Story - Putting Her On

From 0w5s1.labrat@onr.com Tue Mar 25 18:27:33 1997 Path: nienor.IN-Berlin.DE!sauveur!IN-Berlin.DE!fub!fu-berlin.de!newsfeed.nacamar.de!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news.idt.net!cdc2.cdc.net!news-out.internetmci.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.onr.com!usenet Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.tg Organization: Onramp Access, Inc. 512-322-9200 Lines: 2636 Message-ID: F0vNzY9GAIJO092yn@onr.com NNTP-Posting-Host: onramp8-3.onr.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

This is being reposted at the request of another of the major posters to the group. Enjoy.

My address now contains a 5 character random string to help stop email spam which will need to be removed before replying.

I did not write this and you must be 18 or over to read it as it may contain a great deal of adult explicit sexuality. If this is offensive do not read - delete file. For those of us who enjoy .... enjoy! Please do not ask for files by e-mail - I can barely keep up with what I have now. Sorry about the forged header, but it does help keeping down on the junk mail.

Karen Mitchell

author unknown

Corey noticed the package on the doorstep of his condo as he hit the button of his garage-door opener and turned his car onto his driveway. United Parcel had, as usual, put his big coco-fiber doormat over the box to disguise it as a box covered by a doormat. He drove into his garage, parked, got out of the car, opened the door to the rest of the condo as he hit the control button to close the garage door, and went in. He walked up four steps to the entryway, walked to the front door and opened it, retrieved the box, and put the mat back in place before shutting the door.

The box had been on its side; with its top on top it was about two feet square and three high. Corey looked at the labels: standard UPS stuff, the sender one "N. S., Inc." in a suburb of Dallas. He had ordered nothing of late, his birthday had been months before, and no holiday was coming soon, but there it was, twenty-some pounds in the usual brown cardboard. He picked it up and carried it into his living room, noting with a glance that there were no messages on his answering machine. From the right pocket of his slacks he took his Swiss army knife, opened out the smallest blade, and slit the tape holding shut the top of the box.

Inside, atop everything else, was a clear plastic bag, open on one edge: a packet of information? Through the bag Corey saw a booklet that looked like a magazine. Its full-color glossy cover showed a young brunette, adorably cute to his taste but not unusually beautiful, in white blouse with frilly blue bow, long blue skirt, white pantyhose, and low-heeled blue sandals: a tall girl in the library of a Victorian mansion, smiling at the camera. "New Selves, Inc.," read the text. "New Woman 2800T Series with Tryout Mode. Instruction Manual."

Corey picked up the plastic bag with the packet. Underneath it, snug in the box, was a silvery block. Its surfaces were irregular, with the reflective layer covered in tough clear plastic. It was like a block of freeze-dried, vacuum-packed food. Corey put the information packet on the floor and with difficulty wiggled the block out of the box. It was about a foot thick. Under it, each sealed in its own bag of clear, tough plastic, were items of women's clothing: a pair of large pink running shoes, a pair of large sandals like those on the woman on the manual's cover, two bras -- one a sports bra in plum-colored Lycra, the other an underwire in black lace -- both unremarkable at size 34B, pantyhose, panties, a bikini, at least one dress...Corey didn't make an inventory. He took the instruction manual from its bag and went over to his favorite armchair to read it. He sat, opened it, and read:

Congratulations! You have purchased or been given the finest

in new-identity suits from New Selves, Inc.! In the five years we

have offered New Woman suits, thousands of satisfied customers have

put them on, changing themselves permanently from men into attractive,

fully-functional women, now happy in all walks of life, from acting

and modeling to business to homemaking, and as wives and mothers.

The 2800 Series second-generation suits offer swift, almost painless

metamorphoses, with indistinguishability from natural-born women

within six months, and the possibility of extreme changes in physical

form and/or personality.

The 2800T suits, as do all new-identity suits from New Selves

with a "T" in their series number, feature a Test Mode that lets

the customer wear them for short periods (four to six hours at most,

depending on a number of factors) before true metamorphosis begins,

yet within moments closely resemble the final form. The closer the

physical match between the wearer's form and the final form, the

longer the suit can be worn before metamorphosis starts. A potential

woman who is satisfied with relatively small skeletal changes can

try many different female forms (of his current build but of various

races, ages, figures, etc.) before deciding on what woman he will

become. With care, a transvestite can use his 2800T repeatedly,

to become, for periods of a few hours, compellingly female apart

from an impenetrable vagina, because exposure to the suit is not

cumulative. With a 2800T (or better yet, several), the transvestite

can make the most of his few hours as a woman, unencumbered by wigs,

heavy makeup, artificial breasts and other padding prone to come off,

and most importantly fear of discovery: the 2800T automatically

provides nuances of feminine poise and behavior that are difficult

for most men to learn.

Corey, incredulous, put down the instruction manual. New Selves? he thought. Suits that change you into someone else, a guy into a woman? Bullshit. That Test Mode sounds like fun. I mean, I'm not a fag or anything, but it'd be cool to go around as a broad for a couple hours. Too bad it's gotta be only a joke. The vacuum-packed thing is supposed to be my very own 2800T, I bet.

Fascinated nevertheless, Corey kept reading, skipping around a little:

Your 2800T is shipped freeze-dried and vacuum-packed. To

prepare it for use, cut the red corner of its package to break

the vacuum-seal and then pull the packaging apart at a seam.

The suit will have a grisly appearance, as of an actual human

skin carefully removed from a body cleaned, compressed, and

freeze-dried. Do not attempt to stretch it into another shape:

it will be leathery, but in places brittle enough to break, and

a damaged suit will not function properly if at all.

Put your 2800T in ten gallons or more of water for at least

four hours. Overnight is best, and although the exact time is not

critical, the suit will be ready to put on when the breasts have

the texture of actual female breasts. Water temperature should

not exceed 100 degrees F., but water below 40 F may retard the

reconstitution. Distilled water is preferable for repeated use

(see also the "Instructions for Transvestites"), but any potable

water will suffice. A bathtub, preferably cleaned carefully with

any cleansers then rinsed away thoroughly, is suggested.

Corey skipped to "Instructions for Transvestites," and began to read:

Your 2800T can be worn repeatedly for short periods. The swift

initial action of suits in the T series, including the extension of

a temporary growth into your mouth and down your throat to alter

your voice and raise its pitch appropriately, means that you may find

that within five minutes of sealing the suit, you resemble closely the

woman that you would become if you were to leave the suit on. With

practice you may be able to return home after work and within half

an hour leave for a date as an attractive woman. A temporary

masking persona goes into action within moments, providing natural-

looking feminine poise and subconscious cues that identify a person

as female, as well as a rudimentary but convincing female personality.

A difficulty is that the precise time between your sealing your

suit and te beginning of your permanent metamorphosis into the

woman your 2800T "wants" you to become can be determined only by

experiment. This is called the "grace period." For the purposes

of this explanation your alter-ego's name is Jane. As mentioned

elsewhere in this manual, the grace period depends on a number of

factors, but overwhelmingly on physical similarities between you

and Jane. Loosely speaking, the more closely you resemble Jane,

the less "need" your 2800T "feels" to do more than provide a

remarkably realistic head-to-toe Jane mask.

In the packet containing this manual is a Physical Description

Sheet for Jane, giving her height, weight, various other physical

measurements, blood type, racial background, and so on. Obtain as

much of this information as you can about your own body, taking

measurements as accurately as you can. Appendix II of this manual

is a worksheet to help you determine the minimum length of your

grace period, and in the packet are two 3.5" flexible discs, one

for computers running MS-DOS and the other for Macintosh machines,

that provide the worksheet as a computer program. Determine your

grace period both with the manual worksheet and with at least one

of the programs. The results should be identical: if not, check

your work and try again. If the results still do not match, take

the shorter time as your grace period.

If you are unsure of any piece of data, assume the worst.

For instance, if Jane is entirely of European ancestry and you

think that you might have some but are unsure, assume that you

have none. If you do not know your blood type, give it as Unknown

and accept the reduction in grace period that this will cause.

Always err on the side of caution. The formula on the worksheet

and in the computer programs is believed to be very conservative,

but it does not always hold.

Grace period by experiment: The above method provides only an

estimate. For serious use, determine an accurate time by experiment.

Don your 2800T for 15 minutes longer than your grace period, and

then remove it completely. As usual, manipulation of the throat

seal is the best way to begin removal. Check for signs of incipient

transformation into Jane: most common is a slight discomfort in

the skin, like the beginning of a mild sunburn, when you remove

your 2800T. This indicates that the suit is attempting to incorporate

your skin into itself -- to combine itself with you as the first

step in creating Jane. After every attempt, leave the 2800T off

for at least ten minutes before you don it again.

A warning sign that you can detect before removing the suit is

increased sensitivity in your Jane "skin." Within seconds of your

donning a 2800T, the suit will no longer feel entirely like a suit:

you will seem to have a slight sense of touch at its surface. If at

any time this increases and the sense of touch in your actual skin

decreases, remove the suit as quickly as you can. (Note that the

2800T adapts its thickness as necessary -- to about that of a latex

condom when no padding is needed -- so that the distance between

the suit's surface and your actual skin will vary. Do not let

this mislead you about changes in sensitivity.)

By attempting longer and longer stays in your 2800, you can

determine how long your grace period actually is. Never extend

the trial period by more than fifteen minutes at a time. If you

do a series of trials in a row, remember to remove the 2800T

completely every time and leave it off for ten minutes or longer

before the next trial. When you reach a length of time at which

you begin to feel discomfort, subtract fifteen minutes from that

and take the result as your actual grace period.

