TrismegistusShandy

  descriptions of arousal and body parts, heavy petting, implied sex, offstage sex, alcohol, dumbass eggs

  [colpse]

  There were four of us living in that house, our junior year. Nathan and I had been friends since middle school, and we’d become friends with Brandon and Zach during our freshman year at college. When Brandon told us he’d found a house with four bedrooms and proposed we split the rent on it, I was a bit skeptical at first – I’d seen the dorm room he shared with Zach, and FEMA hadn’t yet decred it a disaster, but I wondered whether they could confine their messiness to their bedrooms and not make extra work for me and Nathan in the common areas. But I’d eaten Zach’s cooking, too, and that decided me.

  We’d just moved in, the Friday before the semester began, and we were sitting around the living room enjoying Zach’s delicious jambaya and half-watching a terrible movie, when Brandon proposed his other scheme.

  “So you know how none of us has managed to get a date in over a year?” he began.

  “Yes, as you know, Bob,” Nathan snarked.

  “But my name’s Brandon?” Nathan looked like he was about to expin the reference, but Brandon kept talking. “Anyway, I’ve got a perfect solution!”

  “Another pickup guide?” Zach asked with justified skepticism.

  “No, no, no. That’s how perfect this scheme is. We don’t have to roll the dice versus our abysmal charisma stats and hope for a natural twenty. We’ll have girls who we already know and get along with, who’ve already agreed to date us, and we can all have dates.”

  “How are you going to manage that?” I asked.

  “Behold!” he decimed, and dramatically reached into his pocket. As he was sitting down, it was a bit hard to get whatever it was out, and he wound up setting his pte of jambaya off his p, standing up, then digging into his pocket and pulling out a little bottle, a little bigger than those twelve-hour energy drinks, with a pink and blue logo on it. “Tada!”

  Zach was the only one sitting close enough to read the lettering on it. “QuikGender? Oh. I see what you’re getting at.”

  “What’s that?” I asked. To be fair, I’d been too busy reading eighteenth-century novels for an upcoming seminar to read the news tely.

  “It’s this new stuff that’s just been approved by the Food and Potion Administration,” Brandon eagerly continued. “It can change your sex, poof, like in just a couple of minutes, and it’s completely reversible, just take another dose. And it’s safe to take it up to once a day! So we can draw straws or something to pick two of us who’ll take it and turn into girls on a Friday afternoon, and then they’ll go out on dates with the other two and change back Saturday afternoon. Then the next weekend the other two will turn into girls and go out on dates with the ones who turned into girls the previous weekend. So we already know what our date likes and don’t have to go through the awkward ‘get-to-know-you’ phase, and our dates know what guys like because they are one, most of the time. It’s just common sense!”

  The rest of us were staring at him. “I guess that could work,” Nathan said after a long pause. “Only we’d have to agree not to pressure the ones who’re currently girls for sex.”

  “Sex would be nice if the ones who’re transformed feel up for it,” Brandon agreed, “but we don’t have to. Just having friendly female companionship would be like a thousand percent better than what we’ve got now.”

  Zach nodded. “Yeah, there’s no way to know if we’d be into guys until we try it, and even then we might want to take a few weekends to get used to being girls before having sex.”

  “What if we set up a rota,” I suggested. “Like we’re doing for the chores. So we don’t just pair off the same way every time, or have the same two of us being girls every other weekend. Like maybe one weekend Brandon and Nathan would be girls, then Nathan and Zach, then Zach and me, and so on. And we’d randomize what order we do the pairings.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Zach said. “How about if I write name-pairs on some index cards, and y’all shuffle them and cut the deck, and then we y out the sequence?”

  So we did. Brandon and I were going to be the first to be girls, with Brandon dating Nathan and me dating Zach.

  “Girl buddies!” Brandon excimed, giving me a high five. He passed me the bottle of QuikGender he’d shown off like a Laputan schor waving a cucumber around to convey the idea of Light. “You can go ahead and take that, I’ve got the other three bottles in my room, one for me to take now and the other two for us to change back with tomorrow. I’ma go get changed.”

  I took the bottle and hesitated. “Does it need to be taken on an empty stomach or something?”

