Author's note: For people who missed Part 8, either because they chose to skip it due to the content warning or because of the content filter, here's a brief, non-explicit synopsis: Quinn (boy) and Celia had sex; they both liked it. Celia used a not-yet-identified cream to trigger Quinn's sex-shift. They had more sex during and after Quinn's transition to girl-mode; they both liked that a lot. After sex, they slept together (in the literal, "losing consciousness" sense, not the euphemistic sense).

I wake up still in Celia’s embrace, her soft snore tickling my neck and her hand resting on my breast. I want nothing more than to stay in that embrace as long as she’d let me, but unfortunately and unsurprisingly, I’m famished.

I gently extract myself from Celia’s arms. She sighs but doesn’t stir. I briefly look for my clothes before recalling that only my underwear made it into the bedroom, and the jeans I wore yesterday are the only male clothes I own that aren’t comfortable for girl-me - my hips are changed just enough that they don’t sit right. I also don’t have female-coded clothes here - Celia drove, and I didn’t think I’d be transitioning back to a woman for a couple days yet. I need to start keeping an outfit or two here – oh shit, once I own my own female clothes!

I put my underwear on and stagger into the hallway to find my t-shirt. I don’t have a bra, and I wouldn’t fit into one of Celia’s, so my nipples are clearly visible through the thin fabric. I’m wearing the After Sex Girlfriend outfit, but with my own clothes. I’m not too worried about Nipple Peekaboo, though - it’s not like Celia hasn’t seen them, recently, and it’s her fault I have them right now anyway. The feel of my t-shirt’s fabric on my bare breasts sends a shiver through my body, and I recall the previous night’s activities in more detail. It’s a good recollection.

I head into the kitchen to find a solution for my post-transition hunger. I don’t know what I expected to find, but it was not a full fruit bar. There’s a handwritten note under a bowl of apples.

“Good morning, my lovely!

Feel free to satisfy regular or transition-induced munchies with any prepared food in the kitchen, including the fridge, but don’t you dare cook anything - I’m making us breakfast as soon as I wake up.

Love, C

P.S. I asked Doreen to help me pick some things out for you in case you needed different clothes this morning. The blue bag is for you; the pink bag is for us.”

I shake my head and smile. I’m rarely the smartest person in the room – unless I’m the only one there – but I’m completely unused to being behind every step of the way.

I want to check out the bags, but my hunger demands satisfaction first. I grab a banana and check the fridge. A Greek yogurt sounds like a good start, and… ooh, protein shakes! That might be a way to satisfy post-change hunger without a mountain of food!

As I settle in with my spoils, I think back. I’m not discounting that Celia may have set this up after I fell asleep, but I don’t think that’s the case - she’s clearly a planner. That means she would have had this whole smorgasbord organized… before she came to pick me up for the expo?

Wow.

After I eat, I first check the blue bag. It contains a shirt from Litographs – the moth design and a quick scan of the text confirms it as Kafka’s Metamorphosis – matching leggings with a book pattern, a package of women’s boyshorts, a soft racerback bra, and a pair of women’s sandals, all in my size. I think I recognize the pattern on the leggings as one that was on sale at the expo yesterday. There’s also a can of mousse with a sticky note on it in Celia’s handwriting that says “for my hot mess”.

When I open the pink bag, I blush. It contains some black lingerie of a sexy type I don’t know the name for and a small bottle with a second sticky note. This sticky note is in Doreen’s handwriting and reads, “For making a hot mess”. It’s erotic lubricant.

I feel a gentle kiss on the back of my neck. I squeak and drop the bag. I hear a whisper in my ear. “Good morning, my Aphrodite… or are you my Tiresias?”

My nipples harden under my t-shirt, but I smile and try to play coy in case she didn’t notice. “After last night, I’m pretty sure you’re my Aphrodite, love.”

She moves into my view. She’s wearing a pair of tight boxer shorts and an apron. Only a pair of tight boxer shorts and an apron. “Breakfast?”

Our breakfast conversation is probably the most unique post-coital dialogue ever, but to be fair to me, I had questions I was… prevented from asking when they… arose.

I start as she begins frying eggs. “So… how?”

She winks at me. “I have had a full post-pubescent life being pleasured as a woman and a full adulthood pleasuring them, babe. I don’t know why you thought your two days was anything more than a taste.”

