“Hey Susan, good to see you again.  Ready to do more sketching?” asked Sarah cheerfully.

Susan followed her into the garage-slash-art studio hesitantly.  “Why am I here again?”

“You seemed interested the last time, and I...”  Sarah blushed.  “Well, it would be weird if it was just me, you know?”

“So this way you can pretend it’s just a cozy art class, not private perving time.”

Sarah’s blush got hotter.  “Susan!”

Susan laughed merrily.  “I thought you were over your crush on Elliot.”

“I...  Yeah, not so much.  Still, Ellen doesn’t quite...”  Sarah sighed.  “Is it weird that I find her less attractive?  It’s the same person, but...”

Susan shrugged.  “I’m the wrong person to ask about that.  Mother would love it if I came out as gay, but I’ve never felt especially attracted to women.”

“Especially attracted?”  Sarah emphasized the first word.

That drew another shrug as Susan dropped artlessly onto the stool in front of her assigned easel.  “It’s not...”  Susan hesitated.  “I don’t know.  I’ve thought about it off and on, whenever Mother’s misandry gets particularly loud.  I just can’t imagine myself... doing anything, and not trigger my issues.”  Susan glared down at her hands, scrubbing against each other, and forced them to be still.

“Sorry.  I was just... wondering where you were on the Kinsey scale.”

“Orthogonal to it, I think.”

Sarah raised an eyebrow.  “Orthogonal?  How would that even...”

“Life isn’t univariate.  Plot it in two dimensions, degree of attraction to females on one axis, to males on the other.  Bisexuals might rate both highly.  The idea of doing... anything with anyone physically repulses me.”

“So...  Asexual?” asked Sarah.

Susan gritted her teeth.  “I don’t know.  Some nights the vibrator gets a hell of a workout.”

“Woah, did we walk in at the wrong time...”

Susan glared at Ellen and did her best to suppress her blush.  “Thank you for the interruption.”

Nanase just snickered.  “So we’re doing the nude posing after all?”

“Gleep.”

Sarah shooed their subjects to the better-lit part of the ‘studio’.  “Did you want to start with some kata or dancing again?”

“Are you trying to draw us making out again?” asked Nanase.  “Because we will.”

Susan managed to fall off her stool, and sprawled to the floor.  “Maybe I should go.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time artists had impure thoughts about models,” said Sarah airily.  “You two don’t mind, do you?”

Ellen considered it as a very wicked grin spread across her face.  “Oh, not at all.  Naked makeout posing sounds yummy.”

“I’m game,” added Nanase as she stripped off her blouse, revealing a red-trimmed grey sports bra underneath. Not to be outdone, Ellen had her own t-shirt off a moment later, revealing a black bra that matched the shirt.  They shared a wicked look, then shimmied out of their pants in sync.

“I...”  Susan tried to form words, and failed.

“That’s probably enough to get started,” commented Sarah.  “Is it warm enough in here?”

That got more smirks.  “If it isn’t, we’ll fix that soon enough.”

The session started innocently enough, with the two using martial arts kata to emulate sparring poses.  It did not stay that way very long.  By unspoken mutual agreement, Ellen and Nanase stripped off their bras then continued to spar, holding the poses for a couple of minutes at a time when asked.

Then Sarah slid the sheet-covered ottoman into the middle of the room.  “Perhaps some less dynamic poses... gleep!”  She watched, just as stunned as Susan, as their two models wiggled out of their panties and draped themselves, naked, on the ottoman.  Their first pose left them back to back, with the legs facing the artists cocked to maintain some modesty.  A few minutes later they turned to face the artists, leaving their breasts on full display.

Susan muttered something about “perky”, and Sarah giggled.  “Yeah, venned boobs are something else.”

“I know, right?” said Nanase.  “They don’t sag as much as my real ones, and they barely need support.”

Ellen chuckled.  “I guess I’m not getting the real girl experience, then.”

“Saggy boobs are not a perk,” groused Nanase.  “Count your blessings.”

Ellen smirked.  “Believe me, I am.”

“Sssh, sketching time.”

The next few poses were comparably sedate.  Then Ellen draped herself across Nanase’s lap like a lazy cat.  Their gazes met, filled with smouldering promise.

Sarah nudged Susan, who gleeped again then started sketching.  At the five minute mark Sarah glanced over at Susan’s easel and murmured supportive things.  “Can you guys hold another five like that?”

