Venned Denmates 2
a
Trust Machines story
by
clancy688
If someone would have told me a couple of months ago that I'd spend the coming spring weekends as a hermaphrodite, cat-like centaur, I probably would have declared him or her insane. Yet here I was. It's funny how fast your preconceptions can shift.
"Penny for your thoughts." A sweet voice giggled, followed by a playful lick of my tufty ears.
I smiled, caressing my mate's fluffy back with a hand. "Just thinking about how my life has changed since your birthday." I replied.
"To the better, I hope?" Snowblossom inquired coyly.
I opened my muzzle to answer, but Black Trickster's voice interrupted me. "Careful what you say now, kiddo." The skunktaur, perched on the picnic blanket to our left, quipped. "This is a trick question! If you say no, shi is going to be devastated. If you say yes, shi is going to be furious with you since you just implied that shi'd made you miserable before!"
"Whaaaaa, how dare you?" In mock rage, my mate threw a banana at hir. Within moments the two of them were bouncing through the park, engaging in the ancient play of tag and drawing plenty of laughs from our group.
"You got a lively mate there." Nathan's deep voice rumbled, and I momentarily flushed as the big, hunky wolf morph spoke up. I was still trying to come to grips with my new (part-time) body's hermaphrodite nature, and one of the things which still freaked me out from time to time was that in this shape I was attracted to males as well.
Quickly after Samantha's birthday - or rather Snowblossom's, which was my girlfriend's, now denmate's, Chakat name, shi had started introducing me to hir Venned friends. I had been surprised that only a small part of hir furry companions had chosen Chakat bodies - I'd already known about Ilona's skunktaur Black Trickster and Jennifer's Siberian tiger striped Blizzard, but some others had startled me a bit.
Like Benjamin, a real hunk of a man in real life, who'd turned into a foxy vixen by the name of Lizzy. Or Samantha's best friend Emily, now aforementioned, very male and very hunky Nathan. Contrary to what I'd thought, Chakats made up only a small part of the vibrant community Snowblossom had introduced me into, but from what I'd gathered, they formed its emotional and sensual core, remaining faithful to their fictional promiscuous nature.
I sighed at the thought. From what I'd learned, most Chakats in our little community regularly shared their bed with more than one denmate, and I knew for a fact that Black Trickster, Blizzard and Snowblossom had formed a ménage à trois before I'd stepped into Samantha's life.
My eyes followed hir Chakat form cavorting through the park exuberantly. Shi hadn't asked me about sharing our bed with someone else yet, but I was sure that it was just a matter of time until shi would. It's just... some part of me was still foolishly clinging to my human ideals of love being a bond between two people, not many. I simply wasn't ready for polygamous love yet.
I was still pondering this when Black Trickster and Snowblossom trotted back, and I felt my stomach flutter for a moment as I took in the shape of my mate. As a human, shi had already been easy on the eyes, but as a Chakat, shi was simply breathtaking. Especially now, with hir grey, black-spotted pelt being dotted by hundreds of pink cherry blossoms which had fallen on hir fur.
"You're so beautiful, my love." I breathed, making Snowblossom smile.
Instead of a verbal answer, the other Chakat knelt down, took my face into hir hands and gave me a long, sensual kiss-lick. Then she pulled me on my paws. "There's something I want to talk to you about, can you come with me for a moment?"
"Uh... okay?" Unsure of what was to come, I followed hir. Suddenly, my earlier thoughts returned. Was shi about to propose that we extend our relationship to others? Already? I kept brooding while shi led me to a secluded spot behind a big cherry tree.
"I wanted to ask you about spending more time as Chakats." Shi opened up without prelude.
"I don't think I'm ready for-" I responded automatically, and only then I noticed that shi'd said something else. "-wait, what?"
Snowblossom looked confused. "You're not ready for what?"
"Uhhhh... nevermind." I quickly back pedaled. "But you were saying that you wanted to spend more time as Chakats? Not just the weekends, but... more?"
My mate nodded. "Yes. You know that I'm way more comfortable as a Chakat, and I feel that it's the same for you."
"Yeah." The answer came automatically, I simply couldn't reply anything else without lying. Shi was definitely right there. As a Chakat, I was more relaxed and happy. "But what about our jobs?" I inquired. "We have to be human to work."
"Huh? What? We totally don't. Didn't you read the intranet at work?"
I raised an eyebrow inquiringly. "The intranet? It's been months since I've been reading the intranet, there's so much stuff to do..."