Having your cake and eating it: A transvestite may become

tempted to spend a night or weekend as Jane with, say, a sexual

partner unaware of his true gender, using menstruation as an excuse

not to provide vaginal sex. Grace periods of over five hours are

rare, over six unknown. With ingenuity and claims of menstrual

problems, a transvestite in a 2800T may be able to spend fifteen

to twenty minutes alone in, say, a bathroom at regular intervals,

sufficient time to remove the 2800T entirely, wait ten minutes,

don it again, and wait until he again resembles Jane sufficiently

to show himself. This is risky: one can fall asleep and wake eight

hours later, the 2800T joined irreversibly to one's body and a

future as Jane a certainty. Attempts to extend the grace period

by opening the neck seal and immediately re-closing it are not

suggested; experiments indicate that anything from a slight loss

of grace period to a gain of several hours is possible, even

with the same wearer of the same suit.

The mask sticks: If after wearing your 2800T for longer than

your grace period you cannot remove it without severe pain (or at

all), DO NOT REMOVE IT. Pain of removal worse than a moderate

sunburn, or inability to remove it, means that although your

internal metamorphosis is not yet complete, YOU ARE NOW JANE.

If you began removing your 2800T, PUT IT BACK ON ENTIRELY AND

SEAL IT AT ONCE. Attempts at removal will grow more difficult,

painful, and dangerous as you proceed, and CAN BE FATAL. ACCEPT

YOUR NEW IDENTITY.

With your information packet is a blister-pack with two

liquid-filled gel capsules: at any time you desire while wearing

your 2800T, but especially after a failed removal, take the

capsules to ensure a faster, safer, more comfortable metamorphosis

into Jane. Chew the capsules in an emergency. The active compound

is absorbed to some degree through the lining of your mouth and

will put the metamorphosis on track within several minutes, whether

after a failed removal or just moments after donning the 2800T.

If after this you wish to become someone other than Jane,

call New Selves' toll-free customer service number, given on

the inside front cover of this manual. Especially if your

2800T was a gift or an unsolicited free sample, we might be

able to give you a new self once your metamorphosis to Jane

is complete. Restoration of your original self is not possible

at present, but we may be able to provide someone similar, or

at least help you to establish yourself as Jane.

Corey looked at the inside front cover, and there indeed was an 800 number, with Central-Time hours for customer-service people and the phrase, "at other times, leave voice mail." He was in the Eastern time zone, and it was after hours, so he called to hear the message.

"You have reached NSI's voice mail," said a woman's voice, a very pretty voice: Corey wondered if it was supposed to be the voice of a man changed to a woman by a Series 2800. "If you're having a problem as the result of using one of our products, please leave a message after the tone with your name and phone number." Corey hung up, not sure of what to say: heckle them? ask who had sent the supposed 2800T to him? He went on reading:

Care of the 2800T under repeated use: Your 2800T is best

stored in water, even if you intend not to wear it for long

periods (a week or longer). A plastic, glass, or stainless-steel

container of sufficient size to hold the suit and enough water

to cover it, preferably one with a tight-fitting lid, is suggested.

The water should be distilled; add one ounce per gallon of ordinary

household bleach (5% sodium hypochlorite solution with no scent added);

be sure that the bleach is mixed thoroughly with the water before

the water is added to the container. Exposure of the suit to

too much bleach will damage it. Every other day or after wearing,

rinse the suit and replace the water entirely. After wearing,

cleaning the interior of the suit with a mild soap suitable for

use on your skin is suggested (avoid deodorant soaps and soaps

with moisturizers, perfumes, and other additives). With continuous

water storage and the regular care, it should last at least one

year before you should either discard it or use it in a permanent

metamorphosis. Fading or the start of degeneration will indicate

when it has reached this point.

If for a period of a week or more you do not intend to wear

your 2800T, you may air-dry it. Hang it on a hard-plastic hanger,

by the shoulders with the head behind, as if it were a jumpsuit

with an integrated hood, in a dry place with free circulation of

air. Watch for growth of mold or mildew: at the first signs it

should be returned to water storage and within ten days used

either for a permanent metamorphosis or discarded. With careful

drying and storage in a cool, dry place, you should be able to

reconstitute it and use it even after five to six years.

What the hell, thought Corey, the bathtub needs cleaning anyway. This has got to be bullshit, and maybe there's some sort of "Candid Camera" type lurking around, filming me making a fool of myself, but screw it.

Over a hasty dinner of frozen burritos heated in the microwave and washed down with light beer, Corey looked at the Physical Description Sheet for his "Jane." It was not a bad match. She was supposedly 5' 10", like himself, though her waist was some inches narrower. With a shredded-beef burrito in one hand he rummaged through a kitchen drawer and found a six-foot steel measuring tape, and took measurements of himself: arms a bit longer, hips much narrower, legs about as long as its. "Hey, hey, long grace period," he said aloud. The age on the sheet was 21 to his 28, the ethnic background mostly Italian and French but a quarter black (he was part Italian, part Irish, and not sure what else), and the blood type O (he had no idea of his own).

From under his kitchen sink Corey got a misshapen, dried-up old cellulose sponge of an insincere blue, some effective-smelling liquid cleaner, and the brush he used on dishes, and took them to his bathroom. He rarely took baths: the tub, pale blue ceramic on steel, was effectively the bottom of his shower stall. A mixture of discolored soap scum and strands of his own black hair -- he worried about going bald -- coated its sides. He bunched the shower curtain and pulled it as far from the faucet as he could, and made sure its bottom edge fell outside the tub. After some splashing of water, squirting of cleaner, and angry ineffectual scrubbing, he stripped and got into the tub, put the bottom of the curtain back in, pulled the curtain across the tub, and turned the shower on, cleaning the tub as he rinsed himself off. When he climbed out and toweled himself dry, the tub was as clean as he'd seen it, and he plugged the drain, put the shower curtain aside once more although it still dripped, and turned on the faucet so as to fill the tub with lukewarm water.

He put on his bathrobe -- terrycloth, once white -- and went down- stairs. With his Swiss army knife he cut off the corner of the vacuum- pack bag, and air whooshed in. He pulled it open and there, just as the manual had said, was what looked like the skin of a woman, carefully removed from her body, washed clean of blood, compressed into a block, and freeze-dried. The skin, if it was skin, had an excellent complexion of a light, even brown, and part of the block's surface was covered with loose, frizzy light-brown curls. He picked up the block -- it was cool and dry, the apparent skin like the dry skin on a callus -- carried it to the tub, and eased it in. When the water began to trickle into the overflow hole, he shut off the faucet.

For the rest of the evening, Corey watched television and drank beer. After all, it was a Friday. Around midnight his curiosity got the better of him and he went to have a look at the thing soaking in the tub.

It had swollen up and stretched out. For a moment Corey thought that he was looking at the dead body of a young woman with pale brown skin and frizzy hair, floating face-down in his bathtub, its head near the faucet. He gave it a hesitant touch on its back: cold, dead, wet skin, but no body inside that. Almost nauseated, he turned the thing face-up, not easy because it was floppy, slit from neck to crotch down its front, and a mere skin in some places but thick and waterlogged in the thighs and breasts. With no flesh and bone behind it, its face was misshapen but feminine, an amalgam of European and African features that Corey found beautiful. Its cheeks were high, its ears large but delicate, its nose broad but with a pert turned-up tip, its lips fashionably pouty around a wide mouth.

Corey felt its breasts. They were cold but they felt like a real woman's. The supposed 2800T was ready for him to put on. He slipped out of the bathrobe and stepped into the cold water of the tub, feeling like a fool. He wrestled the thing into position -- inside and out it felt like cold wet human skin -- and began to put it on, shivering from its clammy touch: left leg, right leg, penis and scrotum into a tough little sac at the crotch, left arm, right arm. His hands and feet slid in smoothly, the water inside the suit's own hands and feet seeming to vanish at the same time, the chilliness vanishing. The suit was not rubbery or elastic, but somehow it stretched just enough to let him put it on with ease. With hands gloved in what looked like light-brown human skin he began to pinch the slit shut, starting just above the false vagina. He took off his glasses and pulled the head on, wondering how they would look on a woman's face if by some chance the suit actually worked. The head slid neatly into place, nostrils and mouth and ears fitting as naturally over Corey's as if the suit had been molded over a cast of his head. Behind each set of false eyelids was a brown film, and by some instinct he reached up and with a fingertip pressed one into each eye. They popped in comfortably, like contact lenses.

Corey began to pinch the suit shut, proceeding upwards. When he came to the false breasts he, again as if by instinct, put one brown- gloved hand over each and pressed both into place on his chest, where their inner surfaces at once adhered. Then he pinched the rest of the slit shut, sealing it at the neck.

"Comfortable, anyway," said Corey aloud, in his own voice. He looked down at his costumed body: it looked disturbingly feminine, and he felt the start of an erection. Something at his crotch clamped his penis, squeezing the blood out of it and keeping it limp. "Oh, shit!" he said. "This is for real!" Over a few seconds his eyesight became clear, as if he were looking through binoculars that someone was adjusting to the proper focus, and the filmy things in his eyes seemed to grow thicker as it happened. Something in the costume pinched in his waist, and the costume's padding in the thighs and buttocks clung tightly, as if trying to become part of his flesh.

