Beatrix Speaks, “Until I leave, no sound may cross the boundaries of this room.” It grows eerily quiet as the ambient noise from outside disappears.

  “Wow,” I say, “I wish I could do that. Noisy neighbors bsting terrible music drive me up the wall.”

  She smirks and hands me one of the cans of Cherry 7-Up she’s pulled from her minifridge, then sits silently for a moment while she contemptes where to begin. When she talks, it’s with a warm, slightly distant tone, as if she has one foot in the present, here with me, and the other in the unbounded cosmos of her mind, trying to cram giant, inexplicable experiences into the small, clunky containers we call words. All hint of her domineering tone from earlier has vanished. “For the sake of conversation, I’m just going to call my ability magic, even though it isn’t. I don’t channel a source, like the Weave in D&D, and I don’t have access to anything like Investiture in Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere.”

  She reads Sanderson, too? I think, momentarily smitten. Why was I such a craven fool that I did not introduce myself the moment I first id eyes on her in September?

  Because you’re a nervous introvert, Sarah Prime retorts, who’s especially self-conscious about creeping out girls in case they’re transphobic, as any panicked or disgusted rejection would ruin your week and probably the rest of your life.

  Right. I should really get over that.

  She speaks on, oblivious to my inner counseling appointment.

  ??????

  If I had to compare it to something, it’s closest to an X-Men mutant ability, though, as far as I know, it’s neither genetic nor hereditary. I wasn’t bitten by a radioactive street magician, and I wasn’t exposed to a freak sor fre while speaking in an ogreish voice. Honestly, I don’t know why I have this ability. I just always have, ever since I could talk.

  While my “magic” isn’t access to some external source of energy, the energy I use to make things happen is separate from my conventional bodily energy. It’s a… it’s like a magic battery, maybe. Once that battery is depleted, I can’t do anything more with my ability until it recharges, but I’m no more physically tired than I was before, and the only additional mental strain is that of coming up with the right words and intents.

  I can affect the natural world at will, but only so long as it doesn’t interfere with people’s free will. However, to directly affect people, I must have their consent. Not just general consent to affect them, but their continual, specific consent for each effect. If I were to, I don’t know, make someone artificially high, even if I had their consent to do so initially, as soon as they no longer wished to feel high, the effect would end. I might be able to cause someone pain, if they consent to it, but I could never harm them, even by accident.

  My best friend from high school is named Hannah; she’s the only person I’ve ever told about my abilities, or more honestly, the only person who’s ever noticed weird things occur when I’m around and confronted me about it. She and I did some rudimentary experiments st summer, teasing out the boundaries of my abilities. We found that if I did apply some effect to her, and then she withdrew her consent without me first ending the effect, the drain on my battery was about ten times worse. On top of that, it hurt me somehow, just a little, but I got the sense that the pain was proportional to the crime, so to speak.

  Here’s umm… well, here’s the awkward part. My magic is fueled by dominance.

  I nearly choke on my drink.

  The more conventional authority I have, the faster my battery recharges. I believe that it slowly recharges on its own because of the innate authority that humans have over their surroundings. However, if I exert authority over people, it recharges much, much faster. What normally takes a night to recover, instead takes a minute.

  And, umm… I can increase the capacity of my battery and the potency of my “spells”—such as the amount of time I can transform your body—by using magic to exert authority over people.

  ??????

  Beatrix looks at me shy, nervous, like she’s fearing—even expecting—some disgusted rebuke.

  I don’t even have to try to put on my most aroused facial expression as I say, “That’s– that’s really hot.” I notice for the first time how wet I am; I revel in that sensation I have always wanted to experience.

  Relief floods Beatrix’s face, followed by mischievous excitement mixed with nervous hope. “So, umm,” Beatrix continues, “this is what I get out of our bargain, if you agree to it.” She pauses, mustering more courage. “I need someone submissive that I can dominate.” My eyes widen. “To explore my powers,” she adds hastily. Her voice glissandos an octave higher as she says, “And… I thought, maybe, that might be you?”

  My head pounds with blood, propelled by my arousal. I can feel my panties being soaked through, a drip pooling at the hem then running slowly down my ass toward my skirt. I would love this arrangement, Beatrix. This is the sexiest, most thrilling thing that’s ever happened to me, a fulfillment of my wildest fantasies. So yes, yes I will be that person for you; I will be that person for me.

