[9]
“Just give me a minute, and I’ll have you screaming more than my name,” Connor teased.
If only I were screaming for fun. But the sudden appearance of the suspicious girl with glasses, some sort of unsettling apparition, was the real reason. Ghost? The college was old enough, at over 60 years, to have collected some strangeness but these rooms were some of the newer ones, only around for about a quarter century. My stronger inkling was that this had to do with what we received, the switch seemingly without a power source to control.
When Riona slipped back into the room, it didn’t take her long to read my face and realize that this wasn’t a come-on or foreplay. She sat by my side with narrow eyes and asked what was wrong. Motioning over to the mirror, I did my best to explain what I saw. It didn’t take long before she grabbed the broom and started wielding it like a naginata from a fighting game we played once. Despite how far she reached and swung, Riona didn’t make contact with any interlopers. Panting after all that, she set it down next to her and joined me on the bed.
I provided as many details about the girl I saw as possible. Without telling me first, Riona flipped our switch back to center. The sensation of returning to Trisha form evoked my initial transformation. It was warm and cool at the same time. My balance wiggled like a top losing momentum and then dipped around into a different equilibrium. The big girls returned, and it was easier to cover up my lower half.
Even though I would’ve liked more warning, it was good that Connor chose that moment since the front door soon rattled and popped open. Simon and Kuni returned. I felt more disheveled than I probably looked as we went to go check.
Kuni moved slowly, listlessly through the hallway and scoped out the kitchen before noticing us. Simon loomed and waved. They were well aware of what occurred in the common room with the mysterious message. Kuni wore her reaction on her face.
“Forever… I want to punch them… acting like this is some game or fantasy. Playing around with people’s lives. I went to go see some people we knew. Some are dealing better than others. I don’t know what I’m going to do. My stomach feels like it’s all twisted up. My life has been stolen from me. And the lives of so many others. I just want to go to bed and try to forget for a few hours.”
Simon rested a hand on her shoulder, and I felt the inspiration to reach out and attempt a hug. It was just a quick one, and Kuni edged out of my path once I was done. Not the time for crying or anything emotional. She closed the door to their room behind her when she left. Simon lingered and checked in with us.
I knew not to even look in the direction of our room with the strange switch gift. Keeping secrets was not a problem of mine, but surviving my mental state while keeping those secrets was another matter. Especially considering this was a secret that directly affected the both of them and everyone else on campus. No matter what the overzealous note said, there was a way around these transformations. A way to turn them off, at least temporarily. Others deserved to know this.
Nothing explicitly stated in the communication we received that we could never talk about what we were given. It did specify that it was for us as a couple. It was a rare treat, but not necessarily the only one given out. ‘Rare’ fundamentally implied that there could be others in a limited array. Perhaps even our roommates were offered something or would be offered something, and we were just keeping pointless secrets from one another.
Connor randomly inquired about our earlier concern with condoms and whether Simon still had any. That both made my heart freeze and also pulse to fight free from my chest. Simon raised one of her slim eyebrows, but Connor was swift and smooth to explain that it was for dildos and being safe in sharing them. My face felt like it was being bathed by the surface of the sun. Simon folded her arms and smirked before popping into her room. Through the briefly open door, it was easy to see that Kuni had already buried herself in blankets but also grabbed a laptop for company.
Simon soon returned with a colorful plethora of condoms. She even had a couple of dental dams to offer. Connor gladly accepted the pile and winked at me. I hurried back to our room and marveled at everything Simon had. Way more than I was expecting; some were flavored. My mouth suddenly watered, and I had to swallow. Other parts of me were getting in on similar sentiments, but I couldn’t do much about them.
My mind and body fought against contrasting inclinations. Shivers of possibility sought to electrify me and leave me a squirming mess. I wanted to borrow some of Connor’s impetuousness and just ravish him after flipping the switch my way. It only seemed fair to return the favor and indulge the untapped curiosity. Some naughty whisper inside my mind urged me to forget the prophylactics and just share our most intimate touch. We were both peak virgins, aside from one another and ourselves.