Without stepping out of the tub, Corey turned towards the bathroom mirror on the opposite wall. A tall young woman with pale brown skin, wet curly hair, adequate breasts on a rather mannish figure looked back. At first her face, stretched tight over Corey's, was simply his with a different complexion. Then for a few moments Corey felt slime flow over his face, and as he watched the woman's face shifted into a beauty's, far lovelier than the boneless face Corey had admired when the suit floated in the tub. He made the reflection raise her hand to it and through the false skin -- very thin -- that made his hand hers, he probed its features. Over his jaw the covering was also thin, but near his mouth it was thick, forming her pouty lips. He pressed against what looked like impossibly high cheekbones, and felt them shift slightly: the false skin had made the real flesh over his own cheekbones become remarkably firm, covered it with a hard layer of its own, and then provided false muscle attached to this "cheekbone." Yet when he tried out expressions on the woman's face, the skin and supposed muscle moved in an entirely natural way. Unless he pressed very hard against the false bone, the illusion was flawless. He made the woman smile, frown, grimace, open her mouth wide as if to scream, wrinkle her nose, raised her eyebrows: her face did everything perfectly, showing no sign that it was not a real face, a real woman's.

Something at the corner of the false mouth wriggled inside, stretched, avoided his attempts to bite it, and sent a projection down his throat. He coughed a few times as it tickled him, but that was no use. His larynx began to feel peculiar, and he felt several brief pains he could not localize. The entire neck of the suit began to tighten, but he did not feel as if he were being strangled -- not quite. The neck of the reflection seemed to become longer and more slender.

Various parts of the suit began to get thicker, or thinner, or tighter, or looser. Corey felt trapped inside a bag of oozing slime, but he watched in amazement as his appearance changed from woman-faced but androgynous to entirely female, head to toe. Perhaps ten seconds after the changes stopped, the suit became perfectly comfortable. Corey put his woman-skinned right hand to his false left breast, and found that the manual had been right: the surface of the suit now sent his nervous system slight sensations of touch, augmenting those of his real skin. The rest of the suit was entirely numb, though it clung to him as if part of his own flesh.

Corey examined the woman he appeared to be: tall, unusually pretty, naked. Her crotch would have bulged with Corey's erection had the mechanism of the suit allowed it. She looked Italian and French and one-quarter black, as the physical data sheet had said. Her dark- brown hair fell to her shoulders, and as it dried it revealed something between curls and frizziness. Her eyes seemed slightly too large for her face, deep brown and alluring. Her forehead was high, aristocratic, and smooth, with the skull beneath curving back well below her hairline, giving it a touch of the mask. Her nose was broad, but its tip turned up and Corey wanted to kiss it. She had remarkably high cheekbones, a full mouth with pouting lips, and a deliciously stubborn chin that was almost entirely Corey's own. Her ears were delicately-shaped if slightly large for her head, and the piercings in their lobes did not go through Corey's flesh.

She had broad shoulders, but they were square though Corey's sloped. Her breasts were not especially large but very high and firm, her armpits carefully shaven, and her strong arms and legs were sleek and womanly where Corey's were wiry. Her waist looked pinched-in, as if she wore an invisible corset, and although inside her Corey was being squeezed in half, he could feel nothing but skin over hard muscle when he probed her waist with her fingers. Her crotch seemed an ordinary woman's, but Corey spread the lips of her vagina and examined the space with with a delicate-looking forefinger. He felt only a slick furrow, very shallow. Her buttocks and thighs were perhaps slightly plump, her feet large for a woman's but in proportion to her size, and her shaved legs were arousingly feminine. They even had a few little patches of razor stubble, a touch of realism Corey found disconcerting.

"Fuck it," said Corey in her voice: higher than his own, more resonant, definitely feminine. It seemed to have an accent to it, one that he couldn't place just then. "This thing really does work. Except for the cunt I'm just like a real babe." He reached for a towel and rubbed his false skin and hair dry. After that the hair looked messy, and he brushed it into some sort of order. He hefted his false breasts, finding that they felt just like a real woman's, except that they moved against his chest and sent a faint but pleasurable sense of touch from their surfaces. He tried rubbing his false clitoris, but it was too numb for the touch to be stimulating.

He saw that he'd left his watch on the bathroom counter. Twelve twenty-five, already Saturday. It was a sports watch, more or less unisex, and he put it on his left wrist, over a patch of brown false skin slightly paler than the rest. The "woman's" wrist seemed more delicate than his own, but the watch's buckle used the same hole in the strap as usual.

He addressed the beautiful naked woman in the mirror. To him she was remarkably desirable. "I wanna fuck you, babe," he said, and smiled. Her voice thrilled him. He placed her accent. It was that of an American midwesterner half-covering a delicious West Indian lilt, and her smile was womanly with a touch of mischievous little girl. Corey nearly panicked at how her self had taken possession of him, but then he remembered what the manual had said about false personalities: the suit was masking his self and behavior with female ones that matched his appearance.

"I'm in yo' skin now, baby," he told his reflection, faking a "black" accent. It sounded phony and he dropped it before going on. "Black is beautiful. Uh-oh, I gotta see how long I can stay you." But he automatically rubbed the end of his stick of unscented deodorant on the shaven armpits, just as he did on his own after a shower, before he went off to get the physical data sheet for this form and the floppy for the Mac version of the grace-period program.

Corey drew the drapes in the extra bedroom he used as a computer room -- though why should he care if any neighbor up this late saw a pretty woman, stark naked, at his computer? He turned on the computer and ran the program right off the floppy, typing in the data for the woman he now resembled and the man he really was. The suit had given him fingernails a little longer than his own, making typing difficult at first, but soon they caused no trouble. On many questions he had to guess -- he didn't want to take off this sexy female shape and measure himself, and after all he could always run the program again or work it out by hand -- but at least he had an answer in under ten minutes: minimum grace period, three and one-quarter hours. He ejected the floppy and shut down the Mac.

He looked at the watch -- was the wrist really more delicate and feminine than his own? he wondered, but of course the strap fitted snugly at its usual notch -- and found that it was past one. Well, he thought, figure at most an hour since I started putting her on -- ha ha, double meaning there. Be conservative. Get out by three. Two more hours, if I like, looking like a hot babe of a woman. I like. I'm not a fag or anything, but this is fun.

Corey went to the box that the suit had come in and got out and unwrapped the clothes. New Selves had fitted quite a wardrobe into the package, much more than he had noticed before. In seconds he'd chosen a pair of low-heeled black sandals, black pantyhose with built-in panties, a strapless black bra, and a tiny wine-red dress, strapless and low-cut and very short-skirted. He found the jewelry box and took from it a pair of dangling garnet earrings and a pendant on a heavy gold-colored chain, a heart an inch and a half across covered with a few dozen garnets like those in the earrings. The garnets matched the dress perfectly. There was a tiny gold-colored watch, too, and Corey set it to the correct time and replaced his sports watch with it on the brown wrist.

Putting on the women's clothes was almost automatic, and again Corey was disconcerted until he remembered that the suit was helping him behave like a woman. He fastened the pendant's chain around the neck and slipped the hooks of the earrings into the piercings as if he did such things almost daily, and without thinking tied back his false hair with a frilly black elasticized ring he snatched from the pile of clothes, pulling the hair tightly back as if to stretch the false high forehead more tightly against his own. Only the sandals, which he could barely fit onto his feet even with the straps let all the way out, gave him the least trouble.

He looked at himself in the hall mirror. The reflection seemed entirely that of a woman, and Corey's seeing his own expression on her face, her whole form moving as he moved, would have given him a painful erection had the suit not forced his penis to stay limp. Her pale brown skin, from face to low decolletage, from shoulders to fingers, looked warm and inviting and flawless. Her tiny dress was tight against the breasts and waist, and its skirt barely covered her crotch; her legs were sleek in their black pantyhose. "I'm beautiful," he said, and though that voice was deep, almost a tenor, it could not have been a man's. He smiled at the woman in the mirror, who smiled back, a wistful little aren't-I-sweet smile that made him want to hug her. He wrapped his own arms, sheathed in her flesh and skin, around her form, hugging her as best he could.

"I could go for you in a big way," he said to the reflection, trying to sound like himself but instead sounding like a woman trying to seduce a man. "Ah, fuck you," he said. "I'm going to put someone else inside you and make sure he doesn't get out, and then I'll have you for myself." That sounded absurd and Corey found himself giggling deliciously. "Fuck it," he growled, still womanly.

What now? Corey looked at the delicate little watch: almost 1:45. He had an hour and fifteen minutes, maybe an hour and a half, maybe more if he felt like staying this way indefinitely. He could fondle his false breasts: they hadn't much sensation even at the nipples, but the coverings on his fingertips were thin and it would be rather like fondling any ordinary woman's breasts -- except that these were attached to his body. Masturbation wouldn't work: his penis, embedded somewhere in false woman-flesh, felt almost as numb as the suit's well-shaped clitoris and rudimentary vagina.

Corey decided to go shopping. It was ten minutes' drive to a huge all-night drugstore, and he was already thinking: maybe I can use this suit to seduce someone. Some guy I know, some friend. Knock him out, take the suit off, put him inside, let him stay in till he's turned into her, and comfort and look after the poor confused girl. She'll be so grateful. Instant girlfriend. Some makeup and perfume wouldn't hurt. New Selves didn't think I needed them, I guess.

The dress had no pockets, but among the clothes was a tiny black purse, a rigid semicircular box with a shoulder strap. He lengthened the strap to hang at his waist, got his wallet from its usual place in the drawer of the hall table, and stuffed all the cash in it and his ATM card into the little purse. He found his keys, blew a kiss to the woman he saw in the hall mirror as he went past, and went into the garage.

Part 2

Corey drove slowly and carefully, worried only about avoiding both drunk drivers and the police. He was not at all nervous about going out in public as a woman, not because his disguise was nearly perfect, but because the false self the suit gave him, superficial though it was, made his appearance seem natural to him. A few blocks from his place he had realized that he was driving without a license, but he went on: no police officer would believe that he was a man named Corey, that he was not a beautiful if rather tall woman. It didn't strike him that he could take the costume off for the police and look like the picture on his license again, and he decided, illogically, to take the small risk of being detained past his grace period and justifying any belief in his womanhood.