Their models murmured assent without changing pose in the slightest.  It was another ten minutes before Sarah finally called time.  “I think that’ll do for... Woah.”

Nanase curled tight around Ellen and kissed her fiercely.  They only held the pose for a minute, but Sarah managed to sketch much of it even so.  “Wowza.  Susan?”

Susan was trying very hard not to stare.  But every time she tried to look down at her easel, her eyes snapped back up to the models.  “I... I’m good,” she squeaked.

Nanase smirked at her, then scooped up their robes.  Once they were at least somewhat modest Susan recovered her composure.  “Thank you,” Susan murmured.  “That was an experience I will not soon forget.”

Sarah lifted the sketch-pad from Susan’s easel and closed it.  She handed it to Susan. “Here.  You can work on refining the piece at home, if you like.  I’d suggest using the sketch as reference, so as not to spoil it.”

“Won’t need it,” muttered Susan.  “That scene is burned into my memory.”

Ellen and Nanase shared a high-five.  Susan just shook her head at the display, though a hint of a smile was teasing at the corners of her mouth.  “You two are a bad influence.”

“We’re the best influence.  Sarah, can we see how we looked?”

While Ellen, Nanasae and Sarah compared notes, Susan took her leave quietly.  She drove home with her thoughts echoing in her head, leaving her confused and aroused.  She’d hoped that getting out of the studio would help with either or both, but the sketch-pad on the passenger seat beside her served as reminder and anchor to her memories.

Once home, Susan scurried to her room, and opened the sketch-pad once more.  The image there was rough, but the curves brought the memory back in perfect focus.  In an effort to exorcize the image, Susan tried drawing it over again, as Sarah had suggested.  It helped somewhat... when she wasn’t looking at it.  When she did, the scene replayed in her mind, leaving her flushed and flustered, and several other things she did not particularly want to admit to herself.

She turned to her computer instead, hoping for a distraction.  Justin was online, so she resumed their ongoing chat.

[SMadison] Hey Justin, want to pick up where we left off with the invasion?

[JBroccoli] If you want. How’d the sketching session go?

[SMadison] Oh God. You know about that?

[JBroccoli] Ellen and Nanase talked about it at martial arts.  They've been looking forward to it for weeks.

[SMadison] Ugh, can we not talk about it?

[JBroccoli] wince That bad, was it?

[SMadison] Ellen and Nanase posed naked. While pretending to make out. It was so hot I just about melted.

[JBroccoli] So you do want to talk about it? If you found it hot, then...

[SMadison] That’s the part I don’t want to talk about. I’ve always assumed I was straight, but...

...

[JBroccoli] But?

...

...

[SMadison] I don’t know!

[JBroccoli] It took you eight tries to come up with that?

[SMadison] Hormones suck. I should take a shower and call it a night.

[JBroccoli] A cold shower?

[SMadison] Bleh.  Probably. How do you deal with this?

[JBroccoli] Cold showers after martial arts. Why do you think I suggested it?

The shower helped.  A little.

Susan’s dreams that night were fitful.  Naked images of all her friends cavorted in them, and while none of the scenes got any more explicit than what had transpired in the studio, they were enough to leave her hot and bothered.  When she woke, she felt worse than the night before, and debated trying to make use of her favourite vibrator before showering.  She glanced at the time and cursed, then rushed through her morning routine.  The last thing she did before leaving her room was to pull out one of her comfort T-shirts, one with the Star Trek: The Next Generation logo on it.

She met Sarah at their locker, and after their usual pleasantries Sarah asked about the Star Trek T-shirt.  Susan shrugged.  “Yeah.  Just... needed comfort.  You can probably guess why.”

Sarah winced.  “Yeah, sorry about that... say, would you excuse me for a moment?”

Susan watched in puzzlement as Sarah dashed off, shrugged, and carried on with her day.

The next person she ran across was Tedd.  He took one look at her and smirked.  “Star Trek shirt, eh?  Wow.  You showed us some classic Trek, but I didn’t know you were into Next Generation as well.  I thought you had taste.  You are aware that Picard was supposed to be French, right?  Why did he have a British accent?  Doesn’t that just ruin everything?”

Susan stared at Tedd in confusion.  She knew he could be a bit of a jerk, but this?  What had she done to deserve this kind of abuse?

