Shifting the Sci-Fi Guy

[3]

I was grateful that I didn’t strip my bra off all the way. It was still a pain in the ass to get situated in a way that felt comfortable. Fighting with my mega pillows while learning the hooks and shit was not something I wanted to deal with right then. Just pop them back inside.

Connor closed the bathroom door, but I could still hear her alone time through the flimsy walls. She sounded much more hands-on and expressive than I’d gotten. At some point in my wanderings between the hallway and our bedroom, a blink-and-you-miss-it moment happened where Connor’s end of the room altered into something else.

We gained a gorgeous Middle Earth map rug. Pink and rainbow lights circled Connor’s desk area. She also had a fully decorated photo board with printed snaps. The bed that she had before was medium height with enough space for a trunk, but now it was low and larger, a queen instead of a standard twin. I was just glad that our female alter egos didn’t get the idea to do one of those terrifying multi-level beds atop living spaces.

The blackout curtains had a very nice space theme that I wished I thought of. We split a vanity mirror with a little coffee and sweets station. Several such stations spread around the room. One for perfume, another for makeup, and even nail care. The smell and style everywhere were inescapably feminine. It was enough to melt my brain. Fortunately, the geeky edge still remained.

Connor’s side had a plethora of mathematical principles and jokes lovingly accenting the girly stuff. She had lost the red top reciting Fermat’s last theorem along with the joke, paraphrased from Fermat himself, about there not being enough space in the margin for the full answer to the theorem. Various t-shirts, tops, and sweaters that fluttered out of her closet clearly had the same theme.

Exploring beyond our room, I soon noticed that the separate sinks had acquired calm, blue lights bordering the mirrors. At least I recognized my toothbrush but the products surrounding it with the name “Trisha” emblazoned in fancy script were totally unfamiliar. A massive, much more convenient, Gonk-themed trashcan replaced the ill-advised little R2-D2 dome that filled up within hours every single day.

A striking amount of stray pink led me toward the common room, where every single one of our cooking utensils was now themed along that color tone. I had to wonder which of us pushed for that idea. A massive, twenty-foot drape covered the wall in a gorgeous misty, pine tree landscape with tons of green and blue flowing off into a subtle sunset. Not only was the couch bigger, but there were two of them with star field drapes half drawn over the window. This room also had a bigger, more extensive coffee bar over toward the microwave.

The door to our other roommates’ space was closed and I didn’t feel right looking until they returned. I expected that they were going through much the same thing as us. Kunio and Simon.

They were random roommates chosen for us by whatever strange forces and computer algorithms guided the college before the additional craziness of the day. Kunio Ishihara, or however his extended family back in Japan phrased it, and Simon Winchester, who sometimes joked that he was related to the characters on the TV show and actually got this one girl to believe it for like a week. Thinking about it now, Simon might’ve had some condoms but they wouldn’t have been easy to find. Who knew what she had now though.

Kuni had absolute oodles of Dragonball Z stuff with posters carefully affixed to the ceiling and stretched across the walls. Then there were a variety of cute girls along his bedside as miniature body pillow reproductions. I couldn’t tell you much about them except that there was a purple-haired one, a blue-haired one, and a black-haired one. Some smaller musically themed ones linked his bed to his desk space. Scattered amongst everything were some figurines, which he mostly painted himself, model cars, English and original language manga books, some motorcycle helmets, and a tall shelf of Blu-rays. Simon’s aesthetic was more film related with posters immortalizing classic moments, an enormous television that they shared, and some really great cameras.

I once joked that we just needed a comic book geek to complete the set. Connor slipped out of the bathroom with a long, girlish sigh and smiled. The light blue hoodie was hiked up and almost off, along with a gray, algebraic equation shirt. A lacy, pink bra was all she had covering her front.

She quietly murmured, “Oh my gosh, Taylor was right. Dude, this is so wild. Everything is so jiggly. And it feels so weird but so good. Should we pick up where we left off?” Connor flashed a playful smile.

I smiled back but with reservation, pointing out, “Did you notice how much everything around us changed? This is different than what happened to me or Taylor. Maybe we should check things out?”

Connor pouted but nodded. “I’d like to check…several things out.” She wasn’t entirely successful in putting on a seductive voice, but it was an amusing effort. I was reminded of a black and white movie starlet that Simon showcased for us once and I had to wonder if that was her intent… His intention… yeah, no her intention to evoke. All this was gonna take some getting used to when it came to properly addressing one another.