It was five after two when Corey parked in the shopping-center lot, now almost empty, just outside the drugstore. He got out, locked his car, crammed the keys into his tiny purse, and walked the few steps to the store's entrance doors. As he went in, a stockboy, twentyish and lanky, wheeling a cart stacked with boxes of tampons, looked at him in amazement, and he smiled seductively at the guy, not realizing that he was being more than friendly. Corey had expected to be confused, but he found himself selecting makeup as if he knew what he was doing. Soon his hands were full, but the stockboy, grinning sheepishly, wheeled one of the store's little shopping carts over to him, saying, "Here you are, ma'am."

Without meaning to, Corey gave him another please-fuck-me smile and said, "Oh, thank you!" in a higher voice than he had yet used.

"My pleasure, ma'am," he said, and retreated.

Corey, fingers clumsy in their disguise, dropped lipstick, blusher, foundation makeup, mascara, and so on into the cart clumsily, then found and added hairpins and barettes. He looked through several aisles, tried ten different perfumes and chose three. In the end he had to use his ATM card to get another hundred dollars, and what he bought cost all the money he had taken from his wallet plus seventy dollars of the added hundred. A weary-looking young black woman, about Corey's height but pudgy, dark-skinned, and homely, looked at her remarkably beautiful customer with undisguised envy as she rang up his purchases.

Out in the parking lot, a man approached Corey. He was fortyish, pasty-skinned, and obviously drunk -- Corey could also smell the booze as he approached -- and leered at him. "Say, miss," he said, as Corey reached the driver's door of his car, "how much for a blowjob?"

"I'm not a hooker," said Corey, all prim schoolteacher, unlocking the door. His voice seemed to be stuck in a high register.

"Oh, sorry," said the man, "but you're kinda dressed like one, and at this time of night, and...I'll pay you for one anyway. God, you're beautiful. I get a hard-on just looking at your face, not to mention--"

"No, thank you," said Corey, getting in, and when the man tried to keep him from shutting the door, Corey, his muscles still his own underneath the girl-suit, slammed the car door on his hand. The man yelped with the pain, cringed aside when Corey opened the door a crack to free him, and howled half-coherent curses at Corey as Corey slammed and locked the door and drove off.

As Corey left the parking lot he noticed the time on his car's clock: 3:01 AM. Usually the car clock was within a minute of being correct, so he would have to strip off his sexy female clothes in a hurry when he got back, then get out of the 2800T as quickly as possible. Probably he would be okay, but he'd been careless with the estimation program, and for all he knew he was already starting a permanent change into a real woman. He forced himself not to speed. He turned a corner and saw that a slow freight train was blocking the way home. "Oh, shit!" he said, quite the enraged woman. By this time the train would be blocking all nearby streets parallel to the one he was on, and he couldn't think of a practical route around it.

The car clock read 3:22 by the time the crossing gates went up, and Corey, afraid now, made it home in under five minutes, left his purchases in the car, and started removing his woman clothes the moment he was in his front hallway, scattering sandals, purse, jewelry, hose, sexy dress, and so on as he proceeded towards the bathroom. As he all but tore off his woman's watch he saw how late it was: well after 3:30. He massaged the slender female throat that was perhaps now his real one, and after forty seconds or so it opened up, to his great relief. He clawed at the woman-skin on his chest, and the slit began to open. The suit stuck to him, reluctant to let go, and in a few places on his chest and abdomen his skin ached and looked slightly flushed, but in another minute the slit was open to the crotch.

He pulled the suit's head off. Something in his throat stretched and let go, joining itself to the inside of the suit's lips. His own lips had chapped, the skin and flesh over his cheekbones felt pinched, his throat ached dully inside and out, his eyes stung a little from the suit's version of contact lenses, but the head had indeed come off, as if under protest, and Corey looked with relief at his own face in the mirror -- and with a touch of diappointment. Her face, he thought, is much nicer to look at.

Corey had to pull hard to free his arms and legs, but although the bond had been tight the skin wasn't sore. His genitals, embedded in something tough, had to be eased out, and afterwards his foreskin was almost raw and his testicles ached as if they had been squeezed gently but with increasing force the whole time he had worn the guise of a young woman. Corey scooped up the 2800T from the floor and dropped it into the cold water that remained in the bathtub, not bothering to rinse it out after use as suggested in the manual. He was exhausted and went to bed, masturbating briefly, despite his sore foreskin, to fantasies about having sex with the woman he had just impersonated. Soon afterwards he was asleep.

Corey woke and looked at the clock on his nightstand. He had not set the alarm, and he was amazed that it was just after six in the morning. He felt refreshed, fully rested, as if his time in the suit had been sleep. His mind seemed unusually clear, and an idea sprang up in it.

Jogging, he thought. Dave will be jogging this morning, and he'll be out of his house a bit after seven, late because it's a Saturday. Dave's the one, artsy Dave. He's not a fag but he'd be better off as a girl. I'm going to meet him on the jogging trail -- as her. She eats breakfast with him, she gets him to take her on some dates, then I take her off and put him inside her and don't let him out. It's a beautiful body already, but with Dave in it, it will be fuckable. No fair that all my friends are other guys. Dave can fucking well be my girlfriend instead. He got out of bed and headed for the bathroom, everything a little blurry because he had left his glasses there when puting on the 2800T.

The suit lay in the bathtub, half-floating in the stagnant water. He pulld the plug, let the tub empty, stepped in, drew the curtain, started the shower, and rinsed the suit inside and out. He hung it from a towel bar and took his usual shower, but instead of drying himself he took the suit down and slipped into it. It had conformed to him, and he fitted into it easily, almost naturally. After shutting the seal he began to force the suit against his body, hoping to make the changes happen as quickly as possible. He pressed the scalp and forehead, pushed and pinched the nose, rammed the heels of his hands against the cheeks and then the jaw-line, and almost strangled himself trying to squeeze the neck into womanly slenderness. By pushing with his legs he mashed the breasts between his chest and a wall, tried to encircle the waist with his hands, put the crotch to the corner of his bed and leaned on it, squeezed the arms and legs, kneaded the feet. When the voice-changing projection extended itself into his mouth he inhaled it eagerly, and as an experiment sang a few bars in a falsetto voice before breaking into coughing. With a sharp but very brief pain, something inside his larynx locked it into a very unfamilar but oddly comfortable position. He tried to speak but at first could not, then found himself able to say, "Oh, fuck, I thought I'd--" in a resonant and beautiful soprano, and then "Holy shit!"

Corey looked at the woman in the mirror. His efforts seemed to have been worthwhile: this time her face was already entirely feminine, her neck deliciously slender (though he felt on the verge of strangulation), her breasts high and firm, her waist almost girlish, her solid buttocks a part of his own flesh, her legs unquestionably a woman's. Corey's self looked out of her eyes, but otherwise she was someone else. "Oh, God," Corey made her say, feminine allure in her voice, "I can't wait until Dave gets like this," and he lowered her form to the toilet seat, sat, urinated like a woman, then defecated. Long, strong, but feminine fingers tore a few squares of toilet paper from the roll, wiped the urine off her pubic hair, and wiped a trace of feces from her pale brown skin, the skin that extended right to Corey's anal sphincter.

Now apparently a tall, beautiful, well-muscled young woman, Corey rummaged through the clothes he wore for exercising and sports. The box from New Selves had had only the sports bra, now snug over his fake breasts, and the pink running shoes, which even without socks were just slightly too small. "Oh, shit," said Corey aloud in the girlish wail that arouses the protective instincts of many men, "this'll take forever! Why the fuck didn't I figure out what she'd wear before I put her on?" But not fifteen minutes after wiping her buttocks, the woman Corey wore was dressed for jogging. Corey's white terrycloth sweatband looked good against her dusky forehead, the black tank-top that didn't fit him was perfect over her breasts, the black Spandex shorts Corey had worn once and put aside in shame fitted well even if they revealed the contours of her crotch, and Corey's short white socks and new white running shoes looked unisex and perfectly natural for her to wear.

Corey put his sports watch on his costumed wrist and noted the time: he had nearly ten more minutes, he figured. He untied his shoes, took out their white laces, and replaced them with the pink laces of the shoes from the New Selves box. He went out to the garage for the bag of his early-morning purchases, rummaging through it as he headed back to the bathroom. He found and applied a hint of eyeshadow, just a little darker and ruddier than his false skin, sweat-proof mascara, and some lightly-tinted lip gloss guaranteed not to smear. He dabbed perfume, a clone of "Shalimar," behind the false earlobes, at the wrists, and just above the sports bra. He went back to the living room, found in the jewelry box a pair of little earrings with pink cabochons -- rhodochrosite? -- put them through the holes in the lobes, fastened them.

Corey was about to leave when he remembered that he needed something to serve as a purse. A minute of rummaging in a closet turned up a fanny pack in bright red nylon, into which he stuffed money and his ATM card before fastening its strap around his waist, the pack to the front, and then unfastening it to tighten its strap. Fastened again, the strap was snug but comfortable, and Corey snatched up his keys and left, catching a glimpse of beautiful woman in the hall mirror on the way out.

