I take a deep breath. “Okay, how is this supposed to work?”

Marti shrugs. “I’m not entirely certain. Every person’s Change is different, and the first Change doesn’t always happen the way futures Changes do. They’ll probably resemble mine, but this isn’t an exact science and I don’t remember what my first Change felt like because baby, I was born this way.” Her voice trails from her normal speaking tone into pitch-perfect a capella Lady Gaga karaoke. “My MTF changes usually start with itchiness on the arms and legs, followed by pins and needles, so you might experience something similar?”

I scratch my arms absently. Nothing yet, and nothing to do about it but wait. Marti walks behind me and kisses, then sucks on, the small puncture wound she’d left in my shoulder. Damn, that feels good; the touch of her lips and tongue soothes the puncture’s sting. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was trying to get me into the bedroom, but with her Change minutes away, she can’t be doing anything but torturing me. “Are you just trying to get a rise out of me?”

She gives me a teasing grin and moves around my chair to straddle me, wrapping her arms around my neck and kissing me on the lips. “You know I get horny right before I Change. Besides, that awful poke that someone put in your shoulder looked like it needed a kiss to make it all better.” Holding her position on my lap steady with her legs, she lets go of my neck and removes her shirt and bra. She stretches, showing off the perky breasts that I’ve seen a hundred times but never get tired of. “Last chance to look at these before they go away and you’ll only have your own to gape at,” she taunts, patting my naked chest before she stands up. I grin, knowing she’s caught me staring, but I don’t stop – she told me months ago that if she wanted me to stop looking at her naked body, she’d tell me explicitly.

Marti not-so-accidentally brushes her hand against my pants, directly against my hardening penis. “Should I have given him a kiss goodbye?” My throat lets out the groan that signals that she’s successfully blurred the line between pleasure and punishment. She winks at me. “Maybe next month, it can be your pre-tits titillation.” Laughing, she sits on the couch. She’s still holding her shirt and bra and is wearing only the loosely-fitting “Change pants” she’d put on before biting me, her incomplete preparation serving as further proof that her performance on my lap was intended to be equal parts “strip” and “tease”. I bite my lip in restraint and remind myself that turnabout is fair play; if this works, I’ll have to remember to elicit some groans of my own three days from now.

Her Change is starting. The growth of hair on her arms is subtle enough that most people wouldn’t notice it, but after a year of dating, I’ve learned both where to look and what Marti’s expression looks like when the discomfort of her body changing into his body begins. I, however, feel nothing.

Come on, come on, we timed this so we could be on the same schedule, don’t fuck it up. I take a deep breath and try to calm myself, to push out my unhelpful, negative thoughts. Of course, that just brings up memories of the negative, unhelpful argument from yesterday…

——-

“Are you completely out of your fucking mind?”

I’m not going to lie, I didn’t expect Alex or Ellie to like my idea, but I didn’t expect Alex’s reaction to be that strong. Ellie’s, maybe, but not Alex’s.

I opened my mouth to defend myself, but Marti got there first. “What’s the part you object to, Alex? The part where I get to have someone who’s in sync with me all month, or the part where it isn’t you?” Oof, that’s a low blow, driven at least partly by jealousy, and we had to talk about that before I made my final commitment.

Doreen stepped in, waving her arms like a referee. “Okay, I get that this is an emotional choice. But let’s remember that we’re here to support and advise Chuck and keep our focus on that.” She looked pointedly at Marti and Alex, who in turn looked past her to glare at each other. Ah, exes who remain in the same friend circle, may your lingering traumas never fail to continue making personal relationships complicated forever.

Our little “council” was called by Marti after I first suggested that maybe we should take the step to date full time. “Full time”, in this context meaning that I’d be voluntarily accepting her “weregender” affliction that turns her into a man every month for three days. In my case, it would work in reverse – I’d stay a man for most of the month and turn into a woman for the same three days that Marti is Marty.

This arrangement is highly unusual; Marti wasn’t sure if it had ever been done. There are some examples of people choosing to switch sexes and/or genders into stable forms with wishes, science, or body hopping or swapping, but most people with nonpermanent sexes or genders, like shapeshifters and weres, are either born that way, cursed, or afflicted.

So, Marti decided that before she afflicted me – by biting me hard enough to draw blood while Changed or on the day of her Change – we should seek the counsel of other close friends. This included three people:

-Alex, the other weregender in our clique and Marti’s ex. We’d invited him in case he could think of possible complications we hadn’t.

-Ellie, a recent involuntary Swap who is currently dating Alex. She was invited because Alex insisted, and we expected her to be resistant to the idea due to the challenges she had in her own transition.