Snowblossom sighed. "Well, that's what you get for being in the engineering department. Work upon work. Thank God I ended up in administration. The biggest hazard we're facing is boredom. I doubt you engineers even know the meaning of that word!"
An involuntary giggle escaped my muzzle. Yep, right on the money. 'Boredom', can you spell that for me, please? Samantha and me were working in the same company, in fact that was how we'd met each other. It was a bit on the smallish side and the wages weren't the best, but a lot of fun to work for due to the down-to-earth management and friendly colleagues. "So I guess there's an important announcement I somehow managed to overlook?" I asked.
The other Chakat snorted. "Amen to that. You're aware of our recruiting problems?"
I nodded. We were only a small company, a small sub contractor for the big corporation which dominated our hometown. Due to our smallish size, we weren't able to pay the same salaries the big guys did, so our management tried to offset this with creating a pleasant working environment. It worked, to a degree, but it was still painfully normal for coworkers to succumb to the allurement of the bigger paychecks and resign, leaving behind a gaping hole upon their departure.
"So, someone had the idea to allow people to appear Venned at work." My mate continued, making me yelp in surprise. "The unions would scream bloody murder at such a proposal, but luckily we're small enough to not have any."
"Appear to work Venned?" I asked, not quite able to believe what I'd heard. So now management had devised yet another way to inspire people working for us, without having to raise salaries? If we'd be only half as innovative about new tech, we'd be the next Google for sure... "But surely there are restrictions?"
Snowblossom shrugged. "Of course, but they are way more easygoing than I'd have thought. You basically just have to be be of human size, be able to still do your job like in your regular body, and not freak anyone out by being... a monster or whatever."
I had to laugh at the last statement. "Yet another thing which will infuriate the Xenomorphs."
My mate blinked at me. "The what?"
"Nevermind, just a group of crazy hardcore Venners I read about once on the internet. Still..." I contemplated what shi'd said. "Are Chakats really okay?" I showed hir my clawed hands. "I wouldn't be prepared to declare that I can type just as well with these as with human hands. And what about phones?" Both of us had tried using a phone as a Chakat. While it was possible, it was definitely cumbersome - our heads were simply to differently shaped from human ones, and either the speaker or the mic always ended up at a less than optimal spot.
"Keyboards are not a problem." Shi shrugged. "Apparently, some people have already sensed a gap in the market and are producing keyboards which are more suited to thicker, clawed fingers. The same goes for the headsets."
I was still skeptical. "And management is prepared to spend money on this?"
Shi rolled her eyes. "Come on, Copperqueen. You know how expensive the stuff you're using is. A single worker in the engineering department holds software licenses worth in excess of five digits. Heck, your code generator licenses alone are twenty grand a piece! Spending a couple of hundred bucks on keyboards and headsets per employee is peanuts. Yes, they are grumbling about the expense, but they'll do it."
I chuckled ruefully. "I guess you're right there. But if I'd go to work as a Chakat..." Suddenly I had a queasy feeling in my stomach. "...then all my colleagues would suddenly see me as a furry chick... essentially." I swallowed. "I'm not sure if I'm prepared for that."
Snowblossom nodded solemnly and hugged me, giving me comfort by hir close presence. "I totally can understand where you're going. In fact, I have similar... fears." Shi took a deep breath. "I don't think that we have any bigots in our company. Our diversity alone makes that unlikely."
I nodded, aware of what she was talking about. We had lots of foreign coworkers, especially in the engineering departments, people from other countries who'd come here to work. If I'd have to take a guess, I'd say that one out of two colleagues was a foreigner, and there were entire offices which held more foreign colleagues than domestic ones. Additionally, our HR department was hellbent on only bringing people compatible to our internal culture into the company: Even if an applicant had top marks and perfect qualifications, if HR got the impression that he was an ass, he'd be turned down without a second thought.
"It's still one hell of a step." I said. "I haven't told anyone about me moonlighting as a hermaphrodite felitaur over the weekends, I doubt that you have either, right?"
The snow leopard Chakat simply shook her head.
"I thought so." But then another thought struck me. "And I guess you're asking me because... you want to do this together?" No... the instant I'd said this, I realized that we had to do this together. If shi'd be a Chakat and I wouldn't... I wasn't sure if our relationship would be able to survive. Chakats needed each other, needed physical intimacy with their own species. If Snowblossom and hir friends had gotten the forms right, then one of us staying human would mean guaranteed misery for at least one of us, probably both.
"And I guess you would like to take the step, become a Chakat fulltime?" I asked softly.
