Career Opportunities

Part Three

By Valerie Hope

Corey tried to avert his eyes, but no matter where he looked he saw the reflection.  Two proportionately long, lissome legs which flared to wide, rounded hips, and the most adorable little bubble of a butt sticking out.  The hips collapsed to a superbly muscled stomach that was as flat as a plank, a ribcage that was prominent but not so as to be grotesque.  Two enormous spherical breasts, close to the size of cantaloupes with the unmistakable look of being ‘done,’ rode high on his chest, crowned with magnificent rosy pink nipples the size of his thumbs, surrounded by huge, puffy areolae.  His slender shoulders  supported two long, willowy arms.  His neck and fingers were delicate and long, the former capped by nails at least an inch long if not longer.  The face which stared at him from every direction was his own but not so, the jaw and nose slender and delicate looking, the cheekbones higher and the brows more arched, the mouth wider and the lips pouty and bee-stung.  The eyes were rimmed with lashes that were incredibly long and thick.   They seemed too big, their surprise making them dominate the delicate face, and sparkled a vivid sapphire blue completely different than Corey’s washed-out hazel.  Thin, arched eyebrows rose in shock along a high, narrow forehead which disappeared under the shower cap, which bulged with its load of growth that wasn’t there a few days before.

Corey’s petite little feet somehow didn’t want to support him properly – he could balance all right on his toes but when he put his heels down his ankles cracked loudly, his calves cramped and he toppled to the floor, still screaming wordlessly.

The others reacted immediately to the screaming, tearing aside their own covers and jumping to the floor to attend to their fallen friend, catching their reflections and reacting accordingly – some screaming, some holding their hands over tightly shut eyes to block out the images, others simply staring dumbly, touching their bodies in utter disbelief.

"I’m beautiful," Joe Hargreaves managed to whisper, pulling off his ‘shower cap.’

And he was.  About five foot nine, and most of that well-muscled legs.  Smooth peaches and cream skin completely free of blemishes, a dancer’s physique crowned with breasts very similar to Corey’s, with proud rosy nipples and the look of professional enhancement.  A chic little roses-and-thorns tattoo wound around his slender left ankle.  Long ash-blonde hair spilled over his narrow shoulders and down his slender back, covering muscles which looked as sleek and sexual as a hunting cat’s, to barely tickle the top of his adorable teardrop of a derrière.  His graceful, lissome fingers, crowned with inch-and-a-half long fingernails, traced the delicate contours of his heart-shaped face, exploring the highly-arched brows, the long feathery lashes, the pouting mouth and pert little button nose.  Immaculately white, straightened teeth peeked from under his slack bottom lip.

Hollis collapsed onto the floor beside Corey, trying to take the hysterical man/woman into his arms and help settle him down.  Hollis’ skin was like porcelain and adorned with alluring little sprays of freckles across his high cheekbones, aquiline nose, pert breasts and narrow shoulders.  He sat hard, his long legs splaying out to bare the downy little russet delta of hair between his legs, peeking over the gauze bandage which covered his privates.  Pulling off the shower cap with long-nailed fingers, an immensely thick and shiny curtain of bright red curls spilled out to partially obscure the oval face of an angel, long lashes rimming an enormous pair of beguiling emerald eyes.  Hollis rocked Corey back and forth slowly, murmuring sweetly to him in his breathy soprano purr.  Similarly huge, ‘done’ breasts flattened themselves sexually against Corey’s slender back.

Steve Randolph managed to crawl back into the bed, sobbing uncontrollably.  He covered his face with the pillow, trying to block out the image that bombarded him from every angle, squeezing tight the over-large, sea-blue eyes that had replaced his old brown orbs, causing his eyes to transform into adorable little half-moons and his slender nose to crinkle adorably at the bridge, even in his misery.  Puffy, pouty lips hung slackly over perfectly straight, chalk-white teeth.  Steve’s body was similar to the others’, long legged and lushly curved, with a generously round and tight behind tapering to a slender waist, well-muscled abdomen and femininely tapering ribcage.  Steve’s enormous breasts were sandwiched between his willowy arms, covered with his glowing, healthy amber skin and crowned with proud brown nipples.  He covered his eyes with slender, long-fingered hands and his long fingernails knocked the shower-cap a little askew to release a long, feather-soft tendril of shining chestnut hair.

Large, spherical breasts jiggled enticingly, nipples prominent, on Hale Gregory’s narrow chest as he pointed a long-nailed finger at one of the mirrors, laughing hysterically at the beautiful dark-eyed beauty reflected back at him.  Dark, luminous hair strayed out of the shower cap in little feminine tendrils to frame a narrow, heart-shaped face that was breathtakingly gorgeous.  Long eyelashes fanned across his high cheekbones and his wide, expressive, pouty-lipped mouth was open wide in laughter to reveal two rows of perfectly straight, brilliantly white teeth.  His long legs were out to the sides of him where he’d fallen, leaving him in a ‘splits’ position that would have been incredibly painful to him before, but now seemed completely natural to him.  He gasped for breath, tears leaking from his huge dark ‘innocent little girl’ eyes, holding his flat and sexily-muscled stomach as he trilled arpeggios of soprano laughter at the sight.

"Guys!  Guys!  Get it together!  We can’t lose it now!" Hollis, the only one who hadn’t totally succumbed to the shock of it all, yelled over the din.  Slowly the other men were able to get themselves together and under some form of control.

"We’re girls," Steve said from beneath his pillow.  "We’re all girls."

Corey slowly pulled the shower cap from his own head, moving in a daze.  A long, shiny length of nearly white vanilla blonde hair spilled over his shoulders and down onto the floor behind him.  Taking a deep breath, he worked his long-nailed fingers around the gauze and tape between his legs.

