head, looking once more into the mirror.

— God… — she closed her eyes, whispering barely audibly. — And how the hell am I supposed to find that fucking machine again…

Heroes of Ashford - Part 1-3

— This is humiliating! — an angry squeak rang out and spread, though not as loudly as it seemed to the one shouting, along Second Avenue in Ashford, almost completely filled with small local shops shut for the night behind metal shutters, graffiti on the walls, and piles of all kinds of trash that felt right at home here. It had received the status of “officially troubled” not so long ago. Not because of the dirt in the streets. Not even because you could get absolutely anything here — from fake documents to weapons. There were plenty of cities like that. No. This place had underground exogen farms — a substance that changed human life forever. Although at first no one could even imagine that all of this would be caused by an equally important discovery made by one of the research terminals on Mars. Life.

The big man sighed and glanced sideways at the tiny fairy sitting on his shoulder, arms crossed and demonstratively turned away. She was no taller than a palm, her big blue eyes flashing with irritation, and her long light hair, tied into a high ponytail and crowned with a wreath of white and pink flowers, swayed slightly in the breeze. Behind her, shimmering in the darkness with a magical glow, were semi-transparent light-green wings.

— You’ve been saying that the whole way, — he muttered, and the echo of his deep voice, like from a huge orchestral horn, bounced off the rusty shutters and dissolved into the city’s night sky.

— Because it’s true, Marcus! — she snapped louder, this time jerking her tiny legs and slamming them with all her strength against his powerful shoulder in a white tank top. For him it was no worse than a mosquito bite, but she felt pain spread through her ankle. — Ow! Damn it! — she squealed, pulling her leg back and rubbing her bruised ankle with a tiny hand. A green high-heeled shoe with little flower leaves almost flew off, but somehow stayed on. — See? I can’t even hit you properly! I’m just a small, weak, fat cow with a huge ass!

— No one dragged you here by force, FLORA, — the big man emphasized the name and added a bit quieter, — and which Marcus were you talking to?

The fairy froze. Her wings trembled, the light in them flickering unevenly for a second. She slowly turned her head toward him, and something stubborn, almost defiant, flashed in her blue eyes.

— That very one, — she cut back. — The man who worked with me in the FBI for twenty years. Who knew my name and didn’t call me… — she angrily jabbed a finger into her breasts, where the white bikini top was stretched far too tight, — …garden furniture.

Marcus stopped. The street ahead sank into shadow, where between dumpsters and shop grates you could make out a stairway going down into a basement — one of those in Ashford that rarely led to anything legal.

— In the heroes’ registry you’re Flora, — he said evenly. — And I’m “Granite.” We don’t have other names now. Get used to it.

— Fuck you! — she barked, refusing to believe in the new reality where the experienced FBI operative Alex Douglas no longer existed, the one who, together with a friend, decided to try their luck and join the heroes squad after the government announced recruitment for a new group. And even though the chances were slim, they passed all the tests. Only the result didn’t satisfy Alex — or, as she was now called, “Flora,” already heading out as part of the new group of “heroes” on her very first raid.

Flora sharply pushed off from the giant’s shoulder, her wings fluttering through the air at a speed impossible for the human eye to track, their glow flaring brighter and throwing green reflections onto the rusty containers and peeling walls. She hovered right in front of his face — tiny, furious, with a ponytail messed up by the wind and a crown slipped to the side.

— Get used to it? — she hissed, her voice trembling with anger but still high and squeaky. — Are you seriously suggesting I get used to being called after a houseplant now? Flora! That’s not even a name, it’s fertilizer!

Granite raised a hand, ready to catch her if she suddenly snapped into a hysteric fit and flew off into the night, but she deftly dodged, looping through the air.

— Flora Lightwing, — he repeated calmly, with a faint smirk in his eyes. — A normal name. Command chose it. Sounds heroic. Like a character from old comics. And it fits your… style.

— Style?! — She almost choked. — This style was chosen by exogen, not me! I wanted to be someone terrifying! A fire mage! A shadow assassin! Not… not a fluttering doll with hips wider than my entire former assault team put together!

She demonstratively slapped her rounded thigh — the sound came out as a barely audible smack. The green bodysuit with a high cut stretched tight, emphasizing everything she hated more than anything else in the world right now.

— They say the form is the embodiment of your deepest fantasies, — this time Granite didn’t even try to hide the mockery, saying it with a wide grin, — which means somewhere deep inside you always dreamed of being—

— Don’t give me that bullshit! — Flora shouted, no longer trying to hold back her emotions, planting a hand on her hip and flying higher so she could look down on that huge smiling mug at least from above. Her semi-transparent light-green wings buzzed with tension, casting trembling reflections over Granite’s face, — You’ve known me since the first operation in Kabul! In Venezuela! In that mess in Mogadishu where I pulled you out from under fire! How can you even believe that I wanted to be THIS!

Marcus sighed, the wide smile sliding off his face, and he was already about to reply that he was just joking, when suddenly his hearing — now capable of picking up any suspicious movement within a fifty-meter radius — caught a quiet metallic scraping behind him, somewhere near the trash containers they had already passed several times.

He spun around sharply, instinctively throwing his arm forward, shielding Flora with his massive body. She, still hanging in the air, froze as well: her wings stopped fluttering so fast, and the light in them turned cold and alert.

— Quiet, — Granite whispered so low it sounded more like the rumble of distant thunder.

— What is it? — Flora reacted instantly, the anger in her squeaky notes replaced by professional alertness. She silently flew closer to him, reducing the shimmer of her wings to a minimum, and when she settled on the back of his neck, she pressed them to her back completely, muting the light entirely. Clutching his hair with her tiny fingers like vines and pressing her lush breasts against him so that Marcus, though he didn’t show it, still felt it, she stretched her neck, peeking out from behind his massive head as if from around the corner of a fortress wall.

— I don’t see anything... — Flora whispered in response to her companion’s silence, and then, as if realizing how she must look right now, she shifted slightly away from his head, stretched out her arms, and added through clenched teeth, — I think you’re overestimating your new abilities. We’ve been walking around here for three hours already. I think intel was wrong.

Granite didn’t answer right away. He simply froze like a concrete pillar in the middle of Second Avenue at night: trash bags, rusty shop grates, graffiti skeletons on the walls. And it looked like there really was that basement stairway hiding from them behind the dumpsters. From there came that thin metallic scraping again. Not loud. But too rhythmic to be a rat.

Flora squinted. Her wings barely shimmered, but she pulled herself together despite everything that had happened “before.” Massive experience made itself known.

— Well? — she leaned forward, and her white bikini top stretched so tight that she herself had to swallow her irritation. That stupid costume reminded her of itself again: it had been with her since the very beginning of awakening, not like a second skin, no, but more like the only thing she could wear now — humiliating, yes, but for some reason other clothes felt even worse. — Listen, buddy. If this is another “a can fell over,” I... I’ll turn you into a frog, got it? — Flora whispered, trying to sound threatening, but with her squeaky tone the threat came out more comical than scary.

Granite gave a barely audible snort.

— Better fly over there. I’ll circle from the other side.

— Are you serious? — she hissed, pulling away from the back of his neck and adding, — Since when are you the boss?

— Not now, Alex, — Granite repeated quietly but firmly, not taking his eyes off the stairway. — We’ll sort out who’s the boss later. Right now — fly. I’m going from the other side.

Flora froze in midair for a moment, her wings trembling with anger and… fear. Not for herself. For him. Despite his huge size, she still saw him as that same Marcus who often stayed alive only thanks to her, Alex, and his command skills. But he was right. Now was not the time.

— To hell with you, — she hissed and darted toward the dumpsters, trying to control the light from her wings, which still faintly glimmered against the rusty metal of the trash containers, where there really was a stairway down.