  “No, it’s fine.” He got up and went downstairs to his bedroom while I sat there on the sofa, taking a st bite of jambaya while I read the Potion Facts on the back of the bottle. Not seeing any reason not to chase Zach’s jambaya with it, I wondered whether I wanted to change in front of the others or in my bedroom. Maybe in the bathroom, in front of the mirror?

  “Drink drink drink drink!” Zach and Nathan started chanting. What the hell. I opened the bottle and guzzled it down.

  It was a little sour, but not too bad compared to hangover potion or first aid potion. When it started changing me, it was kind of weird to feel things shift around, but as the hot pink lettering on the bottle had promised, it didn’t hurt. I was still experimentally squeezing my thighs together and suppressing the impulse to poke my breasts when Zach asked, “Do you know what your girl name is going to be?”

  “Oh. I guess I should figure that out.”

  “It’s just that I’d rather not call you Dyn while we’re out on our date, y’know?”

  “Dyn can be a girl’s name, I’m pretty sure, although it’s not as common for girls as for boys.” I pulled out my phone and checked. “Yeah, it’s the 576th most popur name for girls versus the forty-first most popur name for boys. Let’s stick with that for now. Maybe I’ll think of another name I like better ter on.”

  “Okay. Um, so what do you want to do on our date? Go watch a better movie than this one?” He gestured at the TV we’d been ignoring for a while, where a forgettable teen actress from the seventies was cowering behind a staircase as a rubber-suited monster stomped down the stairs above her.

  “Actually… would you mind stopping by a store or two first? I should probably buy some clothes that fit this body.”

  Just then Brandon returned, wearing a crop top and a skirt that barely came halfway down his thighs. Her thighs? Yeah, let’s go with that, it’d be less confusing.

  “Oh, wow,” Nathan said, staring at her. “Guys are gonna be super jealous of me when they see me with you.”

  “I’m jealous, too,” Zach said. “Uh, I mean, guys are gonna be jealous when they see me with Dyn… forget it.”

  “So, Brandon,” I said, “I guess you must have tried this stuff already, and bought that outfit then?”

  “Yeah, I tried it a couple of times during the summer. I wanted to make sure I was okay with it before I proposed we do it together.” That was more thought and pnning than Brandon had put into some of his other schemes, anyway. “But I haven’t actually shopped for girl clothes yet, just bought underwear online. This outfit’s one I borrowed from my sister’s closet, some stuff she never took with her when she moved out. Probably doesn’t fit her anymore anyway, after she had little Eileen. – Oh, and you can call me Brandi when I’m like this.”

  “Well,” I said, “do you want to go shopping with me, so I don’t have to drag Zach around to watch me try things on?”

  Zach looked immensely relieved.

  An hour ter, I stepped out of the dressing room and stood there under Brandi’s critical eye. “Spin around,” she ordered. I spun obediently, making the peach-colored skirt (much longer than hers) fre out. “Looks good! Way better than the st three outfits.”

  “I should probably get some pajamas or something too,” I said. “To wear after the date and tomorrow until we can change back.”

  Brandi shrugged. “Just wear one of your usual guy T-shirts and some panties. That’s what I did the st couple of times I changed.”

  “Eh… maybe if we were all girls, but not when two of us are still guys? I don’t want to stay in my bedroom all day until I can change back, and I share a bathroom with Nathan.”

  The house was a split-level, with three bedrooms on the upper level and part of the lower level having been converted into a bedroom, while the mid-level consisted of an open-pn kitchen/dining room/living room. Zach had won the drawing of straws for the master bedroom on the upper level, which had its own bathroom, while Brandi had gotten the lower bedroom, and Nathan and I had adjacent bedrooms on the upper level, across the hall from Zach’s bedroom and the common bathroom. I had a vague feeling we’d need the toilet more often as girls, and take longer in the shower, once we got the hang of feminine hygiene.

  “Fair. Yeah, I guess I should probably buy something more comfy and casual that fits this body.”

  So we started looking through pajamas and nightgowns, and I soon picked out a set of pajamas that had cartoon quokkas on them. They didn’t fit, but a simir set with cartoon goats did. Brandi bought a pair of peach-colored sweat pants and a cy baby-blue nightgown.

  After we’d paid for our clothes, and I’d changed into the skirt and blouse I’d bought, we met up with our dates, who’d spent the time browsing at the GameStop. “Whoa,” Zach said as we walked in. “You look really nice, Dyn.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You guys ready?” Brandi asked, looking excited.