"Corey, don’t," Hollis warned.  "It might not be safe…"

"I have to see," Corey said.  "I have to."

He peeled back the tape quickly and exposed himself.  The pubic hair was a downy tuft of lightest blonde to match his head and eyebrows, but there was still a very denuded penis and testicles hanging limply between his legs.  Corey wasn’t sure if the sight relieved him or distressed him all the more.

"We’re not girls," Corey announced.  "I still have my dick.  It’s still there."

"Dick or no dick," Steve moaned from under the pillow.  "We look like girls."

Hollis managed to crawl across the floor to where Steve was and pry the pillow from his hands.  "You’re acting like a damn baby," he chided in his breathy purr.  "Get it together, dammit.  We need you!  Get your shit together!"

The stern tone of the obviously female voice seemed to snap Steve out of his panic and anxiety somewhat.  He still kept his eyes downcast to avoid seeing his reflection, but he mumbled an apology and said he’d try to keep from freaking out.  Hale, ever Steve’s partner in crime, seemed to settle down at the same time and get his act together once he saw his friend overcome everything.

"Let’s take stock of this," Corey said, starting to regain his nearly-shattered equilibrium somewhat.  "Our bodies have been mostly transformed.  Our genitals aren’t changed, for some reason, and neither are our minds for the most part."

"Our behaviors have been changed," Joe Hargreaves choked, still fighting the last of his hysterical sobs.

"But not our minds, or memories.  We’re still basically ourselves," Corey surmised.  "Which means one of two things.  It could mean that this is all over, that this is our punishment and we’ll sign Hestia over to Kelly in exchange for our old bodies."

"It could also mean that you’re far from done with the process," said Kelly’s voice from the door.  "Good morning, ladies.  You all look lovely today."

Spindly arms and lack of mass be damned, Hale Gregory launched himself at Kelly.  He didn’t get two steps before he yelped in pain, stumbling and sprawling to the floor.

"Careful, honey," Kelly cooed, fighting a chuckle.  "Wouldn’t want to bruise any of that luscious skin of yours."

"You son of a bitch," Hollis growled – or as close as he could get to a growl considering his voice made ordering a pizza sound like a come-on.  "What did you do to him?"

"Nothing that hasn’t been done to all of you," Kelly said.  "The boots you wore.  Yes, they were linked by telemetry to the implants behind your ears, redefining your movement.  Giving you that sexy little catwalk strut that men find so irresistible, by the way.  But they also stood to chemically restructure the bones, tendons and ligaments in your feet.  Your feet don’t support your weight as well as they used to on their own."

He slid a box across the floor with his toe to the prone Hale.  "Those will help considerably."

Hale knocked the top from the box and lifted out a slingback sandal which was perched on clear Lucite, a three-inch platform and a seven-and-a-half inch heel!  They were the tallest shoes Hale had ever seen.  A lot of the young girls were wearing them now, but they were first popularized in strip clubs, men’s magazines and porno movies.

"Slip them on, sweetheart," Kelly urged.  "Then you can try going for my throat again."

"Fuck you," Hale hissed.

Kelly laughed.  "Such language!  That’s not ladylike at all!"

He took a seat on one of the stools in front of the long dressing table counter, which now looked infinitely more ominous to the transformed men.  "You girls are in for a shock, I think," he told them jovially.  "The physical transformations are but the smallest part of what we’re going to do to you.  The real transformations started last night.  You see, part of Hart-Pearson’s research and development is in behavioral reconditioning technologies.  Like the implants in your sinus cavities.  Your brains have come to accept those implants and we can begin the process of dictating emotion and response.  You’re all going to be lovely little girls by the time it’s all over, begging me for the opportunity to sign away Project Hestia in exchange for the one thing I have that you want the most."

He gestured and the monitor lit up, showing a shot of a research lab.  Five clear glass tanks were hooked up to very complex machinery which kept the fluids inside aerated.  In each of them floated something that looked like a deflated balloon with several long, pinkish streamers of tissue hanging off in varying points.

"Yeh?  So, like, what the hell are those?" Hale twanged in his Brooklyn accent.

"Your vaginas," Kelly told them calmly.  "And your clitorises, uteri and ovaries.  Completely functioning female reproductive and endocrine organs, grown from your own harvested cells and converted in a lab.  All you have to do is ask and we’ll install them for you."

"You can keep them," Corey spat.  "You’re not getting Hestia out of us."

Kelly laughed.  "Such charming naïveté.  I look for that in a young woman, you know.  No, Mr. Taylor, I think you will want them.  You just haven’t figured that out yet."

He stood and clapped his hands.  Two muscle-men came in, each pushing a stack of boxes on a dolly.  They left them by the door silently.

"I think you ladies should get dressed and begin your day," Kelly said cheerfully.  "You have a lot of work to do in the next few days, you know.  Do what the woman on the monitors tells you to do and nothing unpleasant need happen to you.  We’ll be watching, girls.  Escape isn’t an option.  Just accept this – the sooner you do, the sooner you will be released.  But, before I go, there’s one thing I have to do."

He pulled a small remote control from his pocket and held it up.  "Inside, you’re still some of the foremost scientists, businessmen and entrepreneurs in the field.  And it occurred to me that no man likes a woman who is smarter than he is."

He pressed a button on the remote.  The captured men slumped to the floor, unconscious and silent.

*          *          *

The time they were out was short.  Corey could still smell the cheap aftershave that one of Kelly’s goons wore lingering in the air.  Maybe only a few seconds.  He stood unsteadily, perching painfully on his tiptoes and moved towards the door with little mincing steps.  Already the others were starting to come around.