  Beatrix’s expression shifts from hopeful to nervous to embarrassed and finally to mortified. “I’m so sorry,” she says quickly. “This is awkward. I should never have asked this.” She puts her face in her hands and her voice breaks. “We don’t ever have to talk again.”

  I stare, dumbfounded, until I realize I hadn’t actually said any of that out loud. I snort at myself—to her confusion—and say, “Yes. Yes, Beatrix, I will be your sub. I will gdly be your sub.”

  Beatrix looks relieved. “Oh thank God. When you were quiet I–” She breaks off, then, her voice taking on a sense of formality, she asks, “Do I have your general consent to py with you as I please?”

  “Yes,” I reply, “you most certainly do.”

  ??????

  We spend the next few hours sitting side-by-side on her bed, our backs resting against the abutting wall, getting to know each other. Beatrix is a freshman, pnning to major in physics.

  “Hannah, the friend I mentioned before, is a total nerd, destined to be a leading scientist of whichever STEM field she ends up choosing. I’m a little jealous, if I’m being honest. The more we experimented with my ability, the more I became intrigued with the scientific method. I figured that studying physics might give me a better idea of how to manipute reality. I’m four months in, though, and I’m realizing I don’t actually need to know the science for it to work; I just say the words with the proper intent, and things just … happen.” She shrugs. “But I am enjoying the content, and it comes to me more naturally than I had anticipated, so I don’t see a compelling reason not to stick with physics, at least for now.”

  I tell her a bit about my upbringing in Renton, a sprawling town south of Seattle; that my parents say I’ve been pressing buttons since I was three years old; about the “gifted” program in fifth grade in which I first learned how to write very simple computer programs; and how this grew into my love of computer science.

  She tells me about how she was born in the UK and had spent most of her life there; how she moved in year ten to Bear Creek—the boonies northeast of Redmond—for her parents’ new jobs at Microsoft. She talks about her retively painless experience coming out to them as a lesbian when she was ten, how they hugged her and said, “Oh, Trix, we’ve known that since you were four.” She smiles fondly at the memory.

  I tell her about how I came out to myself in May of my senior year of high school.

  “Everything in my life fell into pce in my mind; this context made everything I’ve ever done, felt, or thought make so much sense. After a week or two of introspection, conversations with my counselor and some trustworthy friends I knew held progressive views, and privately trying on dresses to see how they fit, both physically and spiritually—having confirmed to myself that I am, in fact, trans, and this wasn’t just a weeklong fascination—I called Western’s admissions office. I told them I was trans and requested to be assigned to a dorm room with a female roommate, trans or cis. They pced me with my current roommate, Gabi, and thank God. She’s wonderful.

  “My parents are conservative evangelicals, and so I didn’t come out to them until two weeks into my freshman year. They … didn’t take it well, as I had expected.” I feel my voice tilt sadward. “My retionships with them have been … strained ever since. On the plus side, my older sister and brother are affirming, and the rest of my extended family are accepting and most are supportive to varying degrees.”

  Beatrix sits quietly until she’s sure I am finished, then asks, “Do you think your parents could ever accept you as their daughter? Are you still hopeful?”

  I feel my face twist to fit my sense of resignation. “I’ll always be hopeful, but do I believe they ever will? No, not really. It’s been almost a year-and-a-half. My mom’s still firmly in denial, my dad, resigned dismay. If anything, they are less open-minded now than they were when I came out to them. But,” I continue, coaxing my voice to buoy, “that’s life for a queer person sometimes. Not much I can do about it but be myself, love who I am inside, and find my own chosen family who accepts me. Who knows? Maybe someday they’ll come around, realize that for the first time in my life, I like myself; for the first time in my life, I want to live. And maybe if they see me like this,” I say, gesturing to my newly transformed physique, “just maybe, they’ll see this is who I am, who I always have been.”

  “I hope you can tell that I accept you and affirm that you are as much a woman as I am,” she says.

  I send her a wan smile. “I appreciate that, Beatrix.” Her hands are in her p; I don’t know what possesses me, but, in what I intend to be a ptonic gesture, I reach out and pce my hand atop one of them, my fingers extending half an inch out past the far edge of her hand. “Really.”