Before we made our way over to the front door to investigate the changes in the wider world, I brought this up with Connor. No especially nuanced or polite way occurred for me to frame it, so I just said, “Do you consider yourself a girl now? You know, pronouns and all that.”

Connor seemed to have a devil of a time wrangling the massive, wavy locks of deep blonde hair sprawled behind her but also desperately clinging to her shoulders like a dozen fluffy, brass octopi.

She raised an eyebrow and gave me a curious look. Plenty of historic embarrassment for me in the usual way with a girl giving me a weird expression. But it wasn’t followed by an awkward statement that basically, politely signified that she never wanted to talk to me again.

“Well, aren’t we both girls? I mean, I checked pretty thoroughly, not to be too lurid. And you sure seem to fit the bill as well from all that I saw.” She did a playful little eyebrow wiggle.

Oh my gosh, this was totally Connor as a girl. It was both disconcerting and a relief. But then practically everything lately seemed to have me questioning and off-balance. And not just because of giant tits.

“Yeah. I’m just thinking like… How do you want to be referred to? There’s all that stuff about how someone looks outwardly and how they are inside. It’s kind of confusing, and I just want to make sure I have it straight.”

Connor shifted around a thought that made him… Her smirk and thoughtfully reflect. “I don’t care, dude. It’s just more accurate right now, I guess, to say I am a she. You just do whatever you’re more comfortable with. How about yourself? Which way do you find yourself going?”

This was what Connor was like all the time, and I liked it. Discussing the possibility of one or both of us turning into girls and then hooking up was just a calm, friendly thing between us. The sudden reality of it not just being a hypothetical clearly worried me far more than it worried my friend. I didn’t want to be preoccupied with it. And I wanted to be able to give her a clear answer about where I came down.

I was a girl. I was… Potentially… Technically a “she”. Granted, I had run into girls on campus who went with more generic pronouns and the complexity invited different terms. Being physically a girl and fooling around with Connor was kind of fun. I didn’t have to worry about a minute or an hour later. But it was starting to hit me that this might be the way things were… from now on. I had no clue, and I had no hold on what to do about it.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

In the empty void of uncertainty that I wandered through, Connor decided to chime in, “You’re a girl. You’re a pretty, cute girly girl. Little Miss Trisha. So adorable. Can I snuggle you?”

All that felt like he… She had suddenly decided to splash me in the face with cold water. A playful splash but still one that shocked me. Connor brought several things about myself into focus when I was younger. He noted simplistically but pointedly that, despite my love of the speculative fantastical, I liked things to be grounded. I wasn’t someone who gave in to impetuousness. I took literal weeks to get that shitty R2-D2 trashcan while weighing all the possibilities of reviews on Amazon along with the practicality.

I stressed out for weeks about our random new roommates, and I sounded like a total robot until I figured out that they were both cool people that I didn’t need to be worried about. I would take forever to resolve something while Connor would just go at it with excitement. He just did what he did when he resolved the time was right. I resigned myself when there were no other options or it had to absolutely be done.

Smiling but also blushing with Connor’s playful talk, I responded, “You may. If you can win a boob jousting war against me.”

Heaven knows where that came from inside me. Connor was all for it, even though I feared that our pendulous masses might be lethal weapons if wielded without caution.

That fear turned out to be one I should’ve listened to. In my head, I envisioned something like a girly fight with big warm pillows slapping against one another. It was more like smacking into one another in a surprisingly sensitive place. Not like dick jousting…Which we’d never done but joked about on a couple occasions.

I had plenty to work with, enough that my hands weren’t really big enough to wield them properly. Boobs didn’t work particularly well as jousting weaponry though. Getting close and bumping against one another didn’t feel like fighting as much as inviting bruises where I didn’t want them. Slowing it down and doing more of a rub wasn’t bad though. Our little boob war concluded with me giggling as I adjusted myself and looked over at Connor. She locked lips with me.

We’d just shared a kiss minutes ago, one that I pursued. The flesh pressing against me then had been quite different. Connor’s lips felt subtly but significantly altered. He had a faint hint of stubble before. All that was gone now, replaced by soft plushness. In fact, so much of his new body was so soft. His legs, wrapped in the tight yoga pants, edged towards mine half sheltered by my skirt. Her ticklish little curved waist was so delicately touchable. Her arms nestled near mine felt so snuggly.