Corey’s head felt as if it were stuffed full of cotton, unable to concentrate for any length of time and easily distracted.  As he sat next to the boxes that Kelly and his men had left, he found himself comforted by repetition, like a child.  He worked on the boxes with one hand and wound a silky soft tendril of vanilla blonde hair around one long-nailed finger with the other.

With a sigh of relief, Corey found a box with a similar pair of shoes to the one he’d shoved across the floor to Hollis.  They were skyscraper heels to be sure, another set with a three-inch platform of clear pink Lucite and a whopping seven-and-a-half inch heel.  The uppers were pink patent leather that shone in the light.  Corey found himself distracted by the pretty shine of the leather and it took an effort to snap himself out of his reverie and begin worrying at the buckles on the ankle straps with his long fingernails.  Soon he had the pink stiletto platform heels on and stood.  The height of the shoes put him nearly at his former height and they were quite easy to balance on – as Kelly said, it was as comfortable as walking in the boots had been.  Corey walked the length of the room and back with a short but comfortable stride, fluid and graceful and with an all-too-feminine sway to the hips.  It was disconcerting to see his exquisite feminine hindquarters tracing a sexy figure-eight in the air behind him, reflected ad infinitum in the mirrored room.

"It is, like, easier," she announced in her bubbly voice.  "Like wearing the boots."

The others, still groggy and disoriented, began a slow crawl across the floor to the boxes.  Hollis, already in the open-toe black patent leather mules that Kelly had slid to him, helped by distributing the shoes to the other men.  Soon they were all milling about, sashaying comfortably in their super-high heels.

"It’s fuggin’ freezin’ in heah," Hale announced in his Jersey Girl twang.  "Lookit my nipples.  Jesus."  He pulled his coverlet off of his bed and wrapped himself in it like a serape.  Corey and Steve were already digging through the other boxes.

"Damn," Steve said softly.  "It figures.  It’s all girl clothes."  He held up a little pink and white checkered bra to illustrate.

"I ain’t wearin’ it," Hale said.  "I don’t care how cold it gets."

"Me neither," Joe drawled in his Southern lilt.  "Ah don’t know about y’all, but ah’m not wearin’ a stitch of that.  These here shoes are bad enough."

"Totally," Corey put in.

The three chimes sounded soon after and the woman’s face appeared on the monitor.  She looked indignant.

"Ladies, you’re not dressed," she said sternly.

"We ain’t no ladies," Hale shot back.

"Oh, you’re not?" the woman said, eyebrows rising in amusement.  "You could have fooled me.  You look like women.  You move like women.  You sound like women.  Not many men I know have breasts the size of yours.

"It seems to me that the only thing you’re not doing is acting like women.  And it’s my job to see that changes," the woman said.  "Now, if any of you girls wants anything to eat today, you’re going to go and get yourselves decently dressed right now.  As it stands, I’m already going to deduct three points from each of your totals for the day."

"We’re, like, not going to play," Corey said.  "This is totally over."

"Oh, no, my dear.  It’s just the beginning.  Tobacco ration is cancelled for the day," she announced sternly.

"They’re just those long girly cigarettes anyway," Hollis sneered.  "Fucking Virginia Slims and Capris and stuff.  We can do without those, there’s no smoke in them anyway."

"You don’t seem to understand, my dear," the woman countered.  "I’m sorry that it has come to this.  It’s best if you learn your new behaviors willingly, but we have the technology to modify your behavior against your will.  It’s somewhat alarming and sometimes painful.  But it seems that in this case, it’s necessary."

"What the hell are you…" Corey began, but nearly choked as the words stopped in his throat.  His enormous nipples became suddenly and almost painfully erect as his skin pebbled with goosebumps.  He frantically began backing away from the other captives, trying to shield the perfect globes of his breasts with one slender arm, sapphire blue eyes wide with shock.

"Oh, God," Corey breathed.  A quick, shaking sob seemed to work its way to his pretty slender face from his toenails and he covered his nose and mouth with steepled fingers, sobbing and bawling uncontrollably.  "Oh my God.  I’m so sorry.  I’m so sorry."

"Corey?  What’s wrong?" Hollis asked.

"I’m being such an asshole," Corey blubbered, whimpering.  "I’m so sorry.  I’m so ashamed."

"It’s all right, dear," the woman on the monitor told him.  "Just get dressed.  I forgive you.  Everyone makes mistakes."

Corey brightened, wiping tears away.  "Thank you.  Thank you so much."

He scampered as quick as the skyscraper heels would allow towards the boxes next to the door, opening the one marked with his name and sorting through the contents hurriedly, his gorgeous face a mixture of relief and puzzlement.

"Excellent," the woman said.  "Now, I think you should all get dressed.  Your first session of the morning starts in twenty minutes.  You can either dress yourselves voluntarily or I can compel you.  Your choice."

"What did you do to him?" Hale said defensively. 

"Just made him feel shame," the woman said.  "A lot of it.  The nasal implants give us remarkable control over your behavior and emotions, ladies.  Corey was ignoring a perfectly reasonable request, just to be belligerent.  I can’t allow you young ladies to act in such a manner."

"Go to hell," Steve spat.

Soon they were all sorting through the boxes, sniffling and apologizing to one another.  One way or the other, things went the way Kelly wanted them to.

The hardest part was, they were beginning to accept that.

*          *          *

The next four days were hellish.  The men-turned-women found themselves longing for the old days when it was just their bodies being hacked apart.  The behavioral implants were insidious, and none of the men really knew whether they were being manipulated or if they were really starting to accept their situations.