Snowblossom nodded jerkily, staying silent otherwise and nibbling on hir lower lip nervously. Shi looked incredibly tense suddenly, so shi was just as aware as me that we were at a crossroads of sorts.
Silence elapsed. Finally I gathered her into a hug, squeezing her fondly. "That's a big decision, you know." I told her earnestly. "And I need to think about this for a bit." I looked her in the eyes. "Is that okay for you?"
I swear, I could have seen tears glistering in hir eyes, but hir voice was joyous as shi responded. "Oh Copperqueen, that's all I was hoping for. I was so afraid that you'd immediately say no, but..." Shi hugged me back, and for a few minutes, we simply enjoyed being this close to each other.
"So when will this start? The allowance to turn up Venned at work?" I asked as we went back to the others, hand in hand, the cool, fresh grass below our paws feeling like soft velvet.
"In May." Snowblossom responded.
"In May, huh..." May was in two weeks. "Alright." I decided. "I'll tell you about my decision in a week. Is this okay?"
Instead of an answer, shi fell around my neck, kiss-licking my muzzle intensely.
Needless to say that we didn't make it back to our friends in time. Thank God we still were deep in the bushes, hidden from the other park visitors' sights.
***************************************
That had been two weeks ago. In the end, it had been an easy decision. I'd follow my mate, period, even if that meant to shed my humanity for the foreseeable future. Not that I had any problems with becoming a Chakat, mind you. Quite the opposite.
There was only one thing which was strange right now. Somehow, our roles seemed to have reversed over the last few days.
"Tell me, who of you two had the idea of becoming fulltime Chakats again?" Ilona asked amused while she closed her car's loading flap. "Because it sure as hell can't be Snowblossom, giving how terse shi is."
Our friend had volunteered to drive us to work for the first few days, which had been one of the things Snowblossom had neglected to take into account when shi'd decided on our transition. Cars weren't built with furry felitaurs as drivers in mind, so in addition to a transportation problem, we suddenly had a useless piece of scrap metal sitting in our parking space.
"Stop teasing me, I'm nervous enough as it is!" Shi wailed now, cowering behind me. "What if I was wrong and they don't like furries? What if one of them has an allergy against cats and-"
I tried my best to calm my mate down, but Ilona simply tapped her forehead at hir. "Don't mind hir, shi's always been a wuss. Just throw hir into the water and shi'll swim. You'll see."
"Stop that, you're mean!" Shi protested, prompting Ilona to stick out her tongue.
"Seriously, Snowblossom. Stop mewling and don't worry. I bet your colleagues are understanding." She patted hir head. "You have no idea how much I envy you two. Too bad my employer isn't as modern and forthcoming as yours." Our friend added wishfully. "Well then, gotta go. Tail high!"
Without further ado, Ilona stepped back into her car and drove away, leaving me and my pouting mate behind. Well, at least the short exchange seemed to have taken a bit of hir tension away, which was good. I squeezed hir shoulder reassuringly and gave her a supportive lick.
"Come on, wanna go then? I for myself am dying to show my coworkers my new shape."
Snowblossom took the hand I'd offered and squeezed it tersely, but nodded nonetheless. Together we started walking towards the entrance. Shi was too focused to notice, but I had to suppress a chuckle as I caught our reflection in the window front next to us. Especially since it showed the rare sight of a pair of clothed Chakats.
Usually, we'd spend almost all of our Chakat time nude, but this wasn't an option for a serious office environment. There was nothing we could do about our feline lower halves, but at least our boobs needed to be covered. So both of us had opted for a plain standard top which kept our breasts hidden and a smart woman's dress jacket over it. We had actually spent much of the previous Saturday shopping for clothes and getting our hair done professionally, and to my surprise, I'd very much enjoyed it.
I smiled at the fond memory. The female clerks in the clothing stores had been delighted at the opportunity to combine tops and jackets with the color of our respective fur coats, and the hairstylist had even whooped in joy as she'd been allowed to work on our manes.
The rest of our equipment wasn't human-made, though: A pair of saddlebags which were strapped around our lower bodies' backs and essentially served as backpacks. We'd added them when we had Venned a few days ago, so they were good for three years.
At first, the thought of instantly going for the maximum possible amount of time in our Venned shapes had troubled me a bit, but Ilona had swiftly quenched my doubts. "You're not going to become something inanimate or an animal, something which basically is at somebody's mercy if it wants to turn back. You'll be an independent being, fully capable of getting back into a Venn Machine whenever you want. So why not go for the max? If you decide to stay Venned for longer than you'd expected, you'll have no problems." She had said, and I'd been forced to agree to her logic.