This was honestly my first kiss with a girl not part of a pity party. And I knew the same was true for her. Well, Connor’s second kiss. But her first girl-on-girl kiss.

It felt good. The taste was a little gross because I did too much thinking about all the saliva and bits involved. Panic also wanted to nest inside me because parts of my brain were trying to simultaneously process that I was kissing my best friend, kissing a woman, and that my own lips felt different. The combo was enough to fry all rational thought.

We squeezed close. Connor smelled good, even though she seemed a little sweaty. She didn’t smell the same as the boy she once was, that hypnotic musk pervading every inch. It was an intimate and inescapable girl scent. Fortunately, despite how much my body had changed, it still seemed perfectly happy with that aroma as well. She sniffed my hair. I wished that I had washed it recently, and also somehow used the new perfumes granted to Trisha.

Our snuggling was soon cut short by rattling in the front door lock. We adjusted ourselves and awaited our visitor. Even more fumbling and clicking effort followed before I stepped over and opened the door myself.

Standing in front of the door was a girl several inches shorter than me. She had soft, reddish-brown locks which spilled over her shoulders. A dark blue jacket awkwardly tangled across her, buried under an enormous satchel and backpack she was struggling with. Her button-up, pale blue blouse featured a bright red ribbon at the collar. A tartan, pleated skirt dipped across her thighs and fluttered towards a pair of socks that went above the knee. She looked like a Japanese schoolgirl escaped from one of Kunio‘s favorite shows and made flesh.

My instinct, noticing the concern and uncertainty on her features, was to ask, “Are you okay, miss? Are you lost?” Connor approached behind me through the half hallway facing the door.

A bright blush shaded her cheeks as she struggled to wrangle her bags. Her small voice barely managed, “Umm. Maybe. I’m looking for Connor Campbell, Simon Winchester, and Zach Monroe. My roommates… As far as I know. Despite… appearances.”

Connor gasped and pushed forward with an eager question, “Kuni, is that you? We’ll get your bags. Come on in.”

The girl whimpered and murmured through her answer, but ultimately agreed to our assistance. Those bags weren’t particularly easy to carry the rest of the way, but we managed. She kept her lips firmly pressed together as she surveyed the common area.

Before anything else, the girl nervously relayed that she had to use the restroom. She appeared quite anxious but stepped carefully towards it before closing and locking the door. I anticipated that, assuming this really was Kuni and not some confused girl, she would take a while to find her bearings and several other things. However, she exited swiftly to wash up at the sinks and hesitantly rejoin us.

She appeared way more like a girl than I could ever imagine Kuni being. She nervously brushed back her hair, held her hands politely, and had a presence that suited her attire. When she finally grabbed a seat, she was swift to sit femininely and cross her legs. Despite these mixed signals, she was adamant about her identity.

Private moments, personal anecdotes, and certain conversations provided copious amounts of confirmation. Squeezing tightly to her spot, she then asked us to reciprocate. Bringing up similar but different instances seemed to be enough. Having sufficiently settled that the three of us at least remembered being the boys we had been mere hours ago, Kuni relayed events from her perspective.

“I had my film studies class with Professor Baker. We were just finishing up the main discussion and he was asking us some follow-up questions, before a final short film analysis, when it was like everything and everyone got blurry. I was afraid that something was happening to my brain. But everyone else was having it at the same time too. Even the Professor. When it cleared, everyone in the classroom was a girl, the Professor and myself included. It was absolute panic. And it was all over campus. My entire walk back, I didn’t see a single man. I noticed a bunch of women and young girls messing around with their clothes, panicking, and running. What happened here? Magic spell? Are my parents okay?… Sorry. I just wish any of this made sense.” Kuni finished her explanation with a hand pressed to her forehead. She looked exhausted.

I had no idea what to say to her about all this. Fortunately, Connor took charge, as he often did with matters around the dorm, and rigorously and methodically explained all the things that we knew while outlining what we didn’t know. I wanted to fall asleep next to her, cuddling close. It was so much to process, and I found myself wearing down too.

Entire classes of all girls. Professors transformed. Were there any guys left? What did it mean? Of course, my most striking and pronounced fear was that, somehow, we were responsible. What else could it be? If we tracked down Taylor, might that give us answers? A dizzying array of possibilities loomed before me.