First Time in the Women’s Bathhouse

— Oh god, you're trembling so much! — giggled Sakura, saying it, as usual, with her overly strong Japanese accent, which, despite her studying at the foreign languages department, was still way too noticeable.

— I... I'm not used to this, — grumbled Alex, clenching his teeth and pressing his elbows even tighter against his chest, which hung down annoyingly heavy over his new, narrow shoulders.

He sat hunched over on a tiny plastic stool. Soapy foam trickled down his sides, his breasts were completely exposed — even when he tried to cover them with his hands, the pink nipples still peeked out.

— But you've been in this body for two weeks already, Alex-chan! — Sakura laughed, not stopping. Her palms slid confidently along his back, like she was washing a porcelain figurine, not her ex-boyfriend. — You need to get used to it. In Japan, going to a public bath is almost sacred.

Alex squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his hands, like that could somehow erase the awkward moment and bring back his male body, but instead, he felt the softness of his breasts even more clearly, pressing firmly against his own forearms.

— I just... I can't. This... I'm naked. In front of you.

Sakura snorted, the towel on her body slipping slightly, revealing her shoulder.

— God, relax, Alex-chan. There's nothing wrong with it. We're both girls.

Alex whipped around so suddenly that the foam on his shoulders splashed into Sakura's eye. She had to squint, and didn’t see his face at that moment — a face that reflected what looked like a storm of emotions. His eyes were full of terror and something else — almost panic, almost humiliation, but hidden under a thin, trembling layer of anger. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but his lips trembled, and he only let out a heavy breath. His voice came out quieter than he intended — high-pitched, ringing, almost girly:

— We're not both girls... — he swallowed, feeling the tension making the muscles of his chest feel even heavier. — I... I don't want you to call me that, Sakura...

Sakura, still wincing and wiping foam from her face, broke into a smirk:

— Well, sorry, Alex-chan, but the mirror in the locker room seems to disagree with you. — She got up on her knees, leaning in closer, and her voice turned softer, almost a whisper. — You look so cute when you're angry.

— Oh my god, why is this happening to me! — squeaked Alex, turning away again, — Why did you even drag me here in the first place?

— Oh, is our princess at it again? — came a third voice, light, slightly mocking, but without any malice. Ino — a slender, petite girl with a short bob and a gentle smile. She was just slipping a light bath towel off her shoulders, tossing it onto the hanger. Now she wore only simple wooden slippers and a white cloth wrapped around her forehead. Ino looked like the embodiment of calm — unlike Alex, who had opened his mouth to say something, but froze the moment he saw how casually she undressed in front of him.

— So, did you girls learn anything new over there? — Ino asked, walking up to the wash basins laid out neatly in a row, not noticing Alex’s embarrassment.

— Learn? — giggled Sakura, brushing foam off her shoulder. — Just that Alex-chan still blushes like a schoolgirl on her first date. And it's been two weeks in a girl’s body.

Alex sucked in a breath loudly, but didn’t reply. He didn’t even turn his head — just hunched his chin down deeper into his shoulders, as if trying to disappear. Warm water dripped from his chin onto his bare breasts, and every time a drop slid down the soft skin, he shuddered.

— I’m not “Alex-chan,” — he finally exhaled, but his voice came out weak, broken. — And I’m not a girl… not really.

— Looks like you’re moving into our dorm, — Ino said calmly, lathering herself — Miss Kogawa told me this morning.

Alex flinched like someone had just dumped a bucket of ice water over his head.

— What… W-what did you just say?! — he nearly choked with outrage. — Moving where?! Why?! I’m supposed to live with Mr. Yamada, with the host family!

— Well, you know Mr. Yamada has a son, and they can’t keep a girl in the house, especially in a Japanese family — Ino said with a completely matter-of-fact expression, like it was just another school routine and not someone’s entire life.

Alex’s eyes flew wide open.

— I’m not a girl! — his voice rang out high and cracked, like a bell that hit the wrong note. He jerked upright, and his heavy, relentless breasts bounced slightly with the motion. He immediately grabbed for them again, but it was too late — Ino and Sakura were already giggling all over again.

— Relax, Alexis, your parents confirmed they’ve always had a daughter — Ino added with icy calm, like it was nothing more than a bureaucratic formality. — So I guess I was right all along.

Alex went deaf. He didn’t hear the drops falling from the ceiling or Sakura’s barely-stifled giggling — only a dull ringing in his ears. It felt like something inside him just snapped.

— N-no… you’re lying, — he whispered, exhaling like into fog. — They… they wouldn’t…

— Miss Kogawa spoke to your mother personally, — Ino said firmly, sitting down on a stool across from him, legs crossed. Water streamed down her thigh, and Alex suddenly realized he couldn’t even look in her direction — not because she was naked, but because now he looked… like that.

— She sent a photo of you at prom, in that ridiculous pink dress with the bow — Ino went on. — Said, “Yes, that’s my little girl Alexis. How’s she doing?”

Alex froze. He knew he had never worn a pink dress. He remembered standing in his graduation suit, with a tie, awkwardly adjusting the blazer because it itched like hell under the arms. He remembered how his father patted him on the shoulder and whispered, "You're a man now." But now… now he didn’t even have shoulders to pat. Just soft, rounded, feminine curves that made the bath towel slip off over and over again.

— Y-you’re lying... — he muttered.

Sakura leaned in closer, her breasts brushing lightly against his shoulder, and Alex flinched all over.

— Yay! Alexis-chan is going to live with us! — she hugged him tightly, pressing herself against his back.

He twitched but didn’t pull away. His shoulders trembled, and a hot wave of shame surged through his body.

— Don’t call me that... — he whispered, almost childishly, strained. — I’m not Alexis. I’m Alex. I...

— ...used to be a guy, yeah, we remember — Sakura jumped in, playfully flicking his shoulder. — But, how should I put this... your “used to be” is long gone. Welcome to Japanese girl reality!

Two weeks ago, everything was different. Alex, a 19-year-old student from Chicago, had come to Japan on a student exchange program — a year of language practice, full immersion, and living with a host family. He was placed with Mr. Yamada, a strict but kind father of two sons.

At the university in Osaka, where he was assigned, he instantly became something of a novelty — “the American Alex.” Especially among the girls from the language department. They would pull him around, teach him ridiculous phrases, and he’d just blush and try to joke his way out.

That’s how he met Sakura and Ino.

Sakura — loud, bright, with pink hair and a crazy sense of humor. Her accent could cut through steel, but she wasn’t shy about it — in fact, she was proud of it. Ino — her complete opposite: calm, short black bob, always composed, but with a kind of predatory calm in her eyes. Alex was in the same class group with them, and after a couple of days, they invited him to one of the local festivals — something like a Shinto carnival at an old shrine in the city center.

He didn’t expect the festival to be so crowded and loud: lanterns, the ringing of bells, people everywhere in yukatas. Ino held his hand so he wouldn’t get lost, and that alone already felt surreal. And then… then they came up to the altar.

He didn’t want to — it was Sakura who pushed him in the back with a cheerful — “Take a photo, Alex-kun!” — and as he stepped onto the platform in front of the altar, he suddenly felt the ground tremble beneath him. People clapped, thinking it was part of the show: right in front of everyone, his clothes vanished, replaced by a ceremonial women’s kimono — bright red, with white flowers and a tight sash. His hair shrank, his breasts, on the contrary, swelled — heavy, like someone had strapped watermelons to his chest — and his hips… just spread, like his body had taken a step without him.

But the worst part came later. When he ran to the bathroom, tore the kimono off himself… and saw that the face was still the same. The same face he’d seen in the mirror his whole life. Only now that face was staring back at him from under a pair of Breasts that stood out way too much against his narrow shoulders. And below… everything was different. No room for doubt.