Mornings started early with the chimes.  Because they could not effectively move without them, the men had taken to sleeping and showering with the platform heels on.  They had about ten or fifteen minutes to shower and brush their teeth, usually only getting their morning cigarette – a long, slender ‘ladies’ cigarette invariably – on the way to the dressing tables.  There they were given one hour to dry and style their hair and do their makeup.  They were encouraged to chatter while they did so, and the topics of conversation usually centered around escape and any number of horrible things they were going to do to Kelly and the woman in the monitor when they finally had their freedom.  It was a little disconcerting to hear such talk while five stunningly attractive women applied mascara and took curlers out of their hair.  But at least the implants didn’t stop their talk.  Corey and the others, while having massive difficulty concentrating on any one thing for longer than about ten minutes, were convinced that if they kept their focus, they could get out and somehow reverse what had happened to them.

The implant foam – the material that had been injected into their bodies and then molded beneath their skins by the boxes – was remarkable stuff.  Already it was taking on the characteristics of the cells it came in contact with, primarily muscle in the abdomens, legs and face and fat in the breasts and derrière.  It was starting to move with their muscles and crease and fold naturally, taking away the hard lines of the molding process and subtly changing to the softer, more feminine curves that they were developing.  The super-collagen treatments and various treatments on their hair had given them all the softest and healthiest skin and hair imaginable, and whatever had been in the shower caps which had encouraged their rapid hair growth had also imparted a luster and shine to their hair which would have done any Pantene commercial proud.  Their nails were thick and damn near indestructible, more polymer than actual tissue, fused to their natural nails by the gloves they had been forced to wear.

In short, they were all statuesque and incredibly beautiful.  Hale suspected aloud that any one of them would have been carded for alcohol – none of them looked a day over twenty, even though Hale himself was nearly three times that age.

After they were ‘presentable,’ they were allowed to dress for the day.  The clothing selections were very limited, since their disobedience earlier didn’t leave them much in the way of points for clothing – barely enough for food and cigarettes.  The meals they were able to buy were positively meager, given that their point totals remained so low.

They had their choice of three outfits – one for ‘everyday,’ one for workouts and something the woman on the monitor called ‘club clothes.’  All of them started with a barely-there tee-back thong, double lined and usually decorated with bright colors or sequins.  It would hardly have covered anything at all even if they hadn’t had penises, and the men were constantly shifting in order to keep their tiny cocks supported beneath the thin strip of fabric.  They usually had to tuck their testicles and penises into the body cavity just to get their clothes to fit without suffering excruciating pain.  They were given about seven of these thongs at first – to keep them from having to hand-wash – and also a pair of lacy satin bras in various colors.  Luckily all the underwear was the same size – women’s small for the underwear and 36 DD for the bras – so that the men could trade to keep from wearing the same thing constantly.

The workout clothing consisted of tights and leotards in garishly colored patterns, all skin-tight and revealing.  Stretchy sports bras and tube tops were available for support (which was hardly necessary with their firm breasts), long socks for absorbency, but they were still confined to their skyscraper heels.

The ‘everyday’ clothes were the very latest in teenage fashion.  Skintight blue jeans with flared legs that just barely came up to the top of their pubic hair, usually decorated with studs or rhinestones, and matching belts.  Little midriff-baring halters or baby tees which served little more than just emphasizing their already prominent breasts.  Some short, pleated ‘schoolgirl’ plaid skirts, some denim minis, stocking and hose and blouses and little cropped bolero jackets.  There were nothing in the boxes that would make them look like anything other than teenage sexpots.

But the ‘club clothes’ were much worse.  Skintight lycra and stretch vinyl, little abbreviated tube dresses that barely covered their crotches or hot pants and tube tops, catsuits and long gowns slit nearly to their crotches and revealing more than they concealed.   Usually they could add a rhinestone choker, armlet or bracelet to go with the ensemble in addition to the huge dangly hoop earrings that they were required to wear almost daily.

After they dressed, they were given an hour to browse their touch-screen computers to see how they wished to spend their points.  Usually they only had enough to order their dinner in the evening and the two packs of cigarettes that their bodies fairly demanded of them.  All of them – through natural addiction or compulsion or some combination of both – smoked nearly constantly and were required by the monitor woman to be ladylike about it.  All of them learned to smoke like 40’s starlets and magazine models in quick time, lest they have their allotment cancelled.  The cramps, headaches and shaking associated with withdrawal just weren’t worth it.

It wasn’t as if there was much to buy with excess points, anyway.  All of the clothes and shoes were of a theme, all very young, very overtly sexy and just this side of trashy, and served only to make them feel ultra-feminine.  They learned quickly to keep their mistakes with makeup to a minimum as well – the point costs of cosmetics were astronomical, and they were responsible for their own supplies.  And to drain even more of their faltering hopes away, there were even ways to spend points on tampons and maxi-pads.  The men tried not to look at those, or at the pictures of food.  Because of their continued outbursts, all of them were constantly short of points.  They were basically kept on bread and water.

After they’d done their ‘morning shopping,’ they were set to their exercise for three hours.  Half an hour of yoga for flexibility, then an hour of high-impact aerobic dance.  Then another hour of gymnastics and tumbling followed (which was a real trick in their heels, but they found that they were quite good at it from their time in the boots).  The final half-hour was devoted to strength training, more for further demoralization than for any exercise.  To someone like Hollis Wainwright or Joe Hargreaves, who had bench-presses of more than two hundred and fifty-five pounds, sweating and toiling under an eighty-pound bar had the two men in tears more often than sweating.

After exercise they were given what lunch they could afford and a half-hour to eat.  Then they were to clean up and reapply their makeup.  After that hour, they were given their lessons in femininity – proper hygiene, proper turns of phrase, gestures, lessons in makeup, hairstyling.  Their lessons included the current slang used by teenage girls, and a great deal involving interaction and etiquette with teenage boys, adult men and older men as well.  At several times during their lessons, signals would go off and they would collect drinks – usually mixed drinks or shots, sometimes wine and never beer – that they were required to drink.  Of all the tasks set to them, this was the one the men minded the most.  Usually by the end of the three hour lesson they could managed to get a healthy buzz which would last them into dinnertime.