Once again, it seemed that Connor could easily read my mind. She asked if I would like to do the honors. I still had many questions, even though my hesitancy was combating a bullish charge of desire. Didn’t she want to try things with Zach? Referring to myself in the third person seemed like the best means of getting around the thin walls. But those walls weren’t going to thicken once we got going. How would we be able to cloak our voices? I sheltered this notion by elaborating that I was a little embarrassed about our roommates hearing everything. A reaction that fit no matter what our appearance might be. Connor‘s response was to suggest a shower. Thankfully, the water fee with housing was a flat rate.
I gathered together some random products, towels, and bathrobes to lend credence to this presentation. The switch sat comfortably at the back of the counter. Connor picked it up and walked it out of the room. Before I could press her with questions, she simply responded, “Theory testing.” She put as much distance between the two of us as the dorm would allow and then aimed the switch in the direction of our roommates behind the wall. Flicking it up and down left the both of us woozy and disoriented but brought no further effects. I assumed she was testing whether it was locked to us and us alone.
Knocking on the door to the other room, Connor casually passed along that she was going to use the shower and wanted to know if either of them needed it after her. The following, muffled answer from Simon suggested that neither of them intended to go anywhere for a while. I started to feel anxious and sweaty in a way I didn’t mind. All my thoughts were laser-focused on Connor as she presented me with the switch set in the middle. I flicked it toward her and watched as Connor surged, unhindered by his snug, soft clothing. With the door shut, I pressed myself against his lips.
How could I do this? So much masculine training screamed at me even louder than it had when I first let Trisha loose upon him. Back then, hours ago, there was the excuse of being saturated by hormones, smells, mind-altering magic, and so many other possibilities. Now, this was all on me. I was making a choice. At the same time, it didn’t feel like a choice at all. If everything had been confined to just Beatrice and me, I would’ve been here several times already.
Did that make me gay? Such a silly thing to wonder about at this point. Would it be such a bad thing if it were that simple? I liked the feeling of men like this, and Connor was just the best man for me, even as a woman. It might help. Declare that the whole bro promise was just the best way to couch homosexual feelings in the trappings of something that might be considered closer to acceptable for our peers. A silly joke to tell about how weird we were as adolescents after we each eventually found the right girls for us.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
I crouched with a teasing smile as I pulled down Connor’s snug yoga pants and his panties with them. He was prepared. Before I could get any closer though, someone knocked on the front door of the dormitory from the hallway. It was just loud enough to be heard, but not so loud that we absolutely should’ve known about it with a roaring shower going. Not that we had even gotten that far yet.
We peered at one another, and Connor ultimately made the decision to pull his pants back up and flick the switch to the center. I had several bitter curse words swirling through my head. As we had been warned, it was the RA coming to check in on us. Simon represented the other room and passed along that her roommate was resting.
The girl who met us at the door verged far too close to being my doppelgänger. Instead of a gray top with massive boobs, she wore a snow-white top in the same style with breasts slightly larger than Riona‘s but not quite as big as mine. Instead of long, brownish hair, hers was pitch black and laid across her shoulders and back the same way. Her skirt had similar pleats to mine but was almost long enough to touch the floor and shimmered a sharp shade of pink. Her eyes also projected a deep sea blue rather than my pointed emeralds. My suspicions flared up like they were stinging nettle hackles. Which didn’t actually exist. If hissing and scratching had any chance of working, I would’ve gone for them instead of a level stare and a flat expression. This chick was butting in on our private time.
She didn’t really deserve my animosity, she seemed pleasant, but I was strangely committed to it and I was going to continue the stink eye. Her voice pitched so high, as high as any girl I ever met. It was tiny and overzealously cute. More fuel for my pouting. All the things that this particular RA brought up repeated points made in the meeting about quiet time, resources, and other measures. She wasn’t actually a resident of this dorm but rather the building just behind us, now Hansberry Hall. Some of the Mead RAs needed time, so they brought her over to fill in.
She unnecessarily passed along that it had been changed from Poppen Hall. I wondered if the administration was going to change it back or just accept this weird shift to reality. When I put a similar form of that question to her, she had to shrug and admit that they hadn’t told her anything in that respect. She noted that she enjoyed the new names though. If she read anything in my demeanor, she didn’t say.