— What are you thinking about, Alexis? — said Sakura with a sly note in her voice, sitting down beside her and tilting her head so that her damp hair brushed against Alexis’s shoulder. — Already picturing how you'll be sharing the closet with us?

— Or maybe how you’ll be lining up for the bathroom every morning? — Ino smirked, drying her hands with a towel while watching Alexis’s reaction.

Alexis didn’t reply. She had almost forgotten she was sitting completely naked on that cold plastic stool, with water dripping down her Boobs and thighs, with soap still tickling the skin between her shoulder blades.

— Damn, now I’m seriously jealous of you! — Sakura continued, folding her arms under her own chest and sighing theatrically. — Your figure, Alexis... I’d kill for hips and Tits like yours!

— Yeah, no kidding — Ino chuckled, sitting down next to her on a stool, crossing her legs. — Honestly, when you walk into a room, every guy on campus stops breathing. Even our grammar professor yesterday almost dropped his chalk when you asked a question.

Alexis flinched. She snapped her head up and growled — almost genuinely — in a voice that cracked into a higher pitch:

— Stop it! Are you fucking kidding me?! I didn’t want this body! I didn’t want these… these… — she looked down at her Boobs, trembling with every breath. — I didn’t want any of this! This isn’t... this isn’t me!

But no more words followed. Just silence, where even the sound of a water droplet hitting the tile floor could be heard.

Alexis quickly dropped her gaze. Wet knees, narrow hips, Breasts — heavy, round, moving with every breath — all of it was here, part of her. Him. No. Her?

Fuck.

He… she shut her eyes, and the thoughts started rolling in, like vivid movie scenes.

‘I’m going to live in a dorm with girls. Change pads. Shower out in the open. Pick out bras and… underwear. Stop wearing pants because my hips look too damn sexy in them. Do my hair. Shave my legs. Look cute and keep myself in check all the time. Learn how to “talk like a girl,” not scowl, not slouch, not spread my legs. Walk around with a purse, keep up with makeup, smile when I don’t want to. Be scared to be alone in a room with a guy. Hear my mom say, “Now you need to take care of yourself, sweetie.” And in the end... GET FUCKING MARRIED?!’

Alexis slowly raised her hands and pressed them to her temples, as if trying to squeeze those thoughts out. But they’d already taken root. Every word from Ino, every giggle from Sakura — like a hammer chipping away at the glass wall of reality, breaking it into small, feminine shards.

‘I can’t do this. I won’t make it. I don’t want this…’

From Prince to Concubine - Page 11-12

Well then, the vote showed that there should be a continuation, so here you go.

P.S. Wow, honestly, when I wrote about two months in the story, I didn’t even think that two months had passed since the last page, lol

On the other hand, you could say that in a way it’s even kind of immersive =D

Darling Pet

Standing—or rather sitting—on the grass, Charlie felt the cold stems against his bare knees and the weight of his own breasts swaying with each breath. Every movement of his chest made the little bell on his collar ring softly, and that sound pierced him with the humiliating awareness that this was not a game anymore, not here and now.

A bit further away, by the white pickup truck with the flashing light, his “wife”—or rather now the man and master in his body—Sarah, was talking to the officer. The policeman, a man of about thirty-five, dressed in a uniform with perfectly ironed creases, held a notebook and listened attentively.

— Mister Brown, — Officer Johnson hesitated slightly, throwing a quick glance at Charlie, kneeling on the grass. — Did you see the sign at the entrance to the park?

Sarah, in Charlie’s male body, smiled faintly, even leaned against the hood of the pickup, as if the whole scene was just light chit-chat.

— Uh. What sign? — Sarah said almost lazily, leaning against the pickup’s hood. Then she turned her head toward Charlie and winked.

And something twisted inside Charlie. His knees were freezing from the damp grass, his tits pulling down, the bell catching the air with every breath, and that half-smile on Sarah’s—his own—face now somehow echoed on his lips. He hated it. Hated kneeling naked like some damn puppy while Sarah, in his body, stood tall and confident, talking to the officer like that’s how it was supposed to be. Even though she was always the one who wanted to play “puppies,” not him.

— “No pets allowed,” — the officer said, narrowing his eyes a bit as he shifted his gaze from “Mister Brown” to the girl kneeling in the grass.

— Ah… yeah, yeah, I saw it, — Sarah-Charlie replied lightly, as if it meant nothing at all. The words slid past Charlie; they were just a bunch of sounds now, like birdsong. He heard the tone, saw the smirk on the face of his own body, but the meaning was gone, dissolving into emptiness. Charlie opened his mouth, as if to add at least a word, but only a soft breath came out—he no longer knew how to speak like a human.

And yet they had chosen this reality themselves, just for fun, where girls were kept as pets. With that crazy device, they had tried almost everything already, from different angles. A world where girls were nothing but pets had, for Sarah, seemed interesting that evening. She loved games where she could be submissive, a beloved toy. And Charlie didn’t mind her fantasies, agreeing to radically change reality “for a couple of hours, just for fun.” But things went differently. The world clicked over like it always did; their appearances always shifted a little when reality changed. But this time, they had switched bodies. Now Sarah strutted around in his male shell, and he was stuck with soft breasts dragging down with every breath, with hips, with a bell ringing at every clumsy move. And worst of all, he could no longer understand human words.

After the shock passed, Sarah suggested they take a walk, since they were stuck here anyway until the device recharged. A walk to look at the world they had created from their twisted fantasies.

Charlie had to crawl after her on all fours, because otherwise the body simply wouldn’t obey. His knees quickly became wet from the grass, every bump in the ground digging into his skin. His breasts hung heavy, swaying with every move, and the bell on his neck rang louder the faster he tried to catch up with her. The world was strange: along the path there were the same kind of girl-pets, some with collars, others on short leashes. Men and women walked them, chatting with each other and paying no attention to the naked “pets” crawling beside them on all fours, their tits bouncing.

— Alright, officer. I’ll put the leash on now, — said “Mister Brown” with a smirk.

She pushed herself away from the hood and slowly walked toward him. Charlie, pressed down by the cold grass, watched as his familiar male body in an expensive shirt bent down to him with a wide grin. With a click, the clasp locked shut, and the leash tightened, ringing together with the bell on his breasts.

But at that very moment, Sarah, stepping back, didn’t notice a low-hanging branch. There was a dull thud. She staggered awkwardly, then collapsed to the ground, her body going limp. The officer rushed forward, shouted something, his notebook falling into the grass.

For Charlie everything turned into a stream of images and sounds that no longer formed words. But he understood that Sarah had blacked out, and he only hoped she was alive. He stood nearby, making low moaning noises, trying somehow to help, but all his actions looked more like the helpless attempts of an animal trying to get attention. He lunged toward Sarah, but the officer jerked the leash sharply, and Charlie fell with a muffled groan onto his breasts in the wet grass. The bell rang especially loud, echoing in his ears with a humiliating reminder that in their eyes he wasn’t even human anymore.

— Easy, girl, easy, — the officer said, lowering his hand as if calming a pet. The meaning of the words slipped past, but the tone was obvious. — Your master will be taken to the hospital now, and you’ll be placed somewhere for the time being, — he continued in a slightly softer voice, as if explaining it to a small child or an animal.

Charlie didn’t understand the words, but he caught the tone: he was being pushed aside. He let out a plaintive breath, his breasts rising and swaying down again, the bell rattling with every movement. The officer gripped the leash tight, and Charlie had to get back on all fours.

While the stretcher with Sarah’s body was being loaded into the ambulance, the officer led him to another van — white, with bars on the windows. Charlie tried to turn back, but the leash pulled tight, and the metallic jingle pierced through him in unison with his heartbeat.