After the lesson, they were allowed to either read or watch television – neither of which was very edifying, considering that the reading material consisted largely of Seventeen, Elle, Vogue and Cosmopolitan and the television programs were limited to the E! Fashion Emergency, the occasional beauty pageant and MTV.  After that two hours they ate dinner – again very little they could afford – and then were encouraged to change into frilly, lacy ‘baby doll’ nighties or teddies and write in their journals.  It was terrible for the men to write these journals, since the movement chips that had been behind their ears had worked in concert with the gloves they’d worn to produce a rounded, bubbly ‘cheerleader’ form of handwriting and the nasal implants compelled them to dot their I’s with little hearts or stars, to misspell words and to choose inks that were usually pink, lavender or baby blue on similar stationery.  Their journals detailed their tortures, but instead of using descriptors like "horrible," "demoralizing" or "ghastly" they were compelled to use words such as "cool," "awesome" and "intense."

The fourth night saw Joe Hargeraves, his journal in his shapely lap and busy scribbling away with a pink pen topped with a fluff of pink marabou feather, drop his beautiful face into his hands and begin crying uncontrollably.  The men had been horrified, originally, at how easily they cried now, but it had become very much a comfort to them as their only real emotional outlet.

"Joe, honey, what’s wrong?" Hale said, rushing to his friend’s side and wrapping him in his slender arms, his pillowy breasts flattening against Hale’s back.  "What is it?"

"I can’t take it anymore," Joe breathed, his Georgia drawl very pronounced.  "I just can’t take any more of this, I swear."

"You have to stay strong, sweetie," Corey said.  "You can hold on, I know you can."

"It’s not that," Hale said in the thick Jersey Girl accent.  "I know I can hold on.  I don’t think I want to anymore."

"You can’t mean that," Hollis said earnestly.  "You have to fight."

"Why?" Joe asked.  "What good is it going to do?  Look, Ah don’t know about y’all, but Ah cain’t stand another minute a’ living in this damn fishbowl.  Ah want out!  None of us are evah gonna be men again, y’all.  Y’all know that in your hearts!  So if the only way out of heah is to leave as a woman, then why shouldn’t Ah just give that bastard my access codes, let him stick in my new pussy and go home?"

"Because that’s, like, exactly what he wants, baby," Steve said.  "And we can’t let him win!  That work belongs to us!"

"He’s already won!" Joe shouted.  "Dammit, cain’t y’all see that?  He owns us!"

"Maybe he’s right," Steve told the others.

"No," Joe said.  "Maybe she’s right.  Ah’m a she now.  That’s what y’all need to start calling me.  Any yourselves, while y’all’re at it.  He made us into girls."

"You can’t think that way," Corey pleaded.  "Please.  We all have to stick together!"

"Don’t you want to go home, Core?" Steve asked plaintively.  "Joe’s right.  We’ve lost.  We’re no more good to Hestia and Hestia’s no more good to us.  It’s just keeping us here against our wills."

"You really think Kelly will let us go that easily?" Hollis shot.  "Look, Joe, Steve, you’re both tired and hungry.  Sleep on it, we’ll talk about it more in the morning."

"Nothing will be different," Joe whimpered.  "Not a damn thing."

"So we should just give up," Corey said, angry, his high little bubbly voice making him sound more petulant than irate.  "Just let Kelly take everything away from us and live his life off our hard work."

"Isn’t that what he’s doing now?" Joe snapped.

"That is what he’s doing now," Steve concurred.

"How can you listen to him like that?" Hale accused Steve, his best friend.

"Her!" Joe shouted in correction.

"Fine, then," Hale yelled back.  "How can you lissen to her like that?  I can’t fuggin’ believe I’m hearin’ dis outta you people.  We been friends for, like, ten years and Kelly’s got us fightin’ like a bunch of kids on a playground."

"We have to stick together," Corey said one more time.

"Fine, then, we stick together," Joe said, a little calmer.  "We all sign over Hestia and walk out of here.  Friends, like before.  ‘Cause if Ah stay heah, girls, Ah’m gonna go mad.  Ah cain’t take much more of this."

"Me neither," Steve said.  "Hale, you can’t tell me you’re not, like, tired of all this.  You used to be an award-winning biochemist and now you’re just a big pair of tits.  Not a one of us can concentrate long enough to, like, make up our minds.  Our lives are totally over, you guys, and I want to make a clean break."

"I dunno," Hale said.  "Yeh, I’m tired.  We all are.  But to just give up…"

"That totally can’t be our only option," Corey protested.

"Look, we should sleep on it," Hollis said.  "We’re all too worked up right now."

"Ah’m too hungry to sleep," Joe grumped.  "And Ah don’t have no more points for food."

"Then get a shot from the feed tubes, honey," Hale said.  "The monitor bitch said they’re free and we can have as much as we want, remember?"

All of them jumped up.  "Shit, I forgot about that," Steve said.  All of them sashayed across the room high speed in their towering heels and were jabbing the call buttons next to the feed tubes with their long fingernails.

The covers slid up and the tubes extended.  Careful of their long nails, the men pushed back the protective cover over the nozzle and jammed the tubes down their throats as far as they would go, milking them with their hands for every last drop.  The mechanism seemed slower than they remembered.  It took a great deal of suction, hand-wringing and even pumping their heads up and down on the tubes to finally get them to deliver.  The fluid was warm and filling, easing their hunger pangs.  They all took two shots from the tubes (the second shot took much longer to arrive, but the men were persistent) and walked back to their beds.