  Beatrix smiles at the touch and, before I can react, she twists her wrist and gently guides my fingertips to rest between her palm and thigh, leaving my hand cupping hers. She gives my fingertips a gentle squeeze. My breath catches and my heart quickens its tempo as I process the unintended intimacy of my touch and the fact that it was reciprocated. I again experience that novel sensation of wetness within the cleft between my legs. To hide my blush, I lean my head on her shoulder. She leans hers against the top of my head, and we sit like that in silence for a few comfortable minutes. I marvel at the tranquility of the moment, at how our bodies just seem to fit together, and how at ease we’ve grown with each other in just a matter of hours. I revel in the sensation of her shoulder against my cheek; for the first time in my life, I’m shorter than the girl I’m cuddling. It’s hard to believe that earlier today, I stood transfixed by this girl’s domineering gaze, inwardly begging to call her “Mistress”.

  “I’m hungry,” she says, breaking the silence. “Are you?”

  Only for your presence, I think at her.

  Barf, I hear in my head. Sarah Prime is rolling her eyes and miming a gag at how cheesy that was. I smile in spite of myself.

  I gnce at the digital clock sitting on her desk. 5:42. “Yeah, let’s get something to eat.” We stand, hand-in-hand for another moment, then move to don our jackets. I send Gabi a quick text, “Hey, I’m eating with a girlfriend at the VU today. I’ll see you tonight!”

  I get a reply a couple seconds ter. “Ooh , anyone I know? See you then! ????”

  “*Sigh* not like that ??”, I send back with what I hope is a lie.

  I exit the room first and Beatrix locks the door behind her. She moves to my side and as we set out, I shyly extend my pinky toward her hand at her side—with pusible deniability that I was just stretching my fingers—in a vain hope that she’ll take it. To my surprise, Beatrix had already done the same thing. We lock pinkies and my heart leaps. Sharing a coy gnce, we entwine our fingers and giddily head to the Viking Union.

  ??????

  “So,” I say as I sit down, “are there more of you out there? People with your ability?”

  Beatrix raises an eyebrow at the question. She Speaks a quiet sentence to silence our voices from prying ears and make our mouths and body nguage match that silence to their accompanying eyes. Incredible, I think. “Yes, there are,” she replies. “Only a handful, maybe thirty that I know of, worldwide. We have a chatroom and online forum. None of us want to end up as b rats, so access is strictly limited to just us. No one else even knows what the site is for. The web address is just a bunch of letters and numbers that don’t mean anything. Unless you’ve logged in, it’s just a bnk page but for email and password textboxes.”

  “How does that work?” I ask. “Like, how did you even find the site if that’s all it is?”

  “I sat down to google it, to find out if there were others like me, but then realized I didn’t even know what words to search for. And even if I had, no one like me would want to be a b rat either. I turned to leave, but then had this strange sense that I should type something into the address bar. It was just four random numbers separated by dots, then a colon and five more digits. I don’t really know how it works.”

  “Ah,” I say, “that’s called an IP address, and the five numbers after the colon are a port number. In order for computers to talk to each other, they need to each have their own, unique address, like a street address for the internet. Servers and routers then direct requests through the net until they reach the computer with the target IP address. I’m simplifying a bit, but domain names, like google.com or wwu.edu, are basically aliases for IP addresses so that they are easier to remember and type for humans.

  “Each computer,” I continue, “can listen to what are called ports—basically a way of separating which program receives which information from the computer’s single connection to the internet. The standard ports for websites are 80 for unencrypted data and 443 for encrypted data. A five digit number is a nonstandard port, but a web server doesn’t care which port it’s assigned to. By using a nonstandard value, especially one in the tens of thousands, and then not using a domain name, whoever set it up basically obfuscated it to the point that no one could find it unless they knew exactly what they were looking for. Props to the site admin; they clearly thought this through.”

  I wince as I realize I’ve just vomited a bunch of geeky info she didn’t ask for.

  “That’s kinda cool!” she says, clearly interested and engaged.

  Wow. I am really starting to like this girl. “How did you log in if you didn’t have an account?” I ask.

  “Oh, the IP address didn’t show me that page. This page just said, ‘If you belong to this community, pce a sticky note containing your email address on this desk which sits within a locked room, and a moderator will send you instructions.’ And below the text was just a picture of the top of a desk.