Inside the van were him and a few others like him. Girl-pets, each with a collar, some with leashes, some without. They sat or lay on their knees, some with their heads drooping sleepily, others watching with alert, wary eyes. When the officer shoved Charlie inside, one of them let out a quiet whimper, as if greeting him.

— Such a good girl, — came a woman’s voice from behind. It was an attendant in the uniform of a shelter worker. Charlie turned, staring at her with frightened eyes, and immediately tried to get out of the van. But as soon as he made a sharp move, a gloved hand grabbed his collar and yanked him down.

— Quiet, — the woman said in the same tone used to scold a disobedient animal. She ran her fingers along his cheek, squeezed his chin slightly, and opened his mouth as if checking his bite. — Don’t worry, you’re going to love it here.

Charlie jerked, but her grip was iron. The bell rang, echoing in his ears. The woman smiled, patted his cheek like she was playing with a puppy, and shoved him back deeper into the van.

The vehicle started moving. The girl-pets around him smiled, exchanged glances, one of them giggled. And he sat on all fours, his breasts swaying heavily with the rhythm of the ride. Looked like he was stuck here for more than just a couple of hours.

Damn, What a Mom - Episode 2

Episode 1: https://www.patreon.com/posts/damn-what-mom-144980727

Sooo... Trying out the Discord feature =)
The story, including additional images, is there in the folder for the corresponding level

A Typical Morning at the Stevensons

Part 1

The kitchen of the young Stevenson family smelled of freshly ground coffee and the pleasant scent of air freshener, which hung like a light haze in the air, mixing with the warm steam from the pot. At the stove stood a blonde in tight pink leggings and a light sweater, bending slightly forward to carefully pour boiling water. Her long hair fell in soft waves down her back, and the fabric of the leggings clung so tightly to her round hips that the eye almost stuck to them by itself.

— Good morning, Miss Homemaker, — came a man’s voice from behind her, leaning against the doorframe and lazily covering a yawn with his hand. With the other hand he scratched not far from where his “morning wood” was. — So, how’s it going, making something tasty?

The blonde at the stove didn’t even turn, just took a deep breath as if gathering strength, and replied:

— Good morning, Mike. I’m making oatmeal, — her voice sounded restrained, but there was irritation in it. — It’s good for us.

She put the kettle back and finally threw a quick glance at her husband, still standing there with a smug grin and a noticeable bulge under his shorts.

— And could you at least cover yourself, please? — she added, stirring the porridge. — It’s already hard enough for me to get used to this body, and you act like a teenager.

Mike (until recently Michelle) snorted without moving.

— Why cover myself? Just look at yourself. In those leggings… — he waved his hand in the air, outlining her curves. — Honestly, Em, if I were you, I’d be happy.

Emma (once Eric) noisily set the spoon aside and spun around to face him, brushing back the long hair that kept falling over her breasts. The movement made her curves under the light sweater bounce even more than she expected.

— So that’s how we’re talking now? — she put her hands on her hips, standing in a defiantly feminine pose that made her shiver inside. The leggings stretched even tighter, and her breasts pushed up against the thin sweater.

Mike smirked and lazily scratched the back of his head.

— Oh, here we go, — he drawled, with a lazy look, as if already preparing not to listen.

Emma pressed her lips together, staring straight at him.

— Here we go? Are you serious? I’m here in the kitchen first thing in the morning, hair getting in the way, tits getting in the way, leggings squeezing me everywhere they can… — she slapped her palm against her thigh, making her wide hips ripple under the pink fabric, and to her own shock she realized how that must have looked from the side, especially when she caught her husband’s eyes.

— Don’t stare! — she shouted, feeling heat rush to her face in an instant.

But Mike didn’t even blink. On the contrary, his grin grew wider. He tilted his head to the side, as if deliberately checking her out even more, his gaze lingering on her breasts, on the line of her waist, on her hips that in the pink leggings looked almost provocatively revealing.

— Actually, that used to be my body, — he dragged out the words, savoring each one, — And you liked it when I—

— Now it’s mine! — Emma cut him off sharply. — And I hate these tight clothes! As if it wasn’t enough that my ass is like an elephant’s, everything’s still highlighted!

She yanked the hem of her sweater down, as if that would change anything, but the fabric only pulled tighter over her breasts.

Part 2

Mike bit his lip to keep from bursting out laughing and deliberately ran his eyes over her from head to toe.

— You sound just like me back in 10th grade, when all this started showing up, — Mike snapped his fingers and sat down at the kitchen table, — Started wearing oversized stuff and hiding under sweaters, — he finished with a lazy grin, leaning back in his chair. — Remember how I used to whine that everything showed off the wrong things? And you laughed your ass off and said: “Come on, it looks great, it suits you.”

Emma froze sharply, lips pressed tight. The memory stung — back then, in his male body, he really did tease her, staring at her curves through thin T-shirts and shorts, while she kept grumbling, “I hate this, everything’s visible.” Now everything had flipped upside down.

— Don’t remind me, — Emma hissed, furiously stirring the oatmeal again and remembering that stupid wish she, still Eric back then, had made as a joke to loosen Michelle up — that he wished she’d always wear tight clothes. — And now I actually understand how you felt. It’s hell. Every step feels like a damn fashion show. I’m even scared to go out for bread — people stare at me!

She suddenly threw the spoon into the pot, the clang of metal against the edge louder than it should have been.

— Then don’t go out, — Mike shrugged lazily, throwing his arms behind his head. — Stay home, cook breakfast, m-m… and make me happy. — He smirked, letting his gaze slide over her back and hips. — Admit it, this role suits you.

Emma spun around sharply, rage on her face and at the same time… embarrassment.

— Make you happy? — she jabbed a finger in his direction. — Have you even looked at yourself in the mirror? At least shave first! And besides, you were supposed to take out the trash yesterday! And fix the socket in the bedroom!

Mike, still sprawled on the chair, lazily cut his eyes toward his wife, now in Eric’s body. His new male hand scratched his chest under the T-shirt out of habit, and a cocky grin spread across his face.

— Ooooh, there it is, — he drawled, rocking back on the chair. — Classic. “Take out the trash, fix the socket.” Em, you really got into this wife role. Can’t even start the morning without that list.

Emma flushed.

— Don’t start! I mean it! — she brushed her slipping hair back, but the gesture came out too feminine, and inside she felt twisted by it. — You’re the man now! So do the man’s stuff.

— Alright, alright, calm down, — Mike raised his hands in mock surrender, smirking.

At that moment, a familiar bubbling sound came from the pot, and the thick oatmeal, as if choosing the perfect moment, started spilling over the edge, hissing on the hot surface.

— Oh shit! — Emma spun back to the stove, her hair immediately whipping across her face.

The porridge was already overflowing, spreading in a sticky mess over the burner. In a panic Emma yanked the pot, but miscalculated her strength — it slid sideways, splashing over the countertop.

— Ah! — Emma jumped back, clutching her thigh — a couple drops of hot porridge had landed right on the pink leggings, leaving dark spots on the fabric. — Goddammit!..

Mike, watching the whole circus, burst into laughter, slapping his palm against his knee.

— Well, well, look at you, little lady of the house! Careful there, or the whole kitchen’ll be covered in oatmeal.

Part 3

Emma, puffing, wiped the stain with a rag, but the fabric of the leggings only clung tighter to her thigh, highlighting its roundness. She straightened up, all flushed, her hair a tangled mess, and her breasts rose heavily with each breath.

— You! — she pointed the rag at him. — You don’t even know how much I wish—

— Yes, I’m listening! — suddenly, as if out of nowhere, appeared a half-transparent being, looking more like a ghost than a man. He wore something like an oriental robe covered in golden patterns and a shining turban that sent out faint sparks. He seemed to glow from within, but his face was twisted not with calm wisdom, but with impatience, almost spasms.