I blush and roll my eyes a little. “Fair dad joke response. How did you know how to put me in a position to make use of that experience?”

She shrugs, which is incredibly attractive when viewed from behind and everything but her ass is naked. “I didn’t know, but after you told me about your sex-shifting, I started thinking about triggers. We don’t know why it started -“ she pauses and shakes her spatula at me - “at least you’d better not, because you didn’t tell me - but with no changes except explicitly sex-linked characteristics, I figured the trigger for each change was hormonal.”

I blink. I think I can see most of the puzzle, but I’m still missing important pieces. “And so you gave me…”

“Over-the-counter estrogen cream for menopause treatment.”

“And introducing the estrogen to my system topically kick-started the change, but starting out only where the cream had been applied - the full shift didn’t occur until you’d spread the cream across more of my body.”

She looks a little surprised. “That took you less time to figure out than it took me.”

It’s my turn to shrug. “You’re the one who recommended Left Hand of Darkness last week. The principle isn’t that different from kemmer-inducing chemicals. So that’s the how, now how about the why.”

Celia sighs. “Do you want the selfish reason or the non-selfish reason first?”

“I guess the non-selfish reason?”

Celia smiles at me. “You keep identifying yourself as ‘male’ when you’re a man and ‘female’ when you’re a woman, and I could tell you felt weird going out with me as a physical man yesterday when you’ve physically been a woman the other times you’ve seen me. I don’t want you to attach our sexual relationship to one gender or another or a particular body; I want you to know that I’m attracted to your whole self. Include both of your selves in our first time was a way I could do that.”

Damn I love this woman. I hold up the pink bag. “Is the selfish reason kink?”

She blushes, gasps, and squeals a little. “NO! Well, partly no. The pink bag, yes, shifting you in general, no, the order things were shifted, yeah a little.” She takes a deep breath and lets it out. “We’re both old enough to be sexually experienced, and we’ve both been engaged before. I have no expectations that you think anything we do is the first time for me, and until yesterday, I assumed the same of you. And I was fine with that – after thirty, people tend to have learned what they want and what they like. But your sex-shifting starting last week makes this new, and I liked the idea of having parts of you that were just mine, ones nobody else has had.”

My eyes are tearing up despite myself. “That is simultaneously incredibly sweet and slightly scary, C.”

She throws a dish towel at me. “No more hormones for you, young lady.”

I laugh. “So, Great Planner, did you have any plans for today?”

She smiles at me. “Well, we both have some new books we can read together, and we technically never finished the blind book date.”

“Well, I technically never finished reading Orlando, so I’ll have to offer a rain check on that or catch up today.” I pause, and then lift my breasts up with my hands. “Or, since I’m in a body that satisfies your bizarre and arbitrary rules system, you could give me a tour of the Sexy Librarian Sex Library.”

“Or…” she gives me a thirsty look. “We could drop the ‘library’ part of that and I can just give you some Sexy Librarian Sex?”

“After breakfast?”

She laughs. “After breakfast.”

I stand up and start looking for dishes to set the table with. “I don’t suppose you have an OTC testosterone cream as well?”

She gives me an apologetic smile. “Prescription-only, I’m afraid.”

“Damn.”

EPILOGUE

The final chapter in my story starts the same way as the first: I wake up a woman after going to bed a man. The rest of the details have changed a bit, though.

Today’s Celia’s day off. I get myself out of bed quietly so I don’t disturb her; she’s had a hard time sleeping and I want to let her get as much as possible.

I decide to dress moderate femme today, choosing the Kafka shirt as a reference to my own nocturnal metamorphosis, a pleated skirt, and low heels. I throw some mousse in my hair and apply some makeup from a line Doreen wants me to try.

Just before I head downstairs, I hear Celia groan from the bedroom. I tell her I’m running some errands and ask her if there’s anything she needs. “Just the usual,” she replies. I nod.

Downstairs, I slam three protein drinks before grabbing my purse and getting in the car. I check to make sure I haven’t forgotten my house keys.

My first stop of the day is the library. I wave to the librarian at the checkout desk – a friend of Celia’s named Jason – and head to the holds to pick up a book and a movie.

When I go to check out, Jason makes small talk. “I didn’t expect to see you here on Celia’s day off.”

I put my finger to my lips in a shushing gesture. “I’m here on a surprise mission. Tonight’s movie night.”