The familiar whirring of the opening of the automatic door took me back into reality and just for a moment, I felt like turning around, running back to the Venn Machine and turning back. But I quickly quenched my chicken thoughts. This was it! There'd be no turning back now. Showtime, then. I stepped inside, pulling Snowblossom with me and heading directly for the reception desk.
I have to be honest here. I was having some butterflies in my stomach, too, but when I glanced at my mate, I could barely hide my laughter. Shi still tried to hide herself behind my frame, which was ludicrous of course. You wouldn't be able to hide 400 pounds of felitaur anywhere in a wide open reception area, much less behind another felitaur. Add to that the face of a kitten which dreaded being summoned in front of the teacher because it had misbehaved and you knew what I was dealing with.
I swear, hir chagrin made hir look so cute that I just wanted to sweep hir into a crushing hug right then and there. Of course I couldn't, but at least hir trepidation had completely nuked my own insecurities.
Grinning, I stepped up to the service desk. The receptionist who was seated behind was looking at us with obvious interest. "Employees or delivery?" She asked me, which made me lose the beat for a moment.
"There are delivery felitaurs?" I asked dumbfounded, not sure if she was pulling my leg.
"You don't know the half of it!" She winked. "The quick delivery eagles are kinda okay, but there was this one time when the Fedex driver was a Xenomorph..."
Okay, now she definitely was pulling my leg. I gave her a pointed look. "No, we are employees. I'm Dennis and that behind me is Samantha." I put our employee IDs on her desk. Huh... it somehow felt... weird using our human names when in these bodies.
"Is it possible to change our names, too?" Snowblossom piped up for the first time, apparently thinking the same thing.
The receptionist looked sympathetic. "No, my dear, sadly not. Legal reasons, I'm afraid."
My mate looked crestfallen, so I quickly nudged hir in encouragement. "Don't be disappointed, surely that won't keep your colleagues from calling you what you like."
Shi nodded flustered. Meanwhile, the receptionist was busy handling a camera.
"Alright, now smile, please... uh, belay that." The woman chuckled nervously as she was faced with two perfect sets of gleaming, predatory ivories. "That's actually a bit scary, better leave your mou- err, muzzles closed then." She swiftly took two photographs, and a couple of minutes later we were presented with a new set of IDs.
"Those are your temporary IDs." She explained to us. "When you're changing your shape again, please return for an update." She looked slightly annoyed for a moment. "But don't come too often, you hear? If you're demanding a new ID every week or so I'm going to rip you a new one!"
"Won't happen." I smiled, examining my new ID. It bore my name, my employee number and my job description. And the face of a cute Bengal tiger girl. My face. I peered at Snowblossom whose face showed a similarly happy reaction to hir new badge. "Well, now that this has been resolved... shall I accompany you to your office?"
Snowblossom nodded, obviously grateful for my proposal.
"Thanks for your help!" I called out towards the receptionist while turning towards the elevator.
"You're welcome. But wait!"
"Huh?" I turned around, cocking an eyebrow.
"Your names... you said you weren't happy with your regular ones. What should I call you when I see you again?"
"Oh..." For the first time since we'd put our paws into the building, my mate was positively beaming with joy. "My mate here is Copperqueen." Shi said, putting hir arm around my waist. "And I'm Snowblossom."
"Copperqueen and Snowblossom." The woman mused. "Those are nice names. I'll remember you gals. Have a nice working day, then!"
From that moment on, the spell had been broken for Snowblossom. The receptionist's frank friendliness had somehow managed to wash away all her trepidation, and suddenly, shi was the giddy, playful Chakat I knew and loved again.
Of course I still escorted hir to the highest floor. A Chakat stands by hir word. Administration always set up shop close to the management, who'd obviously reserved the prime office real estate for themselves. Engineering grunts like me had to make do a few stories below, but that was still better than dwelling in a ground level dungeon like IT.
When we stepped into hir office, it became obvious that shi'd worried herself sick over nothing. Snowblossom's desk neighbor immediately recognized the human Samantha in hir, and within moments we were surrounded by a cluster of excitedly chattering colleagues.
Snowblossom visibly enjoyed all the attention we were getting. We were obviously used to being stared that. It kinda happens when you're looking like we do. Wherever we go, people try to steal a look. But usually they tried to hide their obvious interest in us. This strange 'I'm totally not staring at you and minding my own business, like, honestly!!!'-stare. This was actually the first time a group of people were directly asking us about our shapes, and it was surprisingly fun.