— Oh God… — Emma squealed, pressing the rag to her thigh and instinctively stepping back, her breasts under the blouse rising noticeably with her fast breathing. — You again?!

The Djinn rolled his eyes impatiently, folding his hands in a theatrical gesture and rattling off quickly:

— Yes-yes-yes, again, my beautiful Stevenson spouses, I know everything, I see everything, I hear everything, porridge is spilling, husband’s laughing, wife’s blushing, wonderful! But, I beg you, please, just tell me the third wish already! — his voice slipped into a nearly shrill note, making the sparks on his turban flare brighter. — I’ve been watching you for a whole year, waiting, enduring! Two wishes — done, but the third… the third is hanging in the air like the smell of your oats!

Emma stared wide-eyed at the Djinn, pressing the rag to her thigh with all her strength.

— Idiot! How many times do I have to tell you not to just pop out of nowhere!

The Djinn threw up his hands, pretending to be insulted.

— Yes-yes-yes! “Idiot”, “see-through dumbass”, “magical asshole”, so many different words and all of them… very sweet! Yes-yes-yes! But I beg you, oh beautiful Emma, finish that unbelievably wonderful phrase you were so kind to try to say! — he paused, stretching out his index finger like a conductor before the start of a symphony. — Namely: “how much I wish…” — he leaned forward, his eyes glittering with impatience. — Come on! Say it! Let me grant it!

Mike collapsed from his chair in laughter, clutching his stomach, while Emma, flushed and on edge, shot him a look that could have burned anyone to ashes. But instead she only gripped the rag against her thigh even harder, feeling the pink leggings stretch uncomfortably where the hot porridge had landed.

— Oh God… — she groaned, stumbling over her words. — Don’t call me that… — Emma’s voice trembled, and she herself heard a softness in it that she had never had before all this.

The Djinn, glowing like a Christmas garland, flung his arms toward the ceiling:

— But how can I not? Emma! Beautiful, graceful, voluptuous Emma! — he spun in place, scattering golden sparks through the air. — Your name now sounds like music, I’m ready to repeat it a thousand times until the walls of this kitchen start moaning with delight!

Emma froze, pressing the rag to her thigh, and felt her breathing falter. The sparks in the air carried a spicy, oriental scent, as if the kitchen itself had turned into a tent where every move, every glance pushed her toward saying something irreversible.

— Just shut the fuck up! — burst out of her, but it sounded nothing like she thought it would.

Part 4

Mike, sitting at the table, slapped his palm against his knee and nearly fell off the chair from laughing:

— God, Em, you look like you actually enjoy it when he drags it out! Look at yourself: cheeks red, lips pressed tight… like some schoolgirl getting drowned in compliments, — Mike was already barely breathing from laughter, wiping his eyes with his fist.

Emma spun toward him sharply, but stopped short: he wasn’t just looking at her with mockery. In his gaze flickered something dangerously sweet, as if he himself couldn’t decide whether he was laughing at her or admiring her.

— Go fuck yourself, — she snapped, but her voice betrayed her with a tremor. — I’m not… I’m not like that.

The Djinn clapped his hands, glowing like a Christmas tree.

— Ah, what do you mean “not like that”? You are exactly like that now, my darling! — he leaned forward, golden patterns rippling right before her eyes. — Everything was fair: the first wish — let the spouse wear only tight clothes. Granted! — he snapped his fingers, and Emma’s pink leggings pulled even tighter, as if the fabric itself decided to cut deeper into the curves of her hips.

— Hey! — Emma hissed, covering her ass with her hands. — Don’t do that!

— Hahaha! — Mike collapsed back into his chair. — Look at that! See, Em? You’ll be stuck in those tights-leggings forever now!

— The second wish, — the Djinn went on, as if conducting their quarrel, — let the spouses switch roles. Ah, what a delight! — he threw his arms up theatrically. — She in the male body, he in the female. All fair, just as asked. But! — his voice rose, and sparks scattered in the air. — The third wish! Just the tiniest thing!

— God, you’re pushy today! We told you — get lost, since the first two can’t be undone! — Emma spat out the words in irritation.

The Djinn didn’t look offended at all — on the contrary, he lit up. His eyes gleamed, and the golden patterns on his robe rippled in waves.

— I was patient, I swear! A year! A whole year watching you get used to your new roles. Watching Emma in the morning struggle with… — his gaze flicked downward, straight at her pink leggings where the porridge stain still clung, and he made an expressive gesture, as if stroking the air. — …this new weight. But I’ll help you. Yes-yes-yes! I’ll help! Don’t worry, it’s nothing for me, really-really-really!

— What are you about to do? — Emma began, but the Djinn had already spread his palms toward the spouses, and streams of magical energy poured out, flooding the kitchen with bright golden light. Both of them opened their mouths, but no sound came out — instead it was like they were pinned to the spot. Sparks swirled around their bodies, seeping inside, as though golden dust was being pressed right under their skin. And a second later, it was over.

Emma sucked in a noisy breath and nearly dropped the rag from her hands. Something was pounding inside her chest unnaturally fast, and each wave of breath pulled the sweater’s fabric so tight her nipples showed clearly. She instinctively crossed her arms over her breasts, trying to cover herself, but only felt softness and weight, which made it worse.

— What… what did you do?! — her voice trembled, and she herself was horrified at how feminine it sounded.

Mike also stirred, glancing at his hands, his shoulders, his chest under the T-shirt. He frowned, but his face still carried a grin — though no longer a confident one.

Part 5

The Djinn clapped his hands, and the sparks still floating in the air flared into a new cloud. He leaned forward, his eyes glittering with impatience.

— Ah, finally! — he exclaimed with the delight of a man who’d just had a drink of water in the desert. — Your hearts and minds are screaming so loudly I’m almost deaf!

Emma froze, nervously fixing her hair that kept falling onto her breasts.

— You… you got into our thoughts?!

— “Got into”… — the Djinn pressed his hand to his chest theatrically, — how rude that sounds. I merely peeked. You, — he pointed at Mike, — dream… that she, — he slowly turned his gaze toward Emma, — finally accepts her new body. That she stops arguing, stops hating every move she makes… and instead embraces these hips, these breasts, this walk as something natural. And… — he snapped his fingers, and Emma’s pink leggings hugged her hips even tighter, outlining her ass. — That she herself would want to spin around in front of you and hear: “You’re sexy.”

— What?! — Emma gasped, straightening and pressing her palms against her thighs as if she could somehow hide everything sticking out so obviously through the fabric. — That’s… that’s bullshit! He didn’t… he couldn’t want that!

Mike coughed, looking away, but a grin spread across his face.

— I… well… maybe a little. — He lazily raised his eyes to Emma, lingering on her breasts under the thin sweater. — You have no idea how… weird and fucking amazing it feels to see you like this.

Emma threw her hands up, hair instantly falling across her face and sticking to her cheek. She yanked it back in a nervous motion, which only made her breasts under the sweater bounce again.

— God… — she whispered, feeling her knees weaken. — I don’t even want to hear this from you…

The Djinn clapped his hands with joy, sparks flying in all directions. He immediately turned to her with relish.

— And you… — he stretched out a finger, sparks snapping from the tips. — You dream… that one day he won’t hold back.

— What?.. — Emma dropped the rag, her face blotching red. — No… I don’t…

— Oh yes, — the Djinn leaned closer, the golden glow almost brushing her cheek. — You won’t admit it to yourself, but when he stares at your hips in those leggings, you want to turn around and scream: “Stop it!” But deep, deep down… — he traced her outline with his finger, and the sweater’s fabric seemed to stretch tighter over her breasts, — …you want him to grab you, pin you, prove that you’re really a woman now.

