By Nobilis Reed
Episode 1
The alarm rang. I stretched out and slapped the snooze button. I hated getting up so early, but it was the only way to get the bathroom to myself. Turning my hand over, back and forth, I regarded the contrast between the dark skin on the back of my hand and the paler skin of my palms.
"Crap." If I remembered my dreams, it would be easier to take, but as always the tenuous visions slipped away before I could grasp them. What was going on in my dreams to make this happen?
I sat up, stretched, and pulled the sheets back to survey the situation. A pair of large breasts lay on my chest, with areolas that faded into the espresso background of my skin. Below that, a slightly rounded belly, and then a vulva completely clean of hair. I ran my hand over my head, feeling little nubs of tight dry curls. A quick flex of my limbs told me they all worked properly. I had that much, at least.
I climbed out of bed and shut off the alarm clock before it could sound again. I needed to hurry. The bathrobe hung from me like a tent, but it would suffice between my bedroom and the shower. I grabbed my key and my overloaded basket of toiletries and headed out the door.
Leo was just coming out of his room, next door to mine. "Ah, you're Ben, right?"
"At least you've got all your arms and legs."
"I know, I know, I should be grateful for small gifts." I glared down the hall at Herb Matheson, who was staring openly at me from the lounge. "But honestly, this sucks."
Leo shook his head. "Yeah, whatever, dude." He pulled the door shut and hefted his book bag.
I walked past Matheson without a word. He gave me that sneering, almost-not-there smile he always gave when no one was looking. I stepped into a shower stall and hung my robe so that it covered the gap between the door and the wall. I heard Matheson moving around outside, running water, splashing around, pretending he had business in the bathroom.
Not for the first time, I cursed the dorm director. I could, if I wished, go down and use the bathrooms on the floor below, but after one visit I decided I'd rather shower on my own floor. At least here, I only had to deal with Matheson. Even though none of them touched me, showering there would not be an option if I wanted to avoid sexual encounters.
I turned off the water, dried off and wrapped the bathrobe around my body again, making sure that none of my cleavage showed. At the sink, I brushed my teeth quickly, ignoring my tormentor, who loitered at the bathroom door. He had something planned for me, I could tell from the smug expression on his face. Before taking up my basket, I wove my hands and spoke the phrases to awaken my magic.
"Uh-uh-uh," Matheson scolded. "You know the rules. No spell-casting in the dorms." He stepped forward and grabbed my hand, spoiling the incantation. "Rules are rules, Benita. I'm going to have to report this to Miss Kennedy." His voice was low and cold.
I yanked my hand out of his. I felt like I needed another shower. "Fine. Whatever. Now will you get out of the way? You're making me late for class."
"You know, you could be nicer to me. Things would go a lot smoother for you."
"Fuck you, Matheson! I'm not going to play your pigeonshit games. Are you going to get out of my fucking way or not?"
"The little freak's got quite a mouth." He let the acid words out with a creepy sweetness that made my skin want to retreat to the other side of my body.
I bit back a spell. I wanted to make him suffer, but with his family connections anything I did would more than likely just cascade back at me. "What do you want?"
"You isolate yourself. You hide." He stepped close and plucked at the collar of my bathrobe. "You have this thing wrapped around you like a suit of armor. Why don't you let people see what you're really like?"
"A flash of skin, is that what you want?" I couldn't muster a smile but he let his guard down anyways.
I put my hands between us, stepped left, grabbed his wrist and pivoted. He tripped over my ankle, throwing out his arms to keep