I might be going to hell for this, but I definitely enjoyed the part when a coworker naively asked Snowblossom when shi'd dumped hir boyfriend for a girlfriend, and shi gleefully pointed out that, to be honest, shi hadn't. The pure and utter horror on the poor girl's face when she'd realized her spectacular blunder had been delicious witness.
I waited another few minutes to make sure that everything was alright, but then I excused myself, gave my mate a quick parting lick-kiss and left for my own workplace. I was wondering if my own reception would be similar. Probably not. I concluded. Most of Snowblossom's colleagues were women. My colleagues were almost exclusively male. Since I'd spent a lot of time as both genders recently, I'd gotten a valuable insight into the differences between males and females. Women were much more at ease with displaying their emotions than men, who in turn rather tried to appear stoic and cool in most circumstances.
Intrigued, I decided to put this theory to the test. Okay, let's take a little detour... I let the elevator descend all the way down to the lowest floor, way past the level I worked in. I had to get my new Chakat-enabled IT equipment anyway, so now was a time as good as any.
As I strolled into IT country self-consciously, just like before, I immediately was at the center of the attention. Although this time, nobody chatted me up - everyone tried to hide their curiosity. We had no women in IT, and all the men in the office tried desperately to not-look-look at me. Did women always feel like this? I could barely suppress a giggle at their flustered faces while they pretended to keep working but were quite obviously peering hard at me.
Without further ado, I went right to the head-admin, a young dude who went by Daniel. We'd developed a good working relationship with each other in the last few years. I was using him as top level support for direct trouble shooting in case of IT problems, and he had me as a competent contact to the engineering department. For many, engineers automatically were modern wizards who'd be able to hack a nuclear missile silo with just a calculator, a nine-volt battery and a paperclip. Sadly, reality was different.
Design a sub-routine for thermal management software in MATLAB? Easy-peasy. Augment the PATH variable of your operating system? Sorry, say again? It was quite depressing, actually.
Now Daniel's eyes widened a bit as he saw me prowling closer, but so far he was doing a good job of appearing as cool as a cucumber. Hm. "Mooorning!" I drawled with toothy smile. "I heard you have claw-resistant keyboards-" I flexed my claws for a moment, "-and headsets for feline heads?" I wiggled my ears. Hm, I'd used my regular greeting phrase there, but he didn't seem to catch on just yet. Darn.
"Uhh, right..." Daniel eyed me suspiciously for a few moments. I looked back innocently, using a finger to play with my coppery red hair and smiling pleasantly. I imagined how the wheels were turning in his head as he tried to figure out if he knew me, but then he shrugged, reaching into a pile of hardware behind him and handing me a sturdy looking keyboard. "Do you need a chair with a tail opening, too?"
Huh? Oh, yeah... he couldn't see my lower half since his desk was in the way. Grinning, I stepped my big cat half around the obstruction, putting myself down on my haunches. "I don't think I need one. I'll be fine like this."
The admin coughed surprised, then snorted. "I guess so. As for the headset..." He looked at me apologetically. "We don't have them yet. Delivery problems. I'm sorry."
I simply shrugged. "It's okay, I'm not making phone calls that often. I'll check in again next week."
"You do that. Oh, and what's your employee number? I need to enter your hardware into the system."
Oh, right. Hmm... this is going to be good. I quickly rattled down my number and then turned, walking back towards the door. I did a rough calculation in my head about Daniel's typing speed and the reaction time of our SAP system and adjusted my walking speed accordingly. He should see the name which belonged to that number just about... now.
I turned around, exactly right on time to see him jerk in surprise. He gaped, looking at me, then at his screen, then at me again. "Uhh... this... you..." he stammered, before blurting out: "DENNIS?"
Smirking, I gave him a conspicuous wink as I sashayed out of the room. "It's 'Copperqueen' when I'm in this body, hon." I said sweetly.
"But... but... but..."
"You're cute when you're confused. Have a nice day." The last I saw of him as I closed the office door were his eyes, almost as big as saucers. Oh my. This had been... hilarious. First I giggled, then I laughed loudly. The poor guy, he probably didn't know what truck had just struck him. Snowblossom had told me recently that in my Chakat form I'd developed an affection for using the female sides of my physique and psyche to tease people. Looks like she'd been right there... girl, how much fun that was!