“Eh, I suppose it all makes sense.  You’ve got those Vulcan-like ears after all.”

Susan felt her fists clench, and knew her cultivated detached facade was crumbling.

Tedd took a step back when he saw her expression.  “Um, Susan?  This isn’t any fun if you don’t sass-back.”

Susan took a swing at him.  Halfway through, she saw the expression of terror on Tedd’s face, and she pulled her blow as best she could.  Tedd managed a half-hearted block of her slap, and a better block of her next one.  Then he was slapping back in earnest, a manic grin on his face that Susan could feel being echoed on her own.

Their silly and refreshingly cathartic slap-fight was interrupted by the arrival of Principal Verruct.  He insisted that there would be no slap-fighting in his school, but when he learned that the cause of the “fight” was Susan’s T-shirt, he rushed off yelling about saving the school.

Tedd and Susan looked at each other curiously.  “So, what, we’re not in trouble now?”

“We’re at least out of the frying pan...” Susan opined.

Tedd turned on her.  “So why did you start slapping me, anyway?”

“Are you dense?  You were making fun of me!”

“Well, yeah, but I thought teasing each other was the basis of our friendship!” protested Tedd.

“The basis of our ‘friendship’ is that we sit together with Ellen and Sarah.”

“I thought we’d grown past that...” sighed Tedd.

Susan stared at Tedd in surprise.  “You...  Perhaps.  I’ve been preoccupied with... things.  I don’t need a friend who makes fun of me right now.”

Tedd smiled at her warmly.  “Then for the time being, I’ll just be a friend who supports you.”

Ellen and Sarah awwwed audibly at their two friends getting along, at which point Susan sicced Tedd on them.

By lunchtime, they were sociable as ever, and Tedd looked about as cheerful as he ever had.  When Sarah asked about that, Tedd grinned.  “Dad’s going to be away this weekend, he won’t be back until late Sunday.  We’ve got the whole house to ourselves, and I get to be a girl all weekend!”

“So we’re doing another movie party?” asked Sarah.  “I’m in.”

“Can we make it a TG movie party?” asked Tedd.  “It’d be fun if everyone was gender swapped.”

Everyone sitting with Tedd looked stunned.  The first to speak up was Sarah.  “I’ll do it.  Ellen and Tedd know what it’s like to be a girl, but I don’t know what it’s like to be a boy.”

Ellen nodded.  “Sounds good to me.  Um... wait, should I be female or male for this?  I think I’ll turn back soon.  Tedd?”

Tedd checked his phone.  “Yeah, before school tomorrow.  You might want to get your paperwork set up.  As to the party... your call, I guess.  Whichever would go best with Nanase being a guy?”

“I’ll see Nanase and Justin at the dojo tonight.  I’ll get them on board for the party.”

“That’s everyone, then.”

Susan glared at Tedd.  “I haven’t agreed to anything.”

“You’re saying no?” Tedd asked plaintively.

Susan glared at him.  “Of course I...”

They all watched as Susan paused in thought, face-journeying through a major internal debate.  “I’ll go.”

“I fail to see how that would have been obvious,” quipped Tedd.  “But I don’t care.  This will be so cool!”

“So what should we all wear?” asked Sarah.  “I want proper guy clothes.”

“There are three guys and three girls swapping,” said Susan.  “We could each bring a set of clothes for one of the others.  Nanase and Ellen can swap... not that you’ll need it, Ellen.  You have a wardrobe full of stuff.  Justin’s about my height, so we can swap.  That leaves Sarah and Tedd... you two okay with that?”

Sarah and Tedd looked at each other speculatively.  The looks then turned devious.  “I’m sure we’ll figure something fun,” cackled Sarah.

Every time Tedd ran into Sarah for the rest of the day she teased him about the “drop dead sexy” outfit she had in mind.  He stammered and blushed so adorably she couldn’t help herself.

Once he was safe at home, Tedd locked himself in the bathroom and stared into the mirror.  He’d seen himself as a girl before.  Cute.  Same purple hair, which was nice...  But the idea of being sexy instead of cute preyed at him.  What would he look like?  Would he turn others on... would he turn himself on?  Something about the idea terrified him, but he glared at his reflection.  “No.  You came up with this idea.  You can go through with it.  Plus, it’ll help if the others understand, right?”