  “Whenever you are.

  We’d decided, after some discussion, to do a double date the first time, so Brandi and I could have each other’s support as we tried out being girls – me for the first time period, her for the first time in public. So after we walked out to Brandi’s car and put our clothes in the trunk, Zach and I got in the back seat and Nathan got in the front seat with Brandi, and we drove to a steakhouse not far from the mall. Zach was still staring at me in what I guessed was awe.

  “Is it okay if I hold your hand?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said, and extended mine. His hand was cold, but it warmed up before long.

  Brandi and Nathan were talking a lot up front, though I couldn’t make out much of what they were saying over the music, but Zach and I didn’t say much. I found I had a lot to think about. I was still getting used to the sensations from my changed body, and wondering what dating Zach was going to be like. Or my other friends – sooner or ter we’d all date everyone, if we didn’t give up on the scheme first. I found I was surprisingly okay with being a girl, at least knowing it was temporary, and obviously Brandi was fine with it or she wouldn’t have proposed this. But who knew whether Zach or Nathan might feel too weird about it once they actually tried it? It was an encouraging sign that they’d been willing to go along with the pn, though.

  When we got to the restaurant, we were seated pretty quickly. Nathan had called and made a reservation while Brandi and I were shopping. Our waiter asked us what we wanted to drink; I asked for a Sprite, figuring I didn’t know how well this body could hold its liquor and that getting drunk or even tipsy could lead to me doing things I wasn’t at all ready for. Brandi had no such qualms, ordering the house microbrew. So did Nathan, while Zach ordered coffee. But when the waiter asked to see Nathan and Brandi’s ID, she ran into a snag.

  “This is a guy’s photo.”

  “Yeah, it’s me, I just took some QuikGender.”

  The waiter squinted at her. “I guess I can see it, but you might also be this Brandon guy’s little sister. Sorry.”

  “I can vouch for her,” Zach said.

  “You saw him transform?”

  “Well… no, but he went in his bedroom and came out as a girl.”

  The waiter shook his head. “I want to believe you, but I think I’d better check with my manager.”

  While he was doing that, I looked over the menu. Brandi grumbled a little and then did the same. The manager arrived before I’d made up my mind.

  “I apologize,” she said. “I don’t want to be transphobic, but we could lose our liquor license if we serve alcohol to someone without an accurate photo ID, and this new potion makes people look so different; it’s not like before, where you could usually recognize a trans person even from an outdated ID. Can I offer you a complimentary dessert, and invite you to come back when you’ve gotten your ID updated?”

  “I’m just changing for the weekend. I’m not trans,” Brandi said. “But thanks for the dessert.”

  “Oh, I apologize for assuming. Enjoy your meal.”

  Once the manager left, Brandi made a face I can only describe as a pout. “This sucks.”

  “I guess it makes sense, though,” I said. “We look like we’re kin to our guy selves, but hardly the same person.”

  “We’ll need to pn ahead better for other weekends,” Nathan said. “Pn on having drinks at home afterward. Or make it a picnic, while the nice weather sts.”

  We talked about those pns for a while, and the conversation drifted to other topics as our waiter came back with our drinks and took our meal orders.

  Brandi and I were a bit smaller than before, or at least shorter, though I thought I was probably still taller than the average woman. I decided to start with just an appetizer and order more if I was still hungry, and wound up ordering the cm chowder. Brandi and Nathan decided to split one of the rge steak entrees and the various side dishes that came with it, while Zach ordered a grilled salmon.

  “I’ve got an idea for something fun we can do,” Brandi said. “Let’s pretend like me and Dyn were born girls, and you ask us about where we went to high school and all that as if we just met.”

  “Wasn’t the point of this scheme that we already know each other and didn’t have to ask awkward questions?” Zach asked.

  “Yeah, but there’s no pressure here, this is just for fun. What do you think, Dyn?”

  “Sure, I’m game. But talk amongst yourselves while I come up with a backstory, okay?”

  I brainstormed for a few minutes, making illegible notes on the paper tablecloth with the crayons they put on all the tables, and then said, “Okay, I’m ready.”

  “I’m ready too!” Brandi chirped.