— Shut up! — Emma shouted, pressing her arms to her breasts as if she could hide them. But in that instant she felt her whole body trembling, her nipples pushing hard against the fabric. Her heart was pounding so wildly that her breasts under the thin cloth visibly quivered. — I… I don’t want that!

— You do, — the Djinn drawled, his voice thick, as if pouring each word straight into her thoughts. — You’re just afraid to admit it to yourself. But every time you lie down in that soft bed, when your hands automatically reach to smooth your hair, when you catch his eyes on you… you wish he would stop laughing. Stop mocking. And take you.

Mike hunched his shoulders but couldn’t take his eyes off her. He wasn’t smirking anymore, only swallowing hard as he watched Emma tug frantically at the edge of her sweater, the fabric still outlining her nipples that betrayed her state.

— See, see?! — the Djinn clapped his hands, golden sparks flying, falling to the floor, the table, their bodies. — Your secret desires have already burst out! I only voiced what inside you is screaming!

The Djinn smiled wide, too wide, his eyes flashing in a way that made it clear — he would do it anyway.

— The third wish, Stevenson spouses, — he said solemnly, stretching both hands toward them, — just a couple of words and you’ll never suffer again. So maybe… it’s time to say it?

All of Mike’s Fears

— Good afternoon, — said the nail master named Lindsey with a smile to Mike, adjusting her white coat and putting on a mask. She already knew this client: a tall guy with a neat beard and a completely bald head, who time after time asked for a simple men’s manicure. She had gotten used to him, though at first she had been cautious — after all, it wasn’t often that men came into her salon at all.

— Good afternoon, — he repeated a little louder, and right then a short girl with a badge reading Megan came up to him. She always greeted him at the entrance, smiled, and helped with his jacket, leaving him only in a white hoodie with the words “Good Times” on it.

— Let me help you, — Megan gently pulled the street jacket off his shoulders and hung it in the locker.

He coughed awkwardly, not used to this kind of service, but over the past months he had accepted that here, in this salon right inside his own building, everything was too “girly” attentive. To be honest, by now he was coming here mostly because of Lindsey. Though of course, in the beginning it had been a bold experiment, basically a test of his own boundaries, as he explained it to himself back then.

A bald-headed guy with a beard walking into a nail salon — that alone was already a challenge. At first it was almost like a joke: ‘What if I sit in the chair, let them file my nails, and see what it feels like?’ How many cigarettes he smoked before that, glancing around nervously as he entered this pink place. And yeah, at some point the anxiety went away. The experiment could’ve ended there. But Lindsey. There was something about her. Something that pulled him back again and again. She even once admitted to him that she wasn’t much of a talker with clients, though with him she always kept a sweet conversation going and even laughed at his jokes. But did she have a boyfriend? Mike never dared to ask.

— Coffee or tea? — Megan asked as usual, squinting at him.

— Cappuccino, with sugar, same as always, — he answered in his usual calm tone.

The salon was almost empty, only someone getting a pedicure in a chair at the far end. Lindsey was already busy near the work desk, wiping the lamp and neatly laying out the tools. Mike sank heavily into the soft chair, pulled out his phone and buried himself in it.

— Give me your hands, — Lindsey said in a professional tone, sitting down at the table and adjusting the mask on her face. — How are you?

— So-so, — he shrugged, — all good. Slept little.

— What kept you up? — Lindsey narrowed her eyes slightly, moving the lamp closer to him and taking his large hand into her thin fingers.

— Watched a movie, — he smirked, — got carried away. Though maybe not the movie, maybe just… thoughts.

She nodded, habitually trimming the cuticle. Mike felt a light tingling from her touch — as if too intimate, yet still official, professional.

— What movie? — Lindsey tilted her head to the side, continuing with confident movements to run the tool along his finger.

— An “old action movie,” — Mike smirked. — Probably not your genre. Some guy in a leather jacket running around saving everyone.

— You’d be surprised, but I like action movies, — she raised her eyes and gave a soft smile. — Sometimes it’s nice to look at that kind of “hero.” Though, of course, in real life it’s never that pretty.

— There are no such heroes in real life, — Mike snorted. — Take me, for example, I’m definitely not one.

— Uh-huh, — Lindsey teased, — but at least your nails are well-groomed.

— Exactly. A real manicure superhero.

They both laughed. Mike felt how Lindsey’s laughter seemed to lower his guard, made him softer. He automatically looked at her hands — thin, graceful, with long nails visible through her gloves. And he caught himself thinking: ‘What if mine were like that too?’

— You know, — he said carefully, — long nails must be uncomfortable. Always catching on something.

— Oh no, — she answered calmly. — You get used to it. Especially when you have no other choice.

Mike smirked again.

— Yeah, probably, — he agreed, his voice a little hoarse, and took a sip of cappuccino, trying to hide the awkwardness.

— But they’re beautiful, — Lindsey added calmly, squeezing his fingers a little tighter, which made Mike struggle not to squeeze hers back. There was something intimate in that, almost like they weren’t sitting in a salon but at the same table in some café.

— Beautiful — that’s for you, — he smirked, trying to look away. — For me it’s more like… strange. Recently I saw a girl with nails. Well, maybe seven centimeters long, or even more. She took about ten minutes to make my coffee.

— Ten minutes? — Lindsey laughed softly, barely shaking her head. — Yeah, that happens. Long nails have their own rules.

— I can’t understand that… — he said, and a meaningful pause filled the salon. He took another sip of coffee, turned his head aside somewhere, and finally said, just to break the silence, — Though. When I came here the first time, I thought that would be the end of it.

He chuckled a bit too loudly, as if to show that everything he said was just a joke. But at that very moment Lindsey raised her brow slightly and suddenly said quietly, almost conspiratorially:

— And what makes you so sure it’s not?

Mike froze. He didn’t get it — was that a joke, or something serious? He asked her again:

— What do you mean, “what makes me so sure it’s not”?

Lindsey looked up in surprise and frowned, as if he had said something completely odd:

— What? No, I didn’t say that. I said about long nails and how you get used to them. That’s all. — She said it with a clear lightness in her voice, as if that was exactly the case, and tilted her head a little, like a doctor checking a patient. — Maybe you were just lost in thought and imagined it?

He blinked, trying to catch at least a hint of irony in her eyes. But no — she looked completely calm, even slightly concerned.

— Strange… — Mike muttered, and suddenly noticed that his palm felt different. As if the skin had become softer, thinner. He automatically clenched his fingers, and it seemed to him that the joints cracked with an unusually sharp sound.

‘This is bullshit,’ flashed through his head. ‘I really need to stop sleeping three hours a night…’

— Everything okay? — Lindsey asked gently, not raising her head, but closely watching his reaction.

— Yeah… I guess, — Mike exhaled, but his voice trembled. He lowered his gaze and noticed that his nails suddenly looked… longer? No, not longer, but… sharper?

He blinked, feeling his heartbeat speed up. Under the lamp, thin plates a couple of centimeters long gleamed — nails that just a second ago had been his normal male ones.

— What the… — he jerked his fingers, but Lindsey firmly held his hand in place.

— Easy, — she said calmly, as if this was nothing unusual. — Relax. This is only the beginning.

— The beginning of what?! — Mike snapped his eyes up, and at that very moment he felt something tighten in his chest, pulling downward. He inhaled sharply, but instead of the usual resistance of his ribs, he felt softness under the hoodie. A light heaviness settled right on his chest, pressing from the inside against the fabric of “Good Times.”

‘No… no, this can’t be happening!’

He yanked at his sweatshirt with his other hand — and under his fingers he clearly felt roundness. Real. Alive.