I thought about this for a moment. Right, as a Chakat, my personality was definitely taking a bias to the female side. In the sack, Snowblossom and me simply switched between dominant male and submissive female roles however our respective moods were at the moment, so there was no clear preference there. But otherwise, in public and generally when not having sex, we were definitely acting more and more like two female lovers, instead of a male and female one.
Now, the important question here was: Did this bother me?
I tried to listen to my inner voice, but couldn't spot any conflict. That didn't mean that there wasn't one going on in the background, but... I was happy right now. If acting more feminine made me more happy, wasn't this a good thing then? We were in the Venn age, after all. How important was your original gender really? I shrugged, shelving the fascinating thought. For the moment... Right now, I had better things to do.
My muzzle curled into a mischievous smile. Let's see who else I'm able to fluster!
To be continued in Trust Machines - Venned Denmates 3!
There was only one thing which was strange right now. Somehow, our roles seemed to have reversed over the last few days.
"Tell me, who of you two had the idea of becoming fulltime Chakats again?" Ilona asked amused while she closed her car's loading flap. "Because it sure as hell can't be Snowblossom, giving how terse shi is."
Our friend had volunteered to drive us to work for the first few days, which had been one of the things Snowblossom had neglected to take into account when shi'd decided on our transition. Cars weren't built with furry felitaurs as drivers in mind, so in addition to a transportation problem, we suddenly had a useless piece of scrap metal sitting in our parking space.
"Stop teasing me, I'm nervous enough as it is!" Shi wailed now, cowering behind me. "What if I was wrong and they don't like furries? What if one of them has an allergy against cats and-"
I tried my best to calm my mate down, but Ilona simply tapped her forehead at hir. "Don't mind hir, shi's always been a wuss. Just throw hir into the water and shi'll swim. You'll see."
"Stop that, you're mean!" Shi protested, prompting Ilona to stick out her tongue.
"Seriously, Snowblossom. Stop mewling and don't worry. I bet your colleagues are understanding." She patted hir head. "You have no idea how much I envy you two. Too bad my employer isn't as modern and forthcoming as yours." Our friend added wishfully. "Well then, gotta go. Tail high!"
Without further ado, Ilona stepped back into her car and drove away, leaving me and my pouting mate behind. Well, at least the short exchange seemed to have taken a bit of hir tension away, which was good. I squeezed hir shoulder reassuringly and gave her a supportive lick.
"Come on, wanna go then? I for myself am dying to show my coworkers my new shape."
Snowblossom took the hand I'd offered and squeezed it tersely, but nodded nonetheless. Together we started walking towards the entrance. Shi was too focused to notice, but I had to suppress a chuckle as I caught our reflection in the window front next to us. Especially since it showed the rare sight of a pair of clothed Chakats.
Usually, we'd spend almost all of our Chakat time nude, but this wasn't an option for a serious office environment. There was nothing we could do about our feline lower halves, but at least our boobs needed to be covered. So both of us had opted for a plain standard top which kept our breasts hidden and a smart woman's dress jacket over it. We had actually spent much of the previous Saturday shopping for clothes and getting our hair done professionally, and to my surprise, I'd very much enjoyed it.
I smiled at the fond memory. The female clerks in the clothing stores had been delighted at the opportunity to combine tops and jackets with the color of our respective fur coats, and the hairstylist had even whooped in joy as she'd been allowed to work on our manes.
The rest of our equipment wasn't human-made, though: A pair of saddlebags which were strapped around our lower bodies' backs and essentially served as backpacks. We'd added them when we had Venned a few days ago, so they were good for three years.
At first, the thought of instantly going for the maximum possible amount of time in our Venned shapes had troubled me a bit, but Ilona had swiftly quenched my doubts. "You're not going to become something inanimate or an animal, something which basically is at somebody's mercy if it wants to turn back. You'll be an independent being, fully capable of getting back into a Venn Machine whenever you want. So why not go for the max? If you decide to stay Venned for longer than you'd expected, you'll have no problems." She had said, and I'd been forced to agree to her logic.
The familiar whirring of the opening of the automatic door took me back into reality and just for a moment, I felt like turning around, running back to the Venn Machine and turning back. But I quickly quenched my chicken thoughts. This was it! There'd be no turning back now. Showtime, then. I stepped inside, pulling Snowblossom with me and heading directly for the reception desk.
I have to be honest here. I was having some butterflies in my stomach, too, but when I glanced at my mate, I could barely hide my laughter. Shi still tried to hide herself behind my frame, which was ludicrous of course. You wouldn't be able to hide 400 pounds of felitaur anywhere in a wide open reception area, much less behind another felitaur. Add to that the face of a kitten which dreaded being summoned in front of the teacher because it had misbehaved and you knew what I was dealing with.