  “So, uh, Dyn… what are you majoring in?” Zach asked.

  “Marine biology,” I said. “I want to study tunicates.”

  “Like those little guys that sit in the ocean floor and suck nutrients out of the water?”

  “That describes a bunch of marine animals, but yes! Although some of them float around…” Haha, I have gamed the system, Brandi. Watch as I exposition dump my way out of this.

  Meanwhile, Brandi was pying the role of naive freshman girl out on a date with a sophisticated junior pretty well, asking him what clubs were fun to join, which csses were the hardest or easiest, which professors she should avoid or try to take csses from. Zach tried to steer me towards another subject, I realized ter, but was too polite to bluntly tell me to stop burbling about tunicates. Which wasn’t like him, and I realized much ter that he was only being so deferential because I was a girl. I suddenly had a moment of self awareness when our food arrived, and shut up on my own. “You’re really cute when you talk about something you’re interested in,” Zach said as he started slicing up his salmon. I blushed and studied my cm chowder intently.

  For a few minutes we were too busy eating to talk much. Then Zach said, “I know you’ve been reading a bunch of old novels over the summer for a course you’re fixing to take – do you think any of them are worth reading if you don’t have to read them for school?”

  “Tristram Shandy, absolutely,” I said. “A lot of the fourth-wall-breaking and other metafictional stuff we think of as very modern, Tristram Shandy did first. Then Humphry Clinker is a lot of fun too, and there’s a lot to like about Tom Jones, although I’ve gotta see-double-you that for a rape that the narrative doesn’t take as seriously as it should…” And before I knew it, my chowder was getting cold and I’d infodumped about every eighteenth-century novel I’d read, not only that summer but ever since I’d read a kids’ abridgment of Gulliver’s Travels when I was eight.

  This wasn’t the first time I’d infodumped about things I’d been obsessing over tely with my friends; I’d done it more often with Nathan, and listened to his obsessive ramblings in turn, but since we’d become friends with Zach and Brandon, they’d had plenty of earfuls of me talking way too much about things that most of them weren’t very interested in. But apparently Zach just couldn’t get enough of my girl voice, and didn’t interrupt or tune me out like he’d done (understandably) on some previous occasions. Now and then he’d ask a question to keep me talking, but didn’t say much, which I only realized ter.

  When we finished eating (the cm chowder didn’t quite fill me up, so I ordered a small dessert), we talked about going to a club to dance, but Nathan pointed out that Brandi and I might have as hard a time getting in as Brandi had had ordering a beer. So after some back and forth, we wound up going to a bowling alley instead. None of us had ever bowled particurly often, and Brandi and I had both lost some arm strength since the st time we bowled, plus we were still getting used to our new proportions and bance. So we all pyed terribly, but we poked gentle fun at how bad we all were, and ughed a lot at each other and ourselves. It was fun, but by the time we’d pyed a couple of games, at least me and Nathan were feeling a little frazzled, and we went back to the house.

  As we were bringing in the clothes Brandi and I had bought, when we had a moment alone while Brandi and Nathan were going back for more of Brandi’s bags, Zach said to me, “I had a really good time; I hope you did too?”

  “Yeah, it was fun.”

  “Do you… Would it be okay if I kissed you?”

  I hesitated a moment, and said, “Sure.”

  So we did. It was a bit awkward; neither of us seemed to know what to do with our hands at first, until I decided to hug him, and he hugged back. Zach seemed to get more out of it than I did, but I didn’t hate it. We let go and stepped away from each other as the door opened and Brandi and Nathan came in.

  “What do y’all want to do next?” Brandi asked, still bouncy and energetic. “Since we couldn’t go to a club, maybe we could push some furniture out of the way, put on some music and dance here?”

  “Maybe next time,” I said. “I’m a little frazzled; I think I’m going to go to bed early.”

  “Thanks for the date,” Zach said. “I’m looking forward to next time.”

  Next time should be seven weeks ter, when Zach would be a girl and I’d be a guy; we’d both date Nathan and Brandon/Brandi at least once in between.

  “Good night,” I said, and went up to my bedroom. I changed into the pajamas I’d bought, picked up my tablet, and brought up The Mysteries of Udolpho, but only read a handful of pages before I conked out, despite the faint sounds of the others watching a movie.

  TrismegistusShandy