Corey jogged down the street towards an entrance to the jogging trail, again entirely at ease looking and acting and dressing like a woman. His watch read 6:56. Shit, he thought, I didn't notice when I put her on. Figure 6:20, so it's home by maybe 9:30, 9:45 if I feel lucky -- do ya feel lucky, punk? do ya feel lucky, girl? -- and without Dave. Can't tell how warm it is except from the air I'm breathing. All cozy, wrapped in pretty girl. If I wasn't I'd be cold wearing this little. Shit, but it's comfortable in here. I'm in better shape than I thought. Wonder what happens when I sweat? Forgot the deodorant. Maybe the suit keeps in the stink. Maybe Dave will just smell the perfume and stare at my lovely fake tits. Does he like his women this big and tall? He used to date a volleyball player my height.

He got onto the trail and kept moving. A fiftyish man approached from the other direction, Corey's appearance making him stare, his lust thinly disguised with a friendly smile. "Good morning!" cried the man.

Corey batted his eyelashes -- the mascara made upper and lower cling just a little to each other -- and smiled saucily. "Good morning," he said, voice girlish and pert. A few yards further on, a thirtyish woman, lean and wiry, all but flat-chested, forced a smile to her plain, acne-scarred face as she approached. "Beautiful morning, isn't it?" said Corey, pity dripping from his false face and voice, and the woman scowled as they passed. "I'm such a bitch," whispered Corey to himself.

He quickened his pace as he passed the point where Dave usually got on the trail. After that point, Corey knew, the trail sloped upward onto a lightly-wooded hill and took a series of curves. On one curve was a bench where he could sit and watch Dave enter the trail. If Dave went the way Corey had come, Corey could run after him; if he went towards him, his usual way, Corey could jog slowly and let Dave meet him.

Corey was short of breath when he reached the bench, but comfortable. His disguise made his panting into erotic little feminine noises, and its hair and sweatband were sodden and its other clothes growing damp. He put its face to the smooth brown of its left armpit, with ease despite his constricted neck: just a slight musk, and the spiciness of the perfume. Its buttocks padded the bench as he sat, the image of a beautiful woman catching her breath, deliciously vulnerable in her exhaustion.

Dave got on the trail and headed towards him. With an adorable little sigh, Corey got up and started to jog onwards, rather slowly. In a few minutes he heard Dave approaching, and kept going, turning his beautiful-girl head to look back at Dave, a pleading expression on its face.

Dave looked surprised at first, then contented. "Are you all right, Miss?" he asked, all concern and helpfulness. They stopped and faced each other. Dave's eyes took in with delight every detail of the womanly form that concealed Corey.

"I didn't think I was so out of shape," said Corey, his wistful smile and panting breaths made adorable by his disguise. "I can barely handle a short jog now."

"You look like an athlete," said Dave, and looked politely at what masked Corey's wiry arms and legs, less so at what masked his buttocks and chest.

The beautiful face demanded the consolation of a strong man. "I was," said Corey, false brown eyes moist with false tears, a catch in his high voice, "but it's all gone now and I don't see how I'll get it back." The feminine personality was manipulating Dave with skill, and though Corey was frightened he kept calm and let it stay in charge.

Dave looked concerned, but, Corey thought, more than a bit lustful. Dave said, "Look, why don't you take it slowly for now? Don't worry, I'll keep you company."

Corey shook his girl head, shedding a few drops of the sweat that had filtered through its false scalp. "I couldn't have you do that!" he cried in a lovely soprano squeal. "You won't get enough exercise."

Dave smiled back and put out his right hand. With both the suit's sense of touch and his own, Corey felt Dave's hand caress his left shoulder. "Don't worry," said Dave, "one day off won't matter."

"All right," said Corey with a little oh-thank-you smile, and they proceeded slowly up the hill.

Around eight o'clock Corey's beautiful-woman face wore an exhausted look, and Dave said, "Had breakfast yet? As you might know, there's a little place near here with a juice bar."

Corey knew. "I'm new in town. I'd love some breakfast."

"Okay," said Dave. "Just a little further. Let's walk." They did. "My name's Dave, Dave Ellis."

Corey panted a few times while racking his brains for a name. Coral? Cora? "I'm Carol Lasalle," said a woman's voice from inside him, as if on its own. For a moment, Corey felt that it was telling the truth, that this was his -- her? -- real name.

"You have a lovely accent, Carol," said Dave, guiding Corey off the trail and to a sidewalk that had been hidden by shrubbery. "I can't place it."

"Really?" said Corey. "I've been trying to shake it. My parents moved from Jamaica to Chicago when I was a little girl." Corey had visited Jamaica twice, knew Chicago well, and told himself that he could fake things for long enough -- if not, he could pose as a mystery woman with a secret past. One way or another, Dave would stay interested and Corey would soon have him inside the suit, changing permanently into "Carol Lasalle."

"I suppose you wanted to fit in when you were in school," said Dave, leading Corey around a corner both knew well, "but now it's a crying shame to hide it."

"I guess if you put on a mask and keep it on," said Corey, "after a while it sticks and you can't take it off. I can't change it back."

Corey didn't catch the look of triumph in Dave's eyes. "Some people would be better off if their masks stuck to their faces," said Dave, "but when it comes to your accent it's a pity."

The restaurant with the juice bar, The Natural Place, was an old building once a small factory, big wooden beams cleaned and varnished and their steel fittings painted dove-gray, leaky skylights re-built, wooden chairs and tables on the concrete floor and on a second level of wood decking. Corey ordered an orange-and-yogurt drink and a blueberry muffin, Dave a giant-sized cafe latte and one each of two types of bran muffin. They sat and talked, Corey diverting the conversation to Dave, who loved talking about himself. After Dave's trip to the restroom, Corey had to explain his assumed surname (requiring the creation of a great-grandfather born on Martinique), but soon steered the conversation to a safe path.

Corey was very hungry, but he nursed the drink and muffin, having decided that to eat more would be out of character for Carol. "Are you sure you don't want anything else?" said Dave, just after ordering more, a cranberry-walnut muffin and a pitcher of water.

"No," said Corey in a polite-schoolgirl voice, "no thanks."

"You're a tall woman, Carol" said Dave, "and you're not at all fat. That's no kind of breakfast."

"I never eat much breakfast," said Corey, and looked at his watch. It was almost 9:15. "Oh, no!" he cried. "I forgot. I have to meet someone in fifteen minutes."

"On a Saturday morning?" asked Dave. Corey nodded his Carol head. "Can't it wait?"

"I wish it could," said Corey, Carol's voice full of apparent regret. "I'll get a taxi. What's my share of the bill?"

"Nothing," said Dave. "My treat. I'll even leave a good tip. I'd love to see you again, too."

Corey thought for a moment. "Is the Blue Parrot a good restaurant?" he asked Dave. "Someone told me it was, but like I said I'm new here."

Dave smiled. "One of my favorites."

"Sunday evening at seven? Meet you there?" asked Corey.

"Sure," said Dave, and took out his wallet and extracted a business card. "Home number on there, too. Let me know if something comes up." He did not ask for Carol's number or address.

"Okay," said Corey, and as he got up, Dave got up as well and kissed him on the brown material masking his left cheek, just under the false cheekbone, gently but firmly. Corey pressed Carol's lips against Dave's, if briefly. They said their goodbyes and Corey rushed out to catch a taxi.

Corey was lucky that morning, it seemed, because a taxi was waiting outside. "Do you have a fare already?" Corey asked the cabbie.

The cabbie, his skin a shade darker than the Carol suit, smiled broadly, enjoying Carol's shape. "Alice somebody," he said, "but she's kept me waiting ten minutes without showing up. Hop in, ma'am." Corey did, giving his own address, figuring that concealment mattered less than getting out of the suit in time.

"I don't think I've had a prettier woman in my cab in months," said the cabbie, after a few blocks.

"Why, thank you," said Corey, and giggled.

"You're a fashion model, right?"

Corey laughed prettily. "Heck, no. Too much meat on my bones. You don't think a fashion model can have this kind of figure and get jobs, do you?"

The cabbie laughed. "It's a great figure. I'd hire you any day."

The cab pulled into the driveway of Corey's condo, and Corey got out, handed the man the fare and a generous tip, and with Carol's lips gave him a little peck on his cheek. "You're trying to break my heart," he said as Corey waved good-bye and went to the door. He fished the key from his pack and fumbled with the lock, fingers numbed by their layer of Carol skin, as the cab drove off.

Inside, he checked his watch: 9:34. He stopped in front of the hall mirror and looked at his false face as he began to undress, and gave an adorable little gasp. There was no trace of Corey in the face. His own features were gone, the expression the face wore was entirely a woman's and a stranger's. Corey's self had gazed back so reassuringly at him three hours before, but now it had been replaced, it seemed, with a woman's. Carol Lasalle's self. He was becoming Carol Lasalle.

Corey panicked. He all but clawed at Carol's delicate-looking neck with Carol's delicate-looking hands, and after thirty seconds it opened. Only then did he tear off the sweatband from her forehead, pull off the tank top, fumble with and eventually remove the sports bra. He forced the slit to open down Carol's front to her crotch, and with her fingers took hold of her head and pulled. The voice-changer popped out, but Carol's face and scalp came off slowly, as if now unwilling to do without his flesh and bone underneath. The brown membranes of her eyes were wet on both sides by the time he had her head off, as if she wept at her own unmaking. Strangely, Corey's face was barely sore at all. Corey sighed with relief, a girl's sigh. He was about to scream when with a moment of pain something shifted in his throat. "Oh, God, don't let it--" he began, but the voice was his own.

Corey took off the rest of the clothes and then removed the rest of the suit. Naked, he took the suit to the bathroom and into the shower, washing it inside and out with some liquid "natural" soap with a faint mint scent. He let it hang from a towel rack and washed himself.