  “I Spoke the words that would create a sticky note there, and an hour ter, I had an email with a link to the forum URL and instructions on how to log in.”

  I think for a second. “Huh. Clever.” Almost to myself, I add, “Yeah, that makes sense, since web encryption requires a domain name.” Returning my words to her, I say, “Okay, but how did you know the IP address? You said that you just had a feeling you should enter it; how does that work?”

  “Yeah,” Beatrix says, “I was confused about that too. I asked in the chatroom, and I guess the gal who set up the site was able to Speak the information into the world, only able to be heard by those with our ability who are seeking it. Then she made the information persist, somehow. I don’t even know how I would do that, to be honest. While intent is crucial to Speaking, the words have to make sense, too. They have to be clearly understandable and in the right order. I was able to expin the general concept to you, but to codify it?” She shrugs.

  “Wow. That sounds … hard.

  “So what all can your abilities do? Obviously you can transform things, and apparently conjure sticky notes. Anything else?”

  “That’s a big question, but generally, I can do anything I can command clearly enough to be understood, as long as it doesn’t interfere with anyone’s free will and, for people, as long as I have their expressed consent.”

  My mind races to grasp all the possibilities. The more I think about it, though, the less useful it seems beyond simple conveniences, like pulling something across the room to you or remotely hitting a light switch so you don’t need to get up, and even then, only in private to keep your ability secret. To receive someone’s consent, you would first need to tell them about your ability, revealing the tightly held secret. My brow furrows. “Can you give me some examples of these? Every nontrivial idea I can think of breaks one of those two rules or reveals your ability.”

  Beatrix considers for a moment. “One time when I was walking to a css in the Comm Facility, I saw a stray football—er, soccer ball you would say—speeding straight toward a little boy’s head. I didn’t have time for a lengthier command, so I Spoke, ‘Spin faster.’ The ball’s rotational velocity–” She winces at her casual use of a scientific term. Sheepishly she says, “Sorry, physics major, remember?”

  “No need to apologize. I like that you’re a nerd.”

  She smiles and continues. “Well, my command increased the ball’s rotational velocity just enough to curve it away from the boy. I just had to hope that it would work, because if the ball had been kicked at the boy intentionally, nothing would have happened.”

  “Wow, that was some quick thinking,” I say, impressed.

  She smiles slightly. “Thanks, but it was more just an instinctual reaction. I Spoke before I realized what I was doing.”

  “Even so,” I insist, “you had to have trained your instincts for something like that. You had to be the kind of person who readily performs random acts of kindness when you see someone needing help. Otherwise, you would not have had that reaction.”

  She smiles again, this time more fully, and a faint blush creeps into her light beige, freckled cheeks. At that, a blush creeps up my neck, as well. I pce my hand across the table, palm up, and she takes it casually, as if we’d been holding hands for months. I feel my blush deepen.

  “Okay, what else?”

  She smiles impishly and gives me a conspiratorial look. “Let’s say that maybe in one of my physics courses st quarter, a guy and girl were clearly into each other, but neither had the courage to say it. Maybe I grew frustrated with their fruitless pusibly-deniable flirting. Maybe, one day after css I saw the girl rush to the boy’s desk, as she often does, pcing her hand on it in the vain hope that he would take it, which, of course, he was too insecure to do.” Beatrix rolls her eyes. “And so, maybe, I Spoke a quick sentence under my breath, and when the girl turned and left, there was a bnk sticky note where her hand had been. Maybe the back side of this note had the words, ‘If you ask me out on a date, I’ll say yes,’ written in an approximation of her handwriting. And, just perhaps, as soon as the boy put that note into his backpack, it vanished.”

  “Oh, you didn’t!” I say, grinning.

  “Well how should I have known that the next time I’d see them, they’d be holding hands on their way into the lecture hall?” she says with mock indignation, fingers to her chest.

  We giggle at each other for a moment. Giggling feels, surprisingly, much more natural in this body. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to giggle when in the body I was born with, but in this body, I don’t feel foolish doing it.

  “Why didn’t that note you sent require the boy’s consent?”

  “Because I wasn’t targeting him,” she says, “I wasn’t forcing him to do anything or to believe the contents of the note. I was just pcing the information there and he could do with it what he wanted, the same as if I had walked up to him and told him she likes him.”