— Lindsey… what… what did you do to me?! — his voice came out sharp, but at the same time strangely soft, and that trembling tone sent shivers through him.

She calmly looked him in the eyes.

— Me? — she lifted her gaze, the conspiratorial smile vanished, and her face suddenly turned concerned. — Are you okay?

— No! — Mike almost screamed, though he himself was terrified at how his voice sounded: too high, too clear. He swallowed hard and instinctively squeezed his breasts through the hoodie — the soft mounds yielded obediently to his fingers, sending a shiver through his whole body, and at the same time he felt strands sliding down his shoulders.

— Shit… — he shook his head sharply, and blonde hair, thick and heavy, fell across his face, tickling his cheeks. Several strands caught between his long nails, and he realized in horror that even moving them aside wasn’t so easy. At that moment, something stung in his earlobes and seemed to materialize.

— Oh, Michelle, careful, — Lindsey said calmly, not even lifting her eyes. Her voice sounded so routine that everything inside Mike clenched. — You know with nails like that you need to move slower.

— Wh… what? — he stammered. — Who the hell is Michelle?!

Lindsey raised her brows in surprise and looked straight at him:

— Are you sure you’re alright? — Lindsey’s voice was gentle, but with a slight note of surprise, as if her client was overreacting way too dramatically to a normal procedure.

— N-no… — Michelle gasped, but froze when she saw Lindsey didn’t even react to her shock. The master calmly moved the file across the nail’s surface, shaping it.

— You act like this is your first nail extension, — Lindsey chuckled, lowering her eyes. — Just a bit more, we’ll cover them with polish, and you’ll be gorgeous.

Michelle — though in her mind she still clung to the name “Mike,” it already echoed faintly, distant — stared at her hands. Under the lamp, thin fingers gleamed with claws of unimaginable length. Sharp, curved, they looked almost alien, yet frighteningly real. She carefully tried to move them, and the nails scraped across the tabletop with a dry metallic ring that sent goosebumps racing down her back.

— No… no, I’m not… this isn’t me… — she gasped, not believing she was hearing her own high, soft voice.

Lindsey suddenly lifted the corners of her lips, and in her eyes flashed that sly glint Mike had never seen before.

— Michelle, — she drawled with lazy confidence, — stop playing these silly games. You love it when everyone stares at your nails. Don’t you?

After that phrase, something inside clicked, like a switch being flipped, and all resistance just melted away. Mike was gone. In his place sat Michelle. She suddenly smiled softly, looked at her claws with that very same gleam in her eyes, as if she truly was proud of them, and laughed quietly.

— Well yeah, longer than last time… but still beautiful, — she said, lightly running her curved nails through her blonde hair, not even noticing that just a minute ago she had been screaming in horror.

…

She walked home with a light step, feeling her hips sway with the rhythm of each stride. And she liked it. Men turned their heads, women glanced with curiosity. Michelle kept brushing her hair back, deliberately moving her fingers with those long claws, and almost savored the attention.

As soon as she entered her apartment, she pulled off the “Good Times” hoodie and was left in a short top and tight shorts that suddenly fit her new body perfectly. In the hallway mirror stared back a slender girl with long blonde hair and scarlet nails. Michelle let out a satisfied sigh, twirling before the mirror and arching her back so her breasts looked even fuller.

Then came the usual chores. Warm steam from the brewed tea drifted from the kitchen. A stack of laundry waited on the ironing board. She set the iron down, picked up a gray T-shirt, and instinctively lowered her hand… but her claws instantly snagged on the fabric and scraped loudly against the metal. Michelle flinched. She tried again, but once more the nails got in the way, refusing to let her even grip the cloth.

— What the… — she breathed out, eyes widening. Something stabbed in her chest. Her gaze dropped to the absurdly long red claws that just five minutes ago had been her pride.

As if something snapped back into place in her mind. Mike suddenly realized he was standing in his own home — but in a woman’s body, with breasts, with hair, with ten-centimeter nails painted in professional crimson polish.

— Shit… what’s happening to me… — his voice shook, breath faltered. He stumbled back from the ironing board, staring at the iron and at his own claws like a nightmare he couldn’t escape, feeling the unfamiliar weight on his breasts and the fabric clinging too tightly to his new parts.

A small poll (updated)

Corrected: you can choose several options)

A small poll

Oh. I’ve been so active today, I don’t even recognize myself. I mean with the posts =)
I always work a lot, lol.

I’m just thinking about comics and possible continuations. I’ve seen all your comments.
But I’d like to think a bit more clearly about future plans.

Which continuation would you like to see?

Cherry Lacey - 2

It’s always like that: you make something short, and then you want to continue, especially when you see the likes (he admits he’s a bit of a like addict) =D

Discord Server <--> Patreon

Hello everyone. As I understand it, some people got a bit startled when I created the server, because, apparently, those who already had Discord–Patreon integration were flooded with messages. Once again, I’m sorry about that — I really didn’t know it would happen. It was kind of a shock for me too when I saw a bunch of people on my server, lol.

Anyway, I think I’ve set it up: assigned roles according to Patreon tiers and added a story to each tier ;).

For the future, I haven’t yet decided how this setup will work, but it seems to me that posting ALL the content there would be too much. I think I’ll only upload some of it =).
Write what you think about this.

For now the server will work in test mode, so feel free to send me your wishes/opinions/comments, etc., because I think feedback is important right now.

I left the option to leave comments there, but if it bothers other subscribers, then I’ll probably remove it. Or maybe not. As I said, everything is still in test mode, and if it turns into complete mess, I’ll probably end this experiment. But for now — welcome.
(To access the server, you need to link your Discord account to Patreon — at least that’s what the instructions say. I hope it actually works this way, because for now I don’t want to share the link to avoid extra people joining.)

Strange app - page 17

Showtime. Here we go

Strange app - page 16

A bit of an identity crisis… and lots of boobs =D

Welcome Back to Bucharest

Standing in the hall of the “BodyPort” office in Bucharest, Clark Harper could barely breathe. It had been only fifteen minutes since waking up in the new body, but the feeling was as if he had been dressed in a ridiculously stupid clown costume and forced to go outside. Only Clark would actually have preferred the clown costume to this.

In the mirror before him stood a woman with short blonde hair and a serious look, wearing a tight red off-shoulder dress, black tights, and long earrings. A blush lit her cheekbones, but it wasn’t some girly flirt — it was the nervous trembling breaking through. And as if that wasn’t enough, there was also this round belly, quite noticeable and with its own weight, pressing in with every movement. Even the dress itself seemed tighter in that place. The woman was six months pregnant.

Clark caught himself thinking: ‘…And I, ugh, I mean she, looks kinda okay…’ and immediately cursed himself. Inside came a hysterical whisper: ‘Oh God, Clark! Did you seriously just check out some pregnant slut?!’

He yanked his hands away from his hips, but put them back right after, because it was steadier that way in heels. The dress instantly stretched across the breasts, the soft round shapes swaying with every movement in a strange new way, making it feel like the neckline was about to reveal more than it already did.

And at that exact moment, a dry voice came from behind:

— So… we’re processing a refund? Did I understand you right?

Clark spun around. In the doorway stood the office coordinator, Simona Popescu — a strict brunette in her mid-thirties, dressed in a gray business suit. On her face was the faint irritation of a manager who had explained the return policy for the tenth time already, though this time it wasn’t caused by that.

— Refund? — Clark coughed, but the voice that broke out was high, female, with a slight rasp. He pressed his palm to his throat. — Yeah… I mean no!

Julia raised her eyebrow:

— Mr. Harper, you just said you’d sue us, even though we warned you back in our U.S. office that we didn’t have any bodies matching your requirements here.