Once clean, he found himself reaching for the suit again. He hesitated for a moment, then took hold of it and dragged it into the tub stall with him and began to get into it. It was only his third time in the suit, but already he found it easy, almost natural to put on. After he sealed its neck, he firmly but gently pressed the suit against his body, proceeding downward slowly from scalp to feet. When he felt the voice-changer wriggle into his mouth, he promptly inhaled it and began talking in falsetto; again he felt the odd shift in his throat. "Hello, Carol," he said aloud in her beautiful soprano voice. "It's lovely to see you again. To be you again." Somehow he didn't feel foolish saying it.

Although his own body and the suit were both clean now, Corey took a shower as Carol, exactly as if he were really Carol Lasalle just back from jogging, rinsing off her sweat. Through the thinner parts of the Carol suit he could feel the temperature of the water. That faint sense of touch that the suit provided might as well have been absent: Corey's sensations were those of a man washing a suit he was enclosed in, not those of a woman washing herself. Yet he shampooed Carol's hair, soaped and scrubbed her skin, behaved just if he were really Carol. He shut off the water, stepped out, dried Carol the way a woman dries herself, and wrapped Carol's hair in a towel. Anyone watching Corey showering in the suit would have thought it all perfectly ordinary, noticed only a tall, very pretty woman taking a shower.

Corey, smiling, turned and looked into the mirror. Carol, naked but with her hair wrapped in a towel, smiled back, not a hint in her appearance or expression that she was a shell of a woman, an elaborate, exquisite mask with Corey inside, or had ever been anyone but herself. "Oh, shit," she said, revealing her true nature, "what in the fuck am I doing to myself? I'm a man, fuck it! I'm Corey Soler, not some part-nigger broad!" But Carol's voice, her expressions and poise, the lovely image in the mirror -- and something deeper inside her than the male body that made up most of her flesh and all of her bone -- gave the lie to the words. Inside Carol, Corey blushed, ashamed at what he had called-- herself?

"I'm not some kinda weirdo transvestite pervert!" said Corey, in the voice of a pleading Carol. "Dave's going to become this girl, not me!" None of it rang true. Corey paused and looked at Carol's beautiful reflection, and Carol herself seemed to take over. She smiled, slowly and shyly, all woman. "Hi, I'm Carol Lasalle," she said. "I wonder if Dave will fall in love with me."

Corey screamed Carol's scream and tore at her throat with her own fingernails. In moments an inch of slit opened. He forced the slit to open further, all the way down to her crotch, raising welts on his own skin with Carol's strong nails. The towel over Carol's wet hair came undone and fell to the floor. Corey pulled Carol's skin from his head, and the membranes that gave him Carol's perfect brown eyes popped out painfully, tears on both sides of them. Corey all but turned Carol inside out in husking himself, and he felt a wrenching pain in his throat as he lost Carol's voice.

What had made him Carol lay in a heap. He stood next to it, breathing hard. He put on his glasses, hung his head and looked straight at the floor. By some odd chance Carol's face, barely distorted, smiled back at him, mischievous and alluring.

"You fucking bitch," said Corey to the face. "You won't catch me. You'll catch Dave, and when he's you I'll fuck you till you bleed for doing this to me!" He plugged the tub and started running warm water into it, then grabbed the suit, one hand underneath the pile it formed and the other crushing the Carol face, and threw it in. Corey turned to face the mirror and barely stifled a scream when he saw his reflection, for it did not match the body-image established in his mind, the form that should have been repeated there. His true shape, the young woman with the high-cheekboned face and frizzy hair and firm breasts and trim waist and sleek legs clothed in perfect pale-brown skin, had been hideously transformed into-- a naked man wearing glasses. Transformed into Corey, in his usual form.

"Oh, shit!" he said aloud. It took most of a minute for Corey to become comfortable again with his own appearance: looking in the mirror was bad enough, but looking down and seeing his male chest and crotch was harder to him to deal with. Then he stamped out of the bathroom and got dressed in his own clothes, his usual Saturday T-shirt and jeans and deck shoes.

Corey ate an early lunch: frozen pizza, underbaked. As he finished he found himself thinking about Carol's date with Dave on Sunday night. She'll really have to bowl him over, he thought. I should be perfect: my hair and clothes just right, be a dream woman, someone Dave takes home and wants to fuck on a first date. I should go out and buy myself some really sexy clothes that show off my figure, some shoes that fit...get my hair done one way or another, straightened or properly curled, go to that makeup place in the mall and have them do a makeover on me--

"Shit!" said Corey, aloud. "That cunt's taking me over!" I'm thinking like her, he thought, starting to think as if I really am her, not me at all. If I keep putting her on, by Sunday night there won't be any me left, just Carol. Maybe I can put her on once, maybe twice, and still take her off, but sooner or later I'll think I'm supposed to be her, want to leave her on...and I'll be her. Shit. I gotta speed things up.

It was a little after noon. Corey went to his bedroom, stripped, and went to the bathroom, where the suit lay in the tub, looking almost like the prone body of a dead woman. How the fuck did I get into this? Corey asked himself. Why did I put that thing on at all? It hasn't been a day yet and I'm already in deep shit -- how come? It's not like I've ever really wanted to be a girl...okay, it's kinda fun to see what it's like, but it's not like I'm a fag or a sex-change case...I'm such a beautiful woman, I mean, she's so beautiful, I love being Carol-- ah, fuck that...put Dave in her, not me.

He looked in the mirror again. His reflection looked too angular, too pale, too ugly to belong there. He turned, stepped into the cold water in the tub, picked up the suit, put it into position, and slipped his left leg inside.

Part 3

Around one o'clock, Dave was cleaning his house when the phone rang. He wrung out his mop and picked up the receiver in the kitchen on the third ring. "Hello," he said.

"Dave?" It was Carol's voice.

"Yeah," said Dave. "Carol, is that you?"

"Uh-huh," said the person on the other end, perhaps more Carol now than Corey. "Dave, I forgot. I've got something I can't miss on Sunday night."

Dave sighed audibly. "Oh, that's too bad. I was really looking forward--"

"How about tonight instead?" Feminine allure.

"Well--" Dave began.

"Short notice, I know," said Corey in his best Carol purr, "but I really want to see you again, so why not sooner instead of later?"

"All right," said Dave.

"Blue Parrot, seven, tonight" said Corey. "I'll make reservations."

"You'll call back if you can't get them, right?" asked Dave.

Giggle. "Right. 'Bye, Dave."

"'Bye, Carol."

Corey hung up the phone -- Carol's delicate-looking brown fingers letting the receiver fall into place -- and laughed Carol's laugh. He meant to make the laugh malicious, but it wasn't. Anyone watching and listening would have noticed only a tall woman with perfect pale brown skin and endearingly frizzy hair and lovely voice, naked, talking pleasantly on the phone, then laughing afterwards in anticipation of a pleasant evening. Corey picked up the phone book, found the number of the Blue Parrot restaurant in the white pages, and called.

"Blue Parrot," said a man's voice. French accent, faint but artificial.

"Hello," said Carol's voice with more charm and Jamaican accent than usual. "I'd like reservations for two, for tonight, at seven. The name is Lasalle."

"Ah," said the man. "Let me see. Seven might be difficult--"

"Oh, please." Damsel in distress. "It's a special occasion. Just a little table for two."

After a few seconds, the man said, "Certainly. Yes, seven o'clock."

"Non-smoking?" asked Corey.

"We allow smoking only in a separate lounge, madamoiselle."

"Thank you so much," said Corey. "'Bye!" He hung up.

Corey put the touches on his plan for making Dave into Carol. He got into Carol, chose what she would wear that evening -- pretty much what he had put on her for going to the drugstore the night before -- and after putting the clothes on Carol, he made up her face lightly, with cosmetics supposed to be smudge-proof. Then he practiced undressing as Carol, taking her off, waiting ten minutes, putting her on again, and then dressing again once he had completely resumed her form. After the third try he could do it all in just over sixteen minutes if he simply brushed Carol's hair out afterwards. The secret, he found, was to stay calm and open the slit with a constant pull, working methodically from neck down to crotch. He noticed that even after all the practice, Carol's makeup seemed none the worse for wear.

After practicing, Corey stood at the bathroom mirror, gazing at the reflection of Carol. So beautiful, he thought, so fucking beautiful. He put a fuck-me smile on Carol's face, and his first reaction was that he was practicing something he shouldn't, that any face he wore shouldn't smile like that unless he meant it. Ah, fuck, he thought, I'm thinking like her again. Only a few more hours. With a beautiful sigh he began, slowly, to take Carol's clothes off her form. It was another ten minutes before he could bring himself to take off Carol herself. It took some searching through boxes and closets before he was finished preparing for the evening.

"I'm Ca--, uh, Corey Soler," said Corey to the desk clerk at the hotel next to the Blue Parrot. "I have a reservation." He set down a small suitcase with Carol's clothes in it, and an old duffel bag with Carol's skin wrapped in large damp towels.

The clerk was a tall bleached-blonde woman, thirtyish and a little shopworn. Somehow her masculine gray suit and blue bowtie, standard uniform for the hotel chain. made her look more feminine, even adorable. Corey found himself wishing that he had such a suit to wear -- for Carol to wear -- that night, and resolved to buy one for herself -- for Carol, once Carol had taken over Dave's body. "Yes, it's all in order," she said.

"You've got my credit card number already from over the phone, right?" said Corey.

"Yes, sir," said the clerk. "Now, if you'll fill out this form..."

"Of course," said Corey. He did and gave it to her, and she didn't seem to find it odd that Corey lived in town. Probably seen enough people renting rooms for affairs, he thought. Day rooms for lunchtime fucks, too, I bet.

"Your car's in our garage already?" asked the clerk. "I'll validate the ticket."

"Thanks." Corey fished it out of his shirt pocket and handed it over.