"Yum yum," Steve said happily, scraping a little of the white fluid from where it had spilled out of the corner of his mouth with a long fingernail and licking it clean.  "That hit the spot."

"I can’t believe we, like, spaced on those," Corey said.  "They’ve totally been here the whole time and we didn’t even think about them.  How dumb was that?"

"Totally," Steve agreed.

They bedded down quickly, taking down their hair from the day’s style and gathering it in a ponytail or a long braid before snuggling down into the covers.  It took so much longer to get situated for sleep in a woman’s body – they had to find a comfortable position which didn’t squeeze their large breasts, arrange their hair so that it wasn’t in their faces or mouths.  None of them even bothered to take off their makeup – it would cost them points, but they didn’t care in lieu of the first night in a while they hadn’t gone to bed hungry.

The chimes sounded twice, one long and one short, and the lights dimmed.  As they lay there in the dark some contented belches from the meal sounding softly in the gloom.  Corey tried to focus his mind, thinking about the argument he’d had with his friends and something else, something funny that he couldn’t quite put a finger on.

Something about the way they had to eat from those tubes.  Something familiar.  It reminded him of something, maybe, he’d seen once.

Random memories forces their way through the perpetual fog in his brain.  A younger, male self.  A room full of rowdy friends, a bachelor party.  Someone put in a movie, a large breasted woman and a naked man.  She fell to her knees…

"OhmyGod," Corey spat in the darkness.  "Holy shit, y’all, the tubes!  Do you realize what they’re making us do?"

"I don’t feel so good," Steve said pitifully.

"Yeh, me neither," Hale echoed.

Corey was about to reply when the stomach cramps hit.

*          *          *

"Quite the midnight snack," Kelly mused, watching as the orderlies circulated among the groaning men-turned-women, administering heated compresses and anti-cramping medication.  Neither seemed to be doing much good.

"Actually, despite your discomfort, you should all be thrilled," Kelly went on, sitting on the edge of Corey’s little desk.  "You’ve just entered the last phase of your transformations.  We’ve actually been waiting for quite some time for you to remember those tubes in the walls.  You held out longer than we thought you would."

"What did you do to us?" Hollis rasped, clasping his flat-as-a-plank stomach.

"I didn’t do anything," Kelly said.  "It must have been something you ate."

"What was in the food?" Steve accused.

"A fascinating enzyme, actually.  We’ve been working on it for years.  By now it has probably bonded with your entire stomach.  It’s quite harmless, actually – you will be able to eat and drink normally for the rest of your lives."

"This is supposed to be normal?" Hale groaned miserably.

"Well, that’s just it.  Once you ingest the counteragent, you won’t even know anything is wrong.  But if you go more than twenty-four hours without, then you can pretty much expect what you’re feeling right now."

"And you’re withholding the counteragent," Hollis said matter-of-factly.

"Not in the slightest," Kelly replied.  He held up a little chocolate mint, much like the kind that appeared on the pillows of the more upscale hotels.  "We can give you as much of it as you can hold, but I’m afraid it won’t do you any good."

"Like, why not?" Corey demanded, hissing in pain.

"This little mint isn’t the whole counteragent.  It has to combine with a certain bodily fluid in order to be effective," Kelly explained.  "I believe that Mister Taylor – excuse me, Miss Taylor – has figured out which fluid that is."

"You bastard," Corey growled.

"Go ahead, my dear," Kelly said.  "Tell them what it is."

"Seminal fluid," Corey groaned, completely defeated.  "Sperm."

"And I suppose you’ll counteract this when we sign over Hestia to you," Hollis said.

"Unfortunately not," Kelly said.  "I’m afraid this procedure is permanent.  And the longer you go without the counteragent the worse the cramps will become.  After twenty-four hours they become quite unbearable, I can assure you."

Kelly gestured and the five male orderlies who had been attending to the cramp-stricken men stood off to the sides of the respective beds and began unlacing their pants.

"I took the liberty of giving your orderlies some of these tasty little candies about an hour ago," Kelly explained.  "You seem to do fine with the tubes in the walls.  Let’s see how you perform on the actual instruments.  And girls – be sure and make lots of noise.  Men like it when you make lots of noise.  If you don’t, we’ll just make you – so make it easier on yourselves.  The sooner you do the job properly, the sooner the cramps will stop."

Corey looked at the dangling penis of the man standing by his bedside as if it was a live cobra.  Huge tears welled up in his overlarge eyes and his bottom lip trembled uncontrollably.

"Come now, Miss Taylor," Kelly chuckled.  "It’s not sexy at all if you’re crying."

"Leave him alone!"  Hollis barked.

"You’re in no position to make demands," Kelly said.  "Besides, if you suck cock like the good little girls I know you are, I’ll give you all a one-hundred point bonus for tomorrow."

None of the stricken men made any move towards the orderlies.  Kelly shrugged.

"Suit yourselves," he said, gesturing once again.  The orderlies began re-tying their pants.  "You may last a while.  You may not.  It will be interesting to see.  I’m not a cruel man, girls.  I’ll keep men ready for you, and the hundred-point bonus as well.  All you have to do is say ‘I need to suck a cock’ and I’ll send someone in for you immediately."

Kelly moved towards the door, the orderlies in tow.  "Pleasant dreams, ladies."

*          *          *

The night passed at a snail’s pace, the pitch-dark room filled with sobs, groans and pitiful whimpers.  Occasionally the flare of a lighter or the glowing orange ember of a cigarette would pierce the gloom, softly illuminating one of the beautiful faces in an expression of exhaustion and pain.  Some of them found fitful sleep, but never restful and never for long.  Sometimes one of them would half-stagger on his platform heels to the toilets, succumbing to the onset of diarrhea caused by the enzymes in their stomachs.