-Doreen, a woman who I royally pissed off a few years ago with a lesbian joke in bad taste, has never really forgiven me, and is for some reason I haven’t been able to deduce the “queen bee” of our friend group. Marti trusts her as a neutral interest with good insight. I’m not sure if I can trust her to trust me.

“I know I’m only here because Alex is, but I have a thought.” Ellie’s voice, coming from behind Alex, had never sounded so small. “Chuck’s been dating Marti for a year, and was around Quinn and Celia since their first date, so he has a bit more knowledge of what he’s getting into than the average Chaser who wants to join our weird little group.” She looked at her boyfriend, or at least her boyfriend for the next six hours or so, and built up more resolve. “If Chuck can tell you why he wants this, even if you don’t agree with his reasoning, maybe we need to accept that he knows himself and that he can’t enter into this without both his and Marti’s consent.”

Alex gaped at Ellie; clearly he had counted on Ellie’s support in this. “Fine. Chuck, do you at least know the risks?”

“Apart from the obvious ‘this isn’t reversible so you’re stuck with it if we break up,’ which I assure you Marti made certain I knew, I also know not everyone’s Changes are consistent. It’s likely that my changes will manifest the way Marti’s do, but I’m taking a risk of mental and emotional changes, both in moonlight and in sunlight, up to and including total identity death while I’m Changed or possibly beyond. Trust me, Doreen gave me all the ‘There Is No Completely Safe Sex With Werepeople’ pamphlets, as well as the advanced course. No offense, but you and Ellie weren’t the first ones we told. Marti trusts you completely, but I’ve known Doreen since before I knew any of this existed and I thought she was a normal twenty-something college girl.”

“Ugh, as if,” Doreen said in her best imitation of Cher from Clueless, and that got a chuckle from most of us and even a smile from Alex.

“Okay, babe. Tell us why you want this,” Marti prompted.

I took a second to collect my thoughts. I knew why I wanted this, but I wanted to make it clear to everyone, especially with my and Doreen’s history. “I don’t want to start Changing - not because I think there’s anything wrong with Changing or with being a woman, but because I know it will make my life more complicated. Scheduling my life outside our community, wardrobe, learning the skills and risks that every normie woman learns in childhood… those are all going to be hard.” I took a deep breath. “But the reason I want this is because I love Marti. I want her to live a complete life, and right now she’s only living ninety percent of one. We get along well enough when Marty makes his monthly visit, but we both know it isn’t love - for either of us. I know Changing won’t guarantee that - I might not be interested in men, or just might not be interested in Marty - but it’s important enough to me that he gets a chance for love that I want to take this risk for him.”

——

Of course, remembering the conversation causes my anxieties about this to re-emerge. What if I end up a lesbian and ruin Marti and I? What if I end up with major dysphoria three days a month for the rest of my life? What are my brothers going to say when we eventually tell them? What if I’m ugly? What if I have mental and emotional changes and I end up a huge weirdo? What if I’ve make a huge mistake?

I’m pulled from my “what ifs” by a sharp and unfamiliar ache in my elbows. I look over at Marty, most of the way through his Change, and we make eye contact. He nods, and we don’t need to put voice to what we understand. It’s starting.

I look up and down my body, but nothing’s changing except my arms, where I’m noticing my hair thinning. I rub my hands up and down them; they haven’t felt this smooth since I was ten. As I do, I notice the skin rippling on my hands, the wear of years working in dishwater, at a stove, or behind a bar fading from them. Whoever I’m becoming, she must have a better skin care routine than me. The dirt falls off my nails as their shape changes in a way that doesn’t accommodate it, and I’m a little mesmerized when I wiggle my feminine fingers.

The opportunity for reverie doesn’t last, though, as the ache spreads to my shoulders, up my neck, and down my spine and chest. I feel hairs recede, but my focus is on my chest, where my nipples have hardened and darkened. I reach up and give them an experimental poke, and a shock of sensation spreads throughout my body. I can feel and see my engorging areolas move out from my body as my breasts come in. I can’t resist - well, don’t resist - grabbing them to see how they feel. Honestly, I expect to feel more, but maybe the nerves haven’t fully developed, or I’ve spoiled myself by starting with my nipples.

I notice a tickle on my shoulders and back and reach behind me to find that my hair has grown much longer. I touch my face and notice that my lips are fuller, my nose smaller, my bone structure slightly different.

I hear something of a strangled noise of excitement, which reminds me that Marty’s in the room. I look over at him, and he throws me Marti’s shirt. I feel the heat of my first feminine blush and put the shirt on. It fits over my shifting torso snugly but comfortably, telling me I’ve slimmed down significantly – no shirt of Marti’s ever would have fit on me before.

By this time, the ache has moved below my waist. I feel my hips widen, and almost as though my hips had made room for it, I feel my male genitals recede into me to form ovaries, a uterus, and a vaginal cavity. I expected some sort of surge of feminine pleasure from this, but maybe I’ve been reading too many romance novels - it doesn’t feel great, or even good, just different.

At this point, the changes to my legs are nothing to write home about - slimmed down, shorter, no hair, just a slightly different iteration on what’s already happened to my body. After I see a particularly gnarly toe knuckle wither into something much cuter, I feel done. I wiggle my toes and stretch my neck, testing my other extremities for any sign of the ache I felt. Nothing.

I lift my head to look at Marty, and I immediately experience the unfamiliar sensation of hair in my eyes. I push it out of the way to see him trying and failing not to stare. He suggests, with some effort, that I go look at myself in the full-length mirror in the bedroom. I smile, nod eagerly, and jump out of my seat to walk there.

Or at least I intend to walk there. Instead, I bounce to the bedroom like my legs are uncoiling springs, and I feel a burst of playful energy that I haven’t felt in… ever. I can feel Marty’s eyes on my ass as I walk, and I realize I owe all women, ever, an apology for assuming they’d been saying that as a metaphor for decades. Despite this, it doesn’t feel bad. I wiggle my ass at Marty a little as I walk, and I’m rewarded with a snort of laughter as I close the bedroom door.

In the mirror, I see a lovely vision of a woman. Her wavy blond locks demonstrate why women have been proclaiming their jealousy of my hair my whole life, and they frame a well-maintained and cute face. Her shirt shows off some attractive cleavage and barely obscures her ample nipples, and her arms, legs, and curves fit in all the right places and present a complete package that more than dismisses my anxieties about my post-Change looks. I smile at my reflection, and she smiles back. We give each other a little wave.

I frown at the outfit she’s wearing, and she frowns with me. Marti’s shirt and my own too-large pants won’t do. I open Marti’s closet to try to find something that will fit me. I know I’m still slightly taller than her, but since her shirt covered me well, I think we’re mostly the same size. I briefly consider panties and a bra, but wearing someone else’s undergarments squicks me out, even if Marty definitely won’t be needing them when I do. Instead, I grab a pair of my briefs, which don’t fit perfectly, but also aren’t going to fall off. Looking back at the closet, none of Marti’s clothes look quite right. Apparently this woman I've become is a bit of a picky dresser.

Then, I see it. A dress Marti had bought to wear on a distillery tour we took a couple months ago. It’s green and patterned with various alcoholic spirits, and at the time it made me jealous of the variety of patterns available to women that don’t seem as available to men who don’t sew their own. It’s smooth on the top with a deep neckline and a flared skirt. As I run my fingers down the dress’s seams, I smile as I recall Marti using the less interesting parts of the tour to drive me mad with lust, twirling her skirt by just slightly twisting her hips. I’d sworn to pay her back for that, and she’d taunted me by saying I didn’t have anything nearly as nice to tease her with. I pull the dress out, wondering how hard that little hip-twirling trick is. I hold it up to my body in the mirror; we’ll see who can tease who. The woman in the mirror flashes me a wicked grin, and I can tell that she’s one hundred percent on board with this turnabout.

Okay, time to see what’s going on “under the hood”.

I start taking off Marti’s shirt and my pants, keeping my eyes on the woman in the mirror. Once she’s fully undressed, I give her – my – nude body a once-over, turning her body to get the best possible look from different angles. I give off a low whistle. She’s not perfect, but pretty – I’d guess an 8 out of 10? She’s tall and curvy, with a little bit of extra oomph to her hips. Her breasts – my breasts – are full but not large enough to be uncomfortable if I wear a bra. Her hair is completely unfair to other women, resting in a gentle wave on my shoulders without a hint of tangle or frizz. I notice that the wound from Marti’s bite earlier in the day is gone, and I make a mental note to ask about that later.

I try the dress on. I’m pleasantly surprised – for being someone else’s clothes, it hugs my new curves in a way that’s very flattering. I can see the shape of my nipples through the fabric, but that’s the price of not wearing a bra. I twist my hip slightly, surprised at how easy the unfamiliar movement comes to me. The skirt twirls in exactly the way Marti teased me on the tour. I really like how it feels; I add “twirly dresses” right under “underwear” in my mental Girl Shopping List.

Marti and I had talked about what name I would use after I Changed without reaching a conclusion. Upon my first meeting with the woman I’ve become, however, she tells me her own name.

I wave again at my reflection and test out my new voice. “Hey there, Charlie.”