"Okay," the clerk said a few moments later, "here's the ticket, and here's your room key. Room five-twenty-eight. Take the nearest elevator, just at that end of the lobby." She gestured towards it. "Enjoy your stay, sir."

"Thanks," said Corey, taking ticket and key. "I will."

At twenty to seven, Corey was on the bed, wearing only his glasses, watching TV. Carol's clothes were laid out next to him, ready for her to put on, and her skin was softening in the warm water of the tub. His own clothes were in the overnight bag, and although the duffel bag had only the damp towels in it, it was zipped up and ready to take away. "Mission: Impossible" was on the set, and a female member of the team had just put on a mask and wig and disguised herself convincingly as a Japanese woman. "How do I look?" asked her voice in synch with the lips of the real Japanese actress playing the character she was impersonating. Corey fumbled for the remote control, shut off the set, got up, and went to the bathroom to get into Carol.

At about four to seven, Corey took a final look in the mirror before leaving. Carol's hair was up, showing off her lovely slender neck, but with a few endearing wisps falling in front of her ears. She looked to him as if she would be cold that evening, her arms and shoulders bare and her chest half-covered, but inside her Corey was warm. Corey dabbed perfume behind Carol's ears and at her wrists, put the room key in her purse, and left, exactly the Carol he wanted Dave to see that night. He took the elevator down to the level of the garage where he had parked, walked to the car next to his and pretended to check whether it was locked, and then went to another elevator that took him to the end of the hotel lobby nearest the Blue Parrot. Do just what you'd do if this was for real, he thought, making Carol smile knowlingly; that's the way to make these things work.

Dave, standing in the waiting area of the Blue Parrot and staring into space, was brought back to reality by the sound of legs wearing pantyhose brushing against each other. He looked up and saw Carol's face smiling at him, an expanse of flawless pale brown above a tiny strapless dress with almost no skirt to it, perfectly-shaped long legs in the black pantyhose that had made the noise. "Carol!" said Dave. "You look magnificent tonight!" The smile on the facebroadened, grew delightfully mischievous.

"Sorry I'm late," said Corey, making Carol's voice jocularly penitent. It was about six after seven, and they were in the waiting area of the Blue Parrot. Carol's lips pressed against Dave's left cheek, and Corey shocked himself by licking Dave for a split second with just the tip of his own tongue.

"No problem," said Dave. "Hardly what I'd call late, anyhow. I told the maitre-d' you'd made the reservations..." A waiter bowed to them and led them to a table, helped Corey position his fine Carol buttocks in a chair, gave them menus, and left.

"Sorry about the short notice," said Corey.

"Nothing to apologize about," said Dave. "Carol, you're truly a fascinating woman and I'd like to get to know you as soon as I can."

A giggle came from Carol's mouth, and the words, "Who knows? You might get to know me more intimately that you could ever imagine. Maybe sooner than you'd expected."

"You must be cold, Carol," said Dave. He and Corey had just left the Blue Parrot after an excellent dinner. Corey had remembered reading, in some woman's magazine that had been the only thing left to read in a doctor's waiting room, that men find a healthy appetite in a woman especially sexy. It had never struck Corey as true, but he had eaten little that day and was willing to try the suggestion, so an appetizer, good wine, a generous entree, and a rich dessert had all gone past Carol's pouty lips that evening and into Corey's stomach.

I could get used to this, thought Corey, what with Dave insisting on paying for all that. It's past nine-thirty, though. Have to take her off soon or I never will.

"I'm fine," said Corey, knowing that a real Carol would be shivering in the brisk evening breeze.

"Are you sure you don't want my jacket?" asked Dave.

Corey shook his Carol head. "The real question is, `My place or yours?'"

Dave smiled. "Whichever you like."

"Yours," said Corey.

"All right," said Dave. "Taking your own car? Let me tell you how to get there." He did, and sketched a crude map on the back of another business card. Of course Corey didn't need it, but he thanked Dave and with a delicate-looking brown hand slipped the card into Carol's purse.

"Look, I have to drop by my place to get a few things," Corey went on. "I might take maybe twenty minutes."

"No problem," said Dave. Corey had expected an objection. "I'll wait for you at my place."

"My car's in the hotel garage," said Corey, as they approached the hotel's main doors.

"I've parked down the street," said Dave. "So it's goodbye for now." They kissed, Dave's parted lips against Carol's, and Corey found himself, or rather Carol's self, putting his tongue into Dave's mouth as far she could, if briefly. They separated, Dave opened a lobby door for Carol, and with Carol's sleek legs Corey stepped through.

Back in Corey's room, Carol's hands undid her clothes quickly and neatly. In moments her skin was bare: Corey felt smug for having thought of practicing. His sports watch, set to stopwatch mode, was on the hotel dresser, ready to ensure he spent enough time as himself. With Carol's fingers Corey massaged her throat, slit open her front, and began to remove her. When she was just a suit again, he started the watch. He paced for a few minutes, went to the bathroom and urinated, and paced again, looking at the watch again and again. Out of caution he waited for twelve minutes instead of ten before he stopped the watch and slipped into Carol again with relief. He sealed himself inside her, pressed and prodded her into her best shape, put her clothes on her, and let down her hair and brushed it out. He took her lipstick from her purse and touched up her lips, picked up the bags, and left.

Corey went to the garage and soon found his car. He put the duffel bag into the trunk but took with him Carol's purse and the overnight bag with his own clothes, tossing them into the passenger seat. He drove down to the exit booth. "Ticket, please," said the attendant, a fiftyish black man.

Corey rummaged in Carol's purse with Carol's fingers. "Oh, dear," he said with a little sigh, "I don't seem--"

"Sorry, ma'am," said the attendant, "but--"

"No, wait!" said Corey. He unzipped the overnight bag and felt in it for his pants -- he was getting used to the gloved feeling of wearing Carol's skin -- and in a few seconds had extracted the ticket, a bit crumpled, from a pocket. "Here you are!"

The man seemed almost disappointed that the ticket had a hotel validation, but he smiled at the beautiful thing he thought a woman's face and said, "Thanks, ma'am. G'night."

It smiled back. "Good night."

Corey parked nearly a block from Dave's house -- it wouldn't do for Dave to see his car until Dave was no longer Dave. He took the overnight bag, got out, and walked. Even clothed in Carol's skin he soon felt the evening chill. He looked down at the bag. Not the sort of luggage a real Carol would want to use, he thought. Oh, well, it won't matter. Soon Carol's forefinger was pressing the doorbell button at Dave's front door.

Dave was there at once, and noticed the bag. "Planning on spending the night?" he said, as he welcomed in his dinner companion.

"You never know," said Corey, making Carol's voice seductive. "I forgot a jacket again -- it really is getting cold." He set down the bag in the front hallway.

"Something to drink?" asked Dave. "I'm kind of into ports and sherries these days. Or Madeira, if you'd like."

Corey didn't like sweet wines -- Dave had inflicted a few on him the previous week -- but as Carol he said, "Sherry would be lovely, Dave."

"There's a sideboard in the living room with decanters--" began Dave, and Carol's giggle was adorable. "Okay, so it's a stereotype. Half a glass of port for me, and get what you like. Sorry, I have to use the bathroom."

"Okay," said Corey, as Dave went off. Corey thought that the speech sounded affected, even rehearsed, but he put that down to Dave's occasional nervousness with beautiful women. Corey went to Dave's living room, took out two glasses from a cupboard in the sideboard, and took from Carol's purse the little vial that had caused him so much trouble to prepare that afternoon. He had stolen some chloral hydrate, long the key ingredient of a Mickey Finn, from a chemistry lab back in college, and it had taken him an hour to find it and make a little concentrated solution. He popped open the vial and poured its contents into one glass, then added port from a decanter. The other glass he filled nearly to the brim with a sherry paler than the one Dave had given him last week. He hoped it was a dry one.

Dave returned to see Carol's form sitting on his love seat, its long legs, womanly in their black pantyhose, crossed, its left hand holding Carol's glass of sweet sherry to its pouty lips. Its right hand gestured towards the side table where its wearer had put Dave's doped glass of port. Dave sat next to it, then picked up the glass. Man and false woman looked at each other with desire, each wanting, though in rather different ways, the other to be a real version of the imposter. "To us," said Carol's voice, the delicate-looking hand raising her glass of sherry.

"To us," Dave repeated, and they sipped their drinks. "Something's odd about this port," said Dave, and took another sip, more generous.

"What's wrong?" Carol's tones were those of the concerned woman. The hand wearing Carol's skin raised her glass to her lips and poured through them into Corey the rest of her drink.

Dave finished his glass, slowly. "Some sort of odd, bitter taste to it. It shouldn't be there. I just had some port yesterday from that decanter, and it was fine. I'll try a clean glass and have another taste."

"Good idea." False heartiness marred Carol's voice. "Here, let me try some too."

Dave took Carol's glass from the fingers holding it, and watched her lips form a smile. He went to the sideboard, got another glass, and filled it halfway with more port. He took a sip. "It tastes just fine now," he said, filling the other glass. "That's odd." He went over to the love seat, put his glass on an end table, let the Carol fingers take the other, and sat, his thigh brushing against the black pantyhose and the short skirt of the dress. "You know, you are a remarkably beautiful and desirable woman," said Dave.

A big sip of port went past the pouty lips. To the tongue inside, it tasted like cough syrup, but the self appreciated the alcohol just then. "Why, thanks," that self said in Carol's voice. "That's sweet of you."

"It's simply the truth," said Dave, "not a matter of being sweet."

"I'm big and tall enough to be a man." The Carol voice was pitched low, yet still sounded completely like a woman's. The brown fingers set down Carol's glass.