Jason moves his fingers across his mouth in a zipping motion. “It’s a good choice for a movie. Tilda Swinton’s amazing in this.” He looks at my second item, The Shepherd’s Crown by Terry Pratchett. “Oof, Quinn, are you ready for this? You know it’s the last one, right?”

I sigh and nod. “All good things need to end sometime. Besides, I hear Sir Terry closed out the series pretty strong.”

“He did.” Jason hands me my items, and I put them in my purse. I have a quick chat with the library’s event planner, then head back to my car.

My second stop is at the jeweler. She has the order Celia placed ready – a white gold band inset with white diamonds in an irregular pattern. “Can you please double-check the placement of the diamonds? I’d hate to make a mistake with it again.”

I check the pattern against the sheet I’d made – APHRODITE spelled out in Morse code – and nod. “Looks like a match to me.” I rub the matching band on my ring finger, this one spelling TIRESIAS, and ask the jeweler if the other ring I’d ordered is ready. It is. I pay for her work and leave.

My last stop is at the grocery store to get something to cook for dinner alongside other necessities. It doesn’t take long, but I’m interrupted by a text from Chuck in our “Guy’s Night Out” group chat: “Everyone ready for tomorrow?”

Oh, right, I need to duck out. I text back, “Sorry, boys, things went a little ‘tits up’ for me this weekend and I have to cancel.” I follow up with the “woman shrugging” emoji to emphasize the point.

Chuck replies, “You sure you’re not just getting yourself a piece of Celia’s sweet ass?”

I laugh and send back, “How dare you, sir, presume that Celia’s ass is the sweet one and not mine.”

The other guys in the chat reply with indications of amusement, and I switch to a different group chat, “Ladiez Night Out!!!!”: “Hey girls, Celia and I have date night tonight, but it looks like I’m in the right shape to join you if anything’s going down tomorrow.”

Doreen texts back with emojis of a microphone and a woman dancing – looks like we’re on for a karaoke club. I check out my groceries and head to the car.

I get home to find that Celia has relocated to the couch. “My spoils! I demand the spoils of my betrothed’s exploits!”

I laugh, and pull out three nondescript paper bags, labeled “I”, “B”, and “3”. The Spoils Game is recent, but not so new that I didn’t expect it or plan accordingly. “Very well, my love. Choose your first spoils wisely.”

“Hmm…. Bag B seems to be slightly damp, so it had better contain the first spoils I desire!”

I reach into the bag and pull out a spoon and a pint of Honey Graham Cracker ice cream. “Well guessed. Your first tribute has been paid. What do you wish for your second?”

She eyes the remaining bags as she begins devouring her ice cream. She gestures to Bag I with the spoon. “What honors have the Romans given me?”

I pull out the Aphrodite ring, go down on one knee, and give it to her. The proposal-style gesture is a bit meaningless – I already said yes two months ago – but she squeals, says yes, and puts the ring on. Like me, she can’t resist feeling the Morse code afterward.

She starts to ask for her third set of spoils, but I raise my hand. “The Romans have sent more tribute, my love.” I give her the second ring – a thinner gold band set with rubies, tapping a four-letter word in Morse.

Celia’s eyes dart back and forth as she compares the letters she knows with the ones she’s seeing for the first time. “Hmm…” She tries to sneak a look at my ring, but I’ve already covered it with my other hand, not that it would help her. “Two A’s, an I, something that’s not on my ring… probably a mythological reference… I don’t know, Maia?”

“Oh, so close.” It’s good to win at our games for once; I enjoy them, but I’m still generally outmatched. “But for the woman who will, in the future, birth my whole world, only GAIA will do.”

Celia’s eyes mist up. “Oh my God, thank you so much, I love it.” She wipes her eyes. “Do I even want to ask about the third bag of spoils?”

“Your final tribute for today is from someone who loves you more than Romans ever could – your betrothed herself. In honor of the one-year anniversary of our first date, and the ten-week anniversary of our betrothal, I wish to let you know that not only have I secured the library as the venue for our upcoming nuptials, but I am also now prepared for our second date.” I show her the DVD copy of Orlando I’d checked out.

Celia howls with laughter. “You finally finished the book? I thought you were going to keep stalling as a bit!”

She pulls me close to her for a kiss. I place my hand on her stomach, over the womb where our child is beginning to grow. It’s been a good year of changes.

We both snuggle in and I start the movie.