— Me?! — Clark took a step forward, then froze, the heel trembling and his belly dragging down unpleasantly. He glanced at it like it was some kind of cruel joke and only gripped the red dress tighter with his fingers. — I didn’t say I’d sue you! I said… shit, I said this is humiliation! Besides, I’ve got a meeting in forty minutes! — He clutched his throat again, not believing this female, slightly smoky voice was flying out of his mouth. — I need to speak, and I look like…

— …You look great. If you were dressed like Carmen Radulescu, who came in here this morning, — Simona lifted her eyes from the tablet and gave Clark-in-the-red-dress a sharp, measuring look. — Then maybe I’d agree with your statement. But we — she put stress on the word — invested good money and our best stylists to turn… what we had to work with, into a presentable woman in such a short time. But it seems you didn’t appreciate the bonus of my guidance.

The girl was clearly showing her dissatisfaction, since she had been the one dealing with all this trouble since early morning, when the request came in from New York for a VIP client. That part Clark didn’t know, nor did he know that instead of recognition for her work, she had now received a reprimand from her bosses for “excessive initiative” after Clark’s outburst. And now Simona was looking at him not as a client, but as a personal problem she wanted to throw out the door.

— I think you shouldn’t be talking like that to someone who has my level in your company — he said, sliding his palms over his hips, — especially to clients of my level.

— Your “level,” Mr. Harper, — Simona Popescu pressed her lips together, — allowed you to get, on short notice, something others could never get no matter how much they wanted it. If someone of a lower level barged into our New York office demanding an immediate “presentable body” for work in Bucharest, without even explaining the purpose, then obviously that person would, at best, get nothing. Not to mention your request was incompatible with the CCA correctors. And yet, we found you an option. Yes, not perfect, but that’s no reason to cause a scene here.

Clark exhaled heavily, feeling how the dress squeezed unpleasantly at the waist under his breasts. He wanted to scream, smash that damn tablet against the wall, but instead he just gripped the round hips with his palms, trying to find at least some balance on the heels.

— As I said, — Simona continued after a short pause, — your reverse transfer has been approved, so if you’re not satisfied with this, everything is ready. You can return to your body right now.

— No, — he finally said. — I need to be at the meeting.

Simona shot him a look as if she wanted to say something, to unload all her anger on him, but stopped. Her eyes narrowed, the corners of her lips twitched slightly, and she gave the faintest smirk:

— Hm. Fine, Mr. Harper, — she cleared her throat, bringing back the cold business tone to her voice. — Then I am obliged to go over the rules with you.

Clark rolled his eyes and tilted his head slightly, like a teenager being scolded at a school meeting.

— First, — Simona stressed each word, — you do not have the right to leave the city while you are in this body. Second: any damage to the body that results in medical expenses will be paid by you personally. Third…

Clark was no longer listening. His eyes were fixed on the smartphone lying on the counter, a thin black rectangle with the “BP Secure” logo. It looked expensive, but once he unlocked it, it turned out to be pathetic inside: the interface looked like something from the 2000s, minimal functions, only calls, email, and the corporate messenger.

— Are you fucking kidding me? — he snorted, tapping on the touchscreen that stubbornly refused to respond to his long red nails. — What the hell is this… brick? I’ve got a meeting in forty minutes, I need my contacts, my apps!

— This is a special phone for VIP clients, — Simona said calmly, though her voice carried a shade of mockery. — Secure, protected, no risk of leaks. All your contacts have been transferred here. All necessary apps for Bucharest are already installed. Everything is per contract for urgent requests.

Simona was looking at him with the same expression a nurse gives to a whining patient. Then her gaze softened, and her lips twitched slightly in a faint smile:

— Although… considering your situation, I could offer you another option, — Simona tried to say it as if she wanted to smooth over her “fault.”

— Option? What option? — Clark squinted, gripping the smooth body of the “brick” with his fingers.

Simona slowly leaned toward the lower drawer of the counter, opened it, and pulled out another smartphone. This time it was a shiny pink device with a rhinestone case. Bright, like a piece of cheap glamour that stood out even in the strict “BodyPort” office.

She placed it on the counter next to the black “BP Secure” and allowed herself the faintest corner-smile.

— Carmen Radulescu’s phone.

Clark instantly recoiled, as if that glossy piece of plastic was radioactive.

— You’re joking, right? Why the hell would I need her phone?

Simona raised an eyebrow slightly and explained in a calm tone:

— Well, that one you can definitely load with all the apps you want, — she said, her eyes sliding mockingly over his long red nails. — It’s just a suggestion, Mr. Harper, I’m not insisting. And technically I’m not supposed to do this, but for you, as a VIP client, I’m willing to look the other way on some rules.

Clark looked at her like she was an idiot.

— Don’t bother, — slipped from his mouth as he turned back to the mirror, — Is the car here already?

— Yes, — Simona replied evenly, stepping closer and slipping a small red patent leather handbag over his shoulder. — They’re already waiting for you at the entrance.

Clark frowned and glanced sideways at the strap sliding across his bare shoulder.

— And what the hell is this?

— Your handbag, — Simona answered calmly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. — Everything you need is inside. Documents, key card, some cosmetics. And, of course, your “BP Secure.”

Clark frowned even harder, as if doubting all this was really meant for him. But he didn’t ask anything more. He sighed, touched the bag with his fingers, and felt how ridiculously it pressed against his side.

— Wonderful, — he muttered through clenched teeth and walked toward the exit without looking back. But standing still was one thing, walking was another.

The heels wouldn’t obey, every step felt like a risk of falling. Instinctively he grabbed the wall with one hand, the other supporting the belly that dragged downward with every movement. The dress stretched tight across his hips, his breasts swayed softly, and it pissed him off even more.

— Fuck… — he muttered through gritted teeth, — how the hell can anyone even walk in this?

Simona followed him with her eyes, not moving a step toward him, but her lips twisted slightly when Clark snagged a heel on the carpet and almost collapsed right in the doorway.

— Good luck, Miss Radulescu, — she said dryly after him.

Clark jerked his shoulder, as if wanting to snap back, but only waved his hand and stomped out of the hall, his heels clattering loudly.

When the door shut behind him and his figure finally disappeared into the corridor, silence settled over the room. Simona exhaled slowly, as if lifting a weight off her shoulders, then lowered her gaze to the counter.

Where two phones had been moments ago, now lay only one — the black “BP Secure” smartphone.

— God… what an idiot, — she said in a half-whisper, then laughed shortly, dryly, but with obvious pleasure. — Welcome back to Bucharest, Mr. Harper… or rather Carmen, I think your job’s already waiting for you.

She picked up the phone, and the screen lit up. Just a few seconds, and it slipped into “clean mode”: factory reset, empty contact list, new encryption key. Simona clicked the safe shut beneath the counter, slid the black “BP Secure” inside, and locked the code. Her smile widened.

— Well then, as for the real Carmen… — she murmured softly, slowly raising her fingers to her lips, — I’m sure she’ll enjoy being an American and a man.

Simona let out a quiet chuckle. The faint laugh trembled in the air, as if even she didn’t believe what she’d just said. But then it grew stronger, and the faint mockery turned into a short chuckle, then into laughter that could no longer be held back.

Her shoulders trembled, she threw her head back, and the “BodyPort” hall filled with louder and louder echoes. At first it was a dry, sharp laugh, then it became booming, deep, almost theatrical. A laugh that carried not joy, but triumph.

It bounced off the walls, turning the empty office into the set of a villain’s scene, and only after a long, tearing final chord did Simona finally exhale and lick her lips.

On her face played a cold, victorious smile.

Cherry Lacey

decided to take a little break and make something quick, and someone also reminded me that I haven’t done anything for the “town” series for a long time, so… =)