"Yet you're a woman," said Dave. "All woman. A beautiful, beautiful woman..." He caressed the Carol-skin under the stubborn chin, gazing into the brown Carol eyes. "Do you have any idea of how sexy that is? Tall, strong, sleek, but all woman."

"You're wonderful, too, Dave." Carol's fingers ruffled his hair.

Dave fell forward onto his lovely guest's lap, apparently unconscious. Feminine but strong arms took hold of his shoulders and pushed him away so that he sprawled over most of the love seat. Dave's guest got up and began to undress, quickly and methodically, enjoying the relief from taking off those tight sandals, the feel of the nylons on shaven legs, the caress of the dress' soft fabric slipping against skin, the bounce of breasts that accompanied unhooking and removing the bra, the feel against neck and chest of the locket and the links of its chain, of the earring wires being pulled through the little piercings in the ears--

"Fuck it!" shouted the beautiful naked girl, for she was no longer Corey, and she knew it. The suit was no longer a suit -- it was a skin, her skin! She touched the leather of a chair with her left hand: the double sensation, Corey's own sense of touch and the false skin's faint sense, had reversed: she was feeling with her own pale brown skin, with Carol's skin, and Corey's own skin was almost gone, absorbed!

"No! No!" cried the woman who had been Corey and was now Carol. "I can't have changed! I've got hours to go! I'm not Carol!" She knew she was lying to herself, yet she massaged her slender, womanly neck frenetically, though nothing happened except that slowly both neck and fingertips lost what remained of their double sense of touch as her skin became the normal skin of a woman. She kept trying until her fingertips were sore and welts were about to appear on the skin of her neck. Then she burst into tears and sank to the floor.

Carol sat sobbing on the floor of Dave's living room for some minutes. Eventually she stopped crying and got up. She finished her glass of port in a gulp. It tasted better than before: either the start of her change from a disguised Corey to a genuine Carol had altered her tastes already, or maybe she just needed a drink. She went to the sideboard, filled her glass to the brim with Madeira, and drained it -- not bad, she thought. Dry for a Madeira. Think I'll have another. She did.

After that, Carol put down her glass, and went, still naked, to the bathroom. Her appearance hadn't changed much with the onset of her metamorphosis -- the crying had had more effect -- but her neck and fingers and feet seemed more delicate now that she was becoming her real self instead of Corey in a 2800T suit. She caressed herself, enjoying her bare fingertips, felt on and feeling what was all her own skin. She smoothed back her hair, felt the bones of her face -- all real now -- and then hefted her breasts. As she did, the last feeling of numbness in them passed away: they were all hers now, and their nipples were at least as sensitive as Corey's had been. She massaged her abdomen and proceeded to her crotch, fingering her clitoris, now more sensitive than the glans of Corey's penis had been. She probed her vagina with a forefinger. She was not quite all woman there, but the inch or so of depth was already a great improvement over the moist patch of the disguised Corey. Her buttocks still had a patch of numbness inside, but her thighs and legs were apparently all her own, no longer Corey's covered with padding.

It looks like I'm stuck as Carol now, she thought, stepping back from the mirror for a fuller view of her new body. She wriggled in sheer delight at her own beauty. If when I was Corey, anyone'd told me I'd rather be a pretty woman, I'd have laughed, sneered. But this is so much better. Why? I don't know. It's just right for me, as if I should have been a woman, this woman, Carol Lasalle, all along. "I'm Carol Lasalle," said Carol, smiling at her reflection.

Carol went back to the living room. Dave was still in his drugged sleep. He had slipped mostly to the floor, and with difficulty Carol hauled him up onto the love seat, one arm under his head and the other under his knees. Her muscles were weaker, she knew, becoming a woman's. Corey would have had no trouble shifting Dave. She put her clothes on again. Everything fitted better, especially her sandals, and she liked the feel of her clothes on her real skin. She took her purse with her to the bathroom, where at the mirror she touched up her makeup. That was easier for her now that her skin was her own, not a mask over some man's body.

To the living room again. Dave showed no signs of waking. What now? She could leave, get into Corey's car, and drive to Corey's condo -- she couldn't think of them as her own, or of herself as ever having been Corey or indeed anyone but Carol. She had Corey's memories, but they seemed like someone else's, a store of information somehow put into her mind, perhaps useful but not necessarily relevant to her own life, her own self.

Carol looked down at Dave's drugged body, feeling pity and something more. I'm in love with him, she thought. I really am. I think I was in love with him when I was Corey, but as Corey I couldn't admit it. Now I'm a woman and I can. Will he love me too? Am I pretty enough? Is my body too big, too much like Corey's? Dave said he liked it, said it was sexy that my body is this way. Is my skin too dark? Maybe Dave really wants a natural blonde. I wish they'd sent the skin of a snuggly little blonde girl instead so I'd've been someone cute for Dave to cuddle. I can't tell Dave I used to be Corey. I need to set up a new identity as me, as Carol Lasalle, but I can't ask him to help me or it'll all come out. Maybe the New Selves people could help. Call them and say, hi, I'm a satisfied customer, so how about some help with a new identity to go with my new body? I'd like to be called Carol Lasalle. No, I don't want to be a man again, not ever, so don't try to change me back, okay?

Carol stooped over Dave, took his face in her hands, and kissed him tenderly on the mouth. "Oh, Dave, I love you so much," she said, caressing his cheeks with her delicate fingers. Dave didn't react but simply lay there breathing softly, still too drugged to wake, let alone take notice. Corey gave him too much chloral, she thought. Poor Dave. He'll be out for hours and hours.

Carol went to Dave's bedroom, took the woolen blanket from his double bed, brought it downstairs, and draped it over him. She tucked it around his neck and under his feet, kissed him again, and went off to his guest room. She remembered the emergency pills that had come with the suit, the wonderful suit that was making her herself. Corey had put them in her purse, planning to give them to Dave once Dave was in her skin, ensuring that Dave would become her. She giggled aloud at Corey's foolish idea, his silly plots. It's better this way, she thought. Dave could never be as me as me. She opened the purse, found the blister pack, popped out the gel-capsules, put them into her mouth, and chewed and swallowed them. Maybe they'll give me a real cunt by morning, she thought, and then Dave and I can make love. She took off her clothes, got into bed, and shut off the lamp on the nightstand. The beginning of her metamorphosis had worn her out, and in moments she was asleep.

Carol woke to the smell of breakfast: coffee, bacon and eggs, toast, and so on. She sat up in bed, all but baring her breasts, and saw Dave, unshaven and looking weary but contented, carrying a tray of food into the room. "Oh, Dave," she said, "you didn't have to do that."

Dave grinned and set the tray on the nightstand. "Well, it was the least I could do, Carol. I mean, in each decanter I put about fifty times the dose you'd get in those emergency gel-caps. Flavorless -- and harmless unless you're in a New Selves suit. Corey didn't have a chance."

Carol gasped. "You-- you--"

"Set Corey up," said Dave. "Of course I did. Friend transformed into loving and lovable girlfriend in a matter of hours. He nearly got me with the Mickey Finn -- serves me right."

"This is crazy, you know," said Carol. "I should be furious with you. You've robbed me of my body, my identity, made me not want them back, made me into...this." She pressed both hands to her chest. The feel of her own breasts reassured her. "But somehow it's all right. It's better than all right -- I'm so happy. I was never so happy when I was Corey."

"I hope the cab came in handy yesterday morning," said Dave.

Carol shook her head at Corey's naivete. "Corey really didn't have a chance against you," she said.

"Sorry to have made you into Carol without your permission," said Dave, "but I think it's a great improvement. Physically you're only about twenty years old, you're a hell of a lot prettier than Corey, and much less likely to be stuck at home alone on a Friday night. I needed a girlfriend, Corey doesn't any more now that he's you, Carol. Two birds with one stone."

"But I'll make you pay for this," said Carol. "I'll--"

"You'll do what?" asked Dave, stooping over her. "Be honest, Carol. What do you really want to do to me?"

"Seduce you," said Carol, seizing him, pulling him down to the bed, and crushing her lips against his.

They nibbled at the cold breakfast afterwards. They had enjoyed sex even though Carol's vagina had not yet grown enough to accomodate Dave's penis properly. "Dave," said Carol, "I am going to become a woman entirely, right?"

"The New Selves people say so," said Dave. "They've had nursing mothers who used to be men. Just a matter of a few months."

"Good," said Carol. "I'm going to love having a baby -- your baby, Dave -- and nursing it. You know, this is me. The real me. I really am Carol, Carol Lasalle. I never should have been Corey."

"It's all a cosmic mistake you can forget now, Carol. You're you at last, the woman you should have been. You're my darling Carol."

"I can't thank you enough for rescuing me," she said. "Trapped in that lonely, nerdy man, stuck with his mind in his body -- it was horrible! I might never have gotten out!"

"I knew you were in there, Carol, inside Corey, screaming to get out." said Dave. "I had to get you out of his body, his personality. Even then I loved you so much, but what could I do until Corey was out of the way?"

"I love you, Dave," said Carol. They kissed for a long time.

"Happy with your looks, babe?" asked Dave. "We can get you a new skin and try again."

"I like every part of me," said Carol, "or I will, once it's all finished. Dave, do you mind that I'm so big and tall? That I'm, well, strictly speaking, black?"

Dave chucked her under her chin, a chin less stubborn now that she had almost reached her true form externally and was no longer Corey in a costume. "Carol, you're the girl of my dreams. You're just who I've always wanted, in every detail, your hair and skin and size, your voice and cute accent, your body and soul."

"That settles it then," said Carol, and snuggled against him.

end of part 3, end of story