Even though it wasn’t intended to be a surprise inspection of the rooms, typically for paraphernalia and alcohol, she probed closer than I expected. Before leaving, she also asked to use the bathroom. I didn’t know what to say and Connor calmly told her it was fine. The minutes and moments sluggishly advanced with the door shut at the end of the hall. Why couldn’t we have popped in there and grabbed the switch? Easily, I imagined preempting her request and screaming that I was about to hose the gray carpet like a racehorse that inhaled a lake. It would’ve been a simple matter, my imagination supposed, to just grab the switch and stuff it up between my legs or my boobs when I exited. Going for it without any further excuse would’ve drawn too much attention and likely invited a casual flick to see what the curious thing did.
I totally didn’t prepare myself for what I might do if she gave it an experimental flick when washing up. If the worst possibility arrived, then I could just throw my Zach self into our bedroom and hide in the closet. Connor could come up with something plausible for why I vanished and what the heck that thing was. If Connor got flicked, then everything would be on me to cover. I went so far as prototyping a story involving Connor as a boyfriend who arrived from the mixes of reality to check on us but didn’t know about the new rules in place. Explaining his attire was beyond me and I also desperately hoped that Simon would play along.
She finished up in the bathroom and no chaos struck us. A couple of glances behind herself suggested that she had festering questions… oh, the sex stuff we left in there. It was all probably much more noticeable than a simple, quirky detached light switch. With some stammering, she returned to a mention of sex educational matters to help with the myriad of new complications and experiences. Riona pulled me close and brushed a hand through my hair with a soft smile. A steaming blush came naturally to my cheeks. And my wannabe doppelgänger had a matching one. Simon appeared as though she was left out of the mix.
Fortunately, the hall assistant soon left for the next room she was assigned to check in on. The brochures she passed out found swift homes as far away as we could throw them. Once Simon was gone too, we hurried back into the bathroom. The switch was right where we left it. Before picking up where we had been scattered once again, I sat down and made quick use of the toilet to empty my bladder. Not in anticipation of what we were about to do, although that was a fortuitous bonus. Simply because the horse analogy had gotten stuck in my head and loosened a few things. It’s only after I was done that I realized things could’ve been much more convenient if I flicked myself over to Zach mode.
I was about to put us back to where we were when Connor pulled me close. She kissed me softly and traced the kisses over my face and against my shoulder where it was joyously ticklish. My giggles went higher than usual, as though infused with hydrogen instead of their usual new mix of helium. Just less explosive. Not that I was competing with that girl. But I could be way cuter than her.
Connor seemed to know this was on my mind and quietly reassured me that I was much prettier than any other girl. I countered that we were each really pretty. Then, she started tickling me for more giggles. And it was her turn to use the toilet. I was about to bring Connor out, but she told me to wait. Sincerely, Riona said she preferred using the toilet like this for reasons that quite bewildered me. But I waited.
We both flicked him back and returned to each other’s arms. Before our clothes came off again, I was within reach of the broom we’d used earlier to check for snooping. Swinging it around once, I was surprised when it made contact. The toilet and the small table were nowhere in that vicinity. The toilet vibrated slightly. Out of the air appeared a girl slumped over and flailing on the tile. I swung the broom back around towards her face, but she quickly put her arms out and pleaded, “No no no! My glasses, please!“
Connor narrowed his eyes and stepped forward. “Who are you?”
I looked over to the side and noticed that on the floor, almost underneath the sink, was a strange little travel flashlight. It was big enough to comfortably hold but still smaller than most flashlights we had at home. The most peculiar quality was that it was swirled in shades of pink and blue like a barber pole along the length, which shifted to purple at the top. The girl, dressed in a lime-colored t-shirt and gray shorts that felt thoroughly anonymous, reached for the little flashlight, but I batted it away and blocked her path. She slumped against the wall as we reiterated the question.
The strange girl sighed and pushed up her glasses.
“I’m Beverly Marsh. And I’m responsible for everything.”