The three chimes sounded an eternity later, the lights coming up on their sweaty, exhausted forms.  One by one they staggered into their shower stalls and took the only comfort they’d found in hours, emerging with wet hair and slack, pained expressions on their beautiful faces.

"Good morning, ladies," the woman’s voice said cheerfully.  "One hour for hair and makeup, then get dressed.  You’ll then have half an hour to spend your points and then we’ll begin the three-hour exercise period.  No idleness!"

Hollis broke down in wailing sobs.  Steve and Joe were shortly behind.

"I can’t, I can’t, I just can’t," Hollis panted between sniffs and wails.  "Oh, God.  Oh dear God, why did this happen?  I didn’t do anything to anybody!  I don’t deserve this!"

Corey moved to Hollis’ bedside and hugged him tight, rocking him gently back and forth.  His heart was breaking at the sight of his dearest friends in such agony.

He pressed his soft, bee-stung lips into Hollis’ sweaty hair.  "Hollis, sweetie.  Do what you have to do.  Do it."

Hollis gathered what he could of his pride, wiped his eyes with long fingers (careful not to stab himself with his long, pink-painted fingernails) and drew a deep, ragged breath.

"Kelly!" he shouted hoarsely, his phone-sex purr unused to such volume and the crying and groaning he’d done leaving his throat ragged.  "Kelly, are you listening?"

There was no response, but Hollis drew a long, hiccupping breath.  When his voice next came out, it was a childlike whisper, full of pain.

"I’ll give you the key to the safe deposit box and the location," he said.  "You can have it.  You win.  Go ahead, cut my dick off.  I don’t care anymore."

A disembodied voice – Kelly’s voice – rang from the speakers under the monitor.  "A wise choice.  I knew you’d see reason.  Would you like me to stop the discomfort?"

"Yes," Hollis whimpered in a little-girl voice.

"Then ask me.  Ask me like you were instructed to ask."

Hollis looked long into Corey’s eyes, searching for forgiveness or some form of salvation.  Something was broken, forever irreparable, in the former Chief Financial Officer’s mind.

"I…  I need…"  Hollis took a deep breath.  "I need to suck a cock."  He dissolved into weeping, pitiful sobs.

"Say please," Kelly demanded.

"You fucker!  He did what you wanted!"  Corey shouted.

"Please," Hollis whimpered.  "Please, I need to suck a cock.  Please give me a cock to suck.  I need it.  Please."

Corey couldn’t watch.  He sunk his head into Hollis’ sweaty hair, eyes screwed shut to keep back the frustrated, angry tears.  He couldn’t bear to see any more, to see his friends – his family for the past three years as Endotech struggled – brought down to this, the last shreds of their dignity gone and their minds broken.

"Please," Steve said loudly.  "Me, too.  Please.  I need to suck a cock, too."

"And me," Joe added.  "Please.  Ah need a cock to suck too."

Kelly’s voice seemed victorious.  "Miss Gregory?  Miss Taylor?  Do you have anything to add before I send in the orderlies?"

"No," Corey growled.

"Go fuck yourself," Hale spat.

"Very well."

The door swished open and three orderlies came in, already unlacing their pants.  Another came in with a video camera, standing off to one side to document the occasion.  Corey tried to hiss in anger but a fresh set of cramps doubled him in half and turned his outrage into a pitiful, helpless whimper.

Hollis, Steve and Joe took the pillows from their beds and set them at the feet of the orderlies.  Unsteadily, they knelt in front of the men, took the orderlies’ limp penises in long-nailed fingers and stroked them gently, stirring them towards erection just enough to slip them between swollen lips and finish making them hard.  They fellated the orderlies expertly, pistoning their heads down the spit-slick shafts all the way to the back of their throats, stroking the bases with one hand while massaging the scrotum with the other, teasing the head with long nimble tongues.

"I told you ladies that I wanted you to make noise," Kelly commanded.  "Do it properly, or I won’t let you do it again tomorrow."

As one, they began a chorus of moaning, mewling, squealing and chirping as they sucked and stroked the men in front of them.  The slurped and panted, making as fine a show as any porno movie.

Kelly’s amused voice returned.  "Now stroke your crotches.  I want to see you masturbate as you do this."

The men-turned-women complied, now completely abandoned to the experience.  Unbeknownst to them, the nasal implants were hard at work stimulating their pleasure centers and associating the act with satisfaction, excitement and joy.  The revulsion for the act was gone, and the three stricken men were beginning to enjoy themselves.

The breathing of the men receiving all the attention was coming quicker, interspersed with soft moans and grunts.  Kelly gave his final instructions.

"Beg them for their come," he told the women.  "Bathe your faces and tongues with it.  And be sure and thank them when you’re done, ask them nicely if they enjoyed your attention.  That’s what makes a good cocksucker, after all."

Corey’s heart broke to hear Hollis’ husky voice saying, "Come on, baby, give it to me.  I want it.  Give it to me.  Come on, baby. That’s it!  Come on!  MmmmMMMMMmmm!  Oh, yes!  Yeah!  That’s it, lover!  Cover me with it!  Mmm, I love it!"

"Gimme that come, baby, that’s it.  Give it to me," Steve urged.  "Yeah, baby!  Come in my mouth!  I want it so bad, baby, that’s it, come on…  Yeah!  Oh, yeah!"  He finished in a chorus of moans and smacks.  Corey could just imagine his long fingers scooping up the come from his beautiful face and then sticking them in his mouth to suck them clean.

"Oh, please, sugah, give me that come," Joe said.  "You know it’s what Ah want.  Give it to me, honey.  Yeah, come on.  Give it here.  Right here.  Please, sugah, oh, please…  Yeah!  Oh, sweetie, mmMMM!  Yeah!  That’s it!"  The graceful Georgia drawl became a tongue-depressor ‘aaah’ as Joe opened his – her – mouth and stuck out her long tongue to bathe it in every last drop.