  I consider the implications of that. “I’m surprised that people with your ability don’t abuse it to gain political power. After all, that much authority would make their battery recharge fast enough that it’s practically limitless.”

  “I suppose they could,” Beatrix says hesitantly, “but it would be harder than you might think. While I could send the boy the sticky note, I wouldn’t be able to send him misinformation. If he accepted it without fact-checking it, that would viote his free will, and the info wouldn’t appear at all. If he would fact-check it—somehow the universe just knows whether he would or not—the info would appear, but he would also realize someone was trying to manipute him and be more wary.”

  “That’s… reassuring,” I say. I realize I’ve been absentmindedly caressing the top of her hand with my thumb, and discontinue the intimate gesture.

  “Don’t stop,” she whispers breathlessly. I look at her, and she smiles shyly at me. Then, with a nonchant shrug, she says, “It feels good.” I begin again.

  We continue chatting about the small things that people getting to know each other do. At some point, Beatrix notices that we’re the only two people left in the cafeteria. “Are you ready to go?”

  No, I think. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

  Together, we put our trays away. “Follow me back to my dorm room,” she commands in that life-ending British accent. My ears perk up like a dog hearing the mailman. Heel, girl, I think to myself. As if reading my mind, she whispers a quiet incantation—the only word I catch is “invisible”. I feel a colr form around my neck. I search it with my fingers for an idea of its shape. There’s no csp. My inner goddess’s legs go weak.

  She whispers again, something I can’t pick out. The front of the colr feels heavier. Beatrix gives a tentative yank on the invisible leash she has attached, the motion matched by my neck. I feel my vulva dampen again as desire takes root in my chest.

  She gives me a look, one eyebrow raised, half-wicked, half-question. “Arf arf,” I yap, in a teasing monotone. She smirks, pats my head, and leads me back to Nash Hall.

  ??????

  “So not that this isn’t the most excitement I’ve felt betwixt my legs in … well, ever, actually,” I say once we’ve entered the dorm room, “but was there a reason you wanted me to come with you, or do you just enjoy my company as much as I’m finding I enjoy yours?” As much as I might want to, I can’t spend the night, I add in my head. I don’t speak that thought aloud, lest it be too presumptuous. We had, after all, only met this afternoon.

  Beatrix smirks and dismisses the leash with a flick of her fingers. The colr remains in pce, the perfectly wrong tightness so it remains constantly in my attention, driving me mad with arousal. “I really don’t want to disappoint you, but I need to greatly reduce the effects of your body transformation before you head back.”

  I nod, fearing this was the case, but I get it. We need to keep her ability secret, and it would be strange if I returned to my room an inch shorter than Gabi when I’m normally four inches taller.

  Seeing understanding on my face, she says, “I won’t take it all away, and I’ll renew the effects you can keep. I don’t think it would be too noticeable if you were a quarter inch shorter than normal, for example, and some of the roundness of your face and butt can remain. Over time, if you continue to be my sub, we can probably slowly work our way toward the body you belong in. If the change is gradual enough, people probably won’t notice. Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do about your dick while also keeping myself safe. As soon as you undressed in front of Gabi, she’d notice something was off.” I wince at the word “dick”, and she says, “Oh, I’m sorry. What word would you rather I use?”

  “Nah, ‘dick’ is fine. I just don’t like being reminded that I have one, is all. No way around that, though.”

  “I get that,” she says. “You ready?”

  “No,” I say, “but yes.”

  She Speaks, and I feel myself grow taller, my hips shrink back close to their original width, and my dick, regrettably, grows back to its normal size. Everything nearly reverts to how I was when I woke up this morning, but just slightly closer to me, to my body.

  It’s enough, I decide, just grateful to have this opportunity that no other trans person in the world has.

  “Will I see you tomorrow?” Beatrix asks. I look down at her face. Hope, pleading, and desire are written all over it. It appears today has been as pleasurable for her as it was for me.

  “Hmm, I don’t know,” I say pyfully. “I suppose you could always pull me by my colr back to you,”—without thinking, I raise my hand to the colr and give it a gentle tug—“but I doubt you could get me there faster than my own legs will. Lunch again?”

  She nods enthusiastically, kisses me on the cheek, and pyfully shoves me out the door.