I swear, hir chagrin made hir look so cute that I just wanted to sweep hir into a crushing hug right then and there. Of course I couldn't, but at least hir trepidation had completely nuked my own insecurities.
Grinning, I stepped up to the service desk. The receptionist who was seated behind was looking at us with obvious interest. "Employees or delivery?" She asked me, which made me lose the beat for a moment.
"There are delivery felitaurs?" I asked dumbfounded, not sure if she was pulling my leg.
"You don't know the half of it!" She winked. "The quick delivery eagles are kinda okay, but there was this one time when the Fedex driver was a Xenomorph..."
Okay, now she definitely was pulling my leg. I gave her a pointed look. "No, we are employees. I'm Dennis and that behind me is Samantha." I put our employee IDs on her desk. Huh... it somehow felt... weird using our human names when in these bodies.
"Is it possible to change our names, too?" Snowblossom piped up for the first time, apparently thinking the same thing.
The receptionist looked sympathetic. "No, my dear, sadly not. Legal reasons, I'm afraid."
My mate looked crestfallen, so I quickly nudged hir in encouragement. "Don't be disappointed, surely that won't keep your colleagues from calling you what you like."
Shi nodded flustered. Meanwhile, the receptionist was busy handling a camera.
"Alright, now smile, please... uh, belay that." The woman chuckled nervously as she was faced with two perfect sets of gleaming, predatory ivories. "That's actually a bit scary, better leave your mou- err, muzzles closed then." She swiftly took two photographs, and a couple of minutes later we were presented with a new set of IDs.
"Those are your temporary IDs." She explained to us. "When you're changing your shape again, please return for an update." She looked slightly annoyed for a moment. "But don't come too often, you hear? If you're demanding a new ID every week or so I'm going to rip you a new one!"
"Won't happen." I smiled, examining my new ID. It bore my name, my employee number and my job description. And the face of a cute Bengal tiger girl. My face. I peered at Snowblossom whose face showed a similarly happy reaction to hir new badge. "Well, now that this has been resolved... shall I accompany you to your office?"
Snowblossom nodded, obviously grateful for my proposal.
"Thanks for your help!" I called out towards the receptionist while turning towards the elevator.
"You're welcome. But wait!"
"Huh?" I turned around, cocking an eyebrow.
"Your names... you said you weren't happy with your regular ones. What should I call you when I see you again?"
"Oh..." For the first time since we'd put our paws into the building, my mate was positively beaming with joy. "My mate here is Copperqueen." Shi said, putting hir arm around my waist. "And I'm Snowblossom."
"Copperqueen and Snowblossom." The woman mused. "Those are nice names. I'll remember you gals. Have a nice working day, then!"
From that moment on, the spell had been broken for Snowblossom. The receptionist's frank friendliness had somehow managed to wash away all her trepidation, and suddenly, shi was the giddy, playful Chakat I knew and loved again.
Of course I still escorted hir to the highest floor. A Chakat stands by hir word. Administration always set up shop close to the management, who'd obviously reserved the prime office real estate for themselves. Engineering grunts like me had to make do a few stories below, but that was still better than dwelling in a ground level dungeon like IT.
When we stepped into hir office, it became obvious that shi'd worried herself sick over nothing. Snowblossom's desk neighbor immediately recognized the human Samantha in hir, and within moments we were surrounded by a cluster of excitedly chattering colleagues.
Snowblossom visibly enjoyed all the attention we were getting. We were obviously used to being stared that. It kinda happens when you're looking like we do. Wherever we go, people try to steal a look. But usually they tried to hide their obvious interest in us. This strange 'I'm totally not staring at you and minding my own business, like, honestly!!!'-stare. This was actually the first time a group of people were directly asking us about our shapes, and it was surprisingly fun.
I might be going to hell for this, but I definitely enjoyed the part when a coworker naively asked Snowblossom when shi'd dumped hir boyfriend for a girlfriend, and shi gleefully pointed out that, to be honest, shi hadn't. The pure and utter horror on the poor girl's face when she'd realized her spectacular blunder had been delicious witness.
I waited another few minutes to make sure that everything was alright, but then I excused myself, gave my mate a quick parting lick-kiss and left for my own workplace. I was wondering if my own reception would be similar. Probably not. I concluded. Most of Snowblossom's colleagues were women. My colleagues were almost exclusively male. Since I'd spent a lot of time as both genders recently, I'd gotten a valuable insight into the differences between males and females. Women were much more at ease with displaying their emotions than men, who in turn rather tried to appear stoic and cool in most circumstances.