Corey slumped to the floor, heart broken, utterly defeated.  His friends were gone.  Gone forever, broken and destroyed.  He’d stayed with them through so much pain, but the creatures on their knees in front of the orderlies were strangers to him.  He felt sick, and not just from the continuing cramps.

"Oh, God," he breathed.

He felt cool, soft hands stroking his abundant blonde-white hair, smoothing it away from his cover girl face.  Hale’s discordant Brooklyn somehow managed to sound soothing and gentle.  "It’s over, Core.  You did everything you could."

"I want to die," Corey moaned softly.

"No, you don’t," Hale said.  "Neither do I.  We had a hundred chances to die."

Across the room, Corey could clearly hear Hollis’ husky purr saying, "Did you like that, baby?  Yeah?  You liked me sucking that dick?  Mmmm.  I loved it."

"Was I a good little cocksucker?" Steve asked his orderly.  "I know you liked that, didn’t you, honey?  Oh, yeah.  I know you did."

"Mmm, sugah, that was so good," Joe chorused, sounding for all the world like he meant it.  Corey knew, deep down, that every word was true.  "Did you like that, baby doll?  Yeah?  I’m so glad you did."

Corey only hung his head.  "I guess this is it," he muttered softly.

"Yeah, I guess so," Hale agreed.  "Do we stick it out?"

"Can you?" Corey asked.

"I dunno," Hale replied.  "My insides feel like they’re on fire.  I can hardly breathe."

"Same here," Corey said.  "I think I’m losing it."

"Look, Corey, we’re out of options.  We can either do this by our own fuggin’ choice, or it’s gonna get done to us.  I say make a stand.  If we’re going to go down, we go down by choice, not because Kelly forced us."

Corey looked up, eyes glistening with tears and full of gratitude.

"You with me, boss?" Hale asked.

"Yeah," Corey said, his voice gaining strength.  "Yeah.  I need to suck a cock."

"I could go for a cock, too," Hale said brightly.  "Bring it on."

*          *          *

It wasn’t as bad as Corey feared it would be.  He’d made enough noise to satisfy any porn director, sucking cock with an abandon that bordered on reckless.  Hale was beside him on his knees, doing much the same, but occasionally they would share a happy wink as their swollen lips engulfed the cocks between them.

"Oh, fuck yeah!  Yeah!  MmmmMMMmmm!  Yeah!"  Hale nearly shouted as the orderly bathed her outstretched tongue and face with hot jets of semen.  Hale gobbled it up as quick as he could, sucking the man’s deflating cock a few seconds longer to milk every last drop from it.  The rigid muscles in Hale’s abdomen relaxed visibly.  Hale swayed on his knees in relief.

"Didja like that, baby?  Huh?  You like how I suck your fat dick?  Fuck yeah, I love that fuggin’ cum all over my face like that," he said brightly, already watching Corey’s progress.

The sensations of pleasure didn’t quite make it easy for Corey to pull the member from his mouth and stroke it frantically with both long-nailed hands while begging, "Oh, please, baby!  Mmm, give me that hot cum, baby.  I, like, totally want it."

He just managed to get his tongue out in time for the first jet.  He swallowed quickly – the hot, musky salt of the fluid barely fazed him, apparently the food from the wall tubes was textured and flavored similarly to get them used to the taste – and felt his stomach relax nearly instantly, the abused muscles slackening.  So great was the relief that the remaining spasms of the orderly’s orgasm pumped all over Corey’s upturned face, splashing across his smooth cheeks, across his pert little nose and even into his eyelashes.  It was a strange feeling, not at all unpleasant – Corey smiled broadly as the last drops of the man’s come dripped onto his puckered lips.  He licked his lips lasciviously and smiled broadly at his panting, sweating lover.

"OhmyGod, that was so totally cool!" he cooed in his bubbly soprano.  "Mmm, I totally love your come!  Did you like that, baby?  Oooh, I did!  Wow!"

The orderly grunted something grateful-sounding and hiked up his pants.  The other men-turned-women, who were sitting along the dressing table smoking cigarettes, laughed and cheered, clapping their hands and wolf-whistling.  Corey, now much relieved, stood and took Hale’s hand as they swept into a curtain-call bow.

Corey had just settled down with a long, skinny Capri 120 and his foundation sponge when Kelly strode into the room, followed by the woman from the monitors and five pre-op teams pushing gurneys.

"Now, ladies, it’s time to complete this exercise.  There will be no exercise or lessons today.  After your surgery all you will have to do for the rest of the day is sit around and think about how you want to spend those one hundred points," the woman said cheerfully.

The women ground out their cigarettes after some final long puffs and made their way slowly to the gurneys.  Kelly addressed them all as the teams helped them with the gowns and caps, removed their shoes and started IV’s.

"You have all performed admirably," Kelly said.  "Beyond my expectations.  I’m very pleased with your progress.  The surgical grafting of your new genitalia will complete this process.  When you return from surgery, we will take care of the particulars of the transfer of Project Hestia to me."

"Um, there’s a problem.  My signature has changed," Corey said, settling onto his gurney.  "The documents will come under scrutiny with the way you, like, make me write now."

"You were a special case," the nameless woman from the monitors said.  "You alone of this group were conditioned to have the same signature.  It only works when you use your name, and only your whole name.  Your signature will not be disputed.  Besides, one of your charming companions will witness the signature, and I just happen to be a notary public."

Corey kept his features coached to stillness, although he felt a stab of excitement.  "I guess you totally thought of everything, huh?"

"I guess I did," Kelly said smugly.  "Come on, let’s get this over with."

End of Part Three

since 11/19/02