Intrigued, I decided to put this theory to the test. Okay, let's take a little detour... I let the elevator descend all the way down to the lowest floor, way past the level I worked in. I had to get my new Chakat-enabled IT equipment anyway, so now was a time as good as any.
As I strolled into IT country self-consciously, just like before, I immediately was at the center of the attention. Although this time, nobody chatted me up - everyone tried to hide their curiosity. We had no women in IT, and all the men in the office tried desperately to not-look-look at me. Did women always feel like this? I could barely suppress a giggle at their flustered faces while they pretended to keep working but were quite obviously peering hard at me.
Without further ado, I went right to the head-admin, a young dude who went by Daniel. We'd developed a good working relationship with each other in the last few years. I was using him as top level support for direct trouble shooting in case of IT problems, and he had me as a competent contact to the engineering department. For many, engineers automatically were modern wizards who'd be able to hack a nuclear missile silo with just a calculator, a nine-volt battery and a paperclip. Sadly, reality was different.
Design a sub-routine for thermal management software in MATLAB? Easy-peasy. Augment the PATH variable of your operating system? Sorry, say again? It was quite depressing, actually.
Now Daniel's eyes widened a bit as he saw me prowling closer, but so far he was doing a good job of appearing as cool as a cucumber. Hm. "Mooorning!" I drawled with toothy smile. "I heard you have claw-resistant keyboards-" I flexed my claws for a moment, "-and headsets for feline heads?" I wiggled my ears. Hm, I'd used my regular greeting phrase there, but he didn't seem to catch on just yet. Darn.
"Uhh, right..." Daniel eyed me suspiciously for a few moments. I looked back innocently, using a finger to play with my coppery red hair and smiling pleasantly. I imagined how the wheels were turning in his head as he tried to figure out if he knew me, but then he shrugged, reaching into a pile of hardware behind him and handing me a sturdy looking keyboard. "Do you need a chair with a tail opening, too?"
Huh? Oh, yeah... he couldn't see my lower half since his desk was in the way. Grinning, I stepped my big cat half around the obstruction, putting myself down on my haunches. "I don't think I need one. I'll be fine like this."
The admin coughed surprised, then snorted. "I guess so. As for the headset..." He looked at me apologetically. "We don't have them yet. Delivery problems. I'm sorry."
I simply shrugged. "It's okay, I'm not making phone calls that often. I'll check in again next week."
"You do that. Oh, and what's your employee number? I need to enter your hardware into the system."
Oh, right. Hmm... this is going to be good. I quickly rattled down my number and then turned, walking back towards the door. I did a rough calculation in my head about Daniel's typing speed and the reaction time of our SAP system and adjusted my walking speed accordingly. He should see the name which belonged to that number just about... now.
I turned around, exactly right on time to see him jerk in surprise. He gaped, looking at me, then at his screen, then at me again. "Uhh... this... you..." he stammered, before blurting out: "DENNIS?"
Smirking, I gave him a conspicuous wink as I sashayed out of the room. "It's 'Copperqueen' when I'm in this body, hon." I said sweetly.
"But... but... but..."
"You're cute when you're confused. Have a nice day." The last I saw of him as I closed the office door were his eyes, almost as big as saucers. Oh my. This had been... hilarious. First I giggled, then I laughed loudly. The poor guy, he probably didn't know what truck had just struck him. Snowblossom had told me recently that in my Chakat form I'd developed an affection for using the female sides of my physique and psyche to tease people. Looks like she'd been right there... girl, how much fun that was!
I thought about this for a moment. Right, as a Chakat, my personality was definitely taking a bias to the female side. In the sack, Snowblossom and me simply switched between dominant male and submissive female roles however our respective moods were at the moment, so there was no clear preference there. But otherwise, in public and generally when not having sex, we were definitely acting more and more like two female lovers, instead of a male and female one.
Now, the important question here was: Did this bother me?
I tried to listen to my inner voice, but couldn't spot any conflict. That didn't mean that there wasn't one going on in the background, but... I was happy right now. If acting more feminine made me more happy, wasn't this a good thing then? We were in the Venn age, after all. How important was your original gender really? I shrugged, shelving the fascinating thought. For the moment... Right now, I had better things to do.
My muzzle curled into a mischievous smile. Let's see who else I'm able to fluster!
To be continued in Trust Machines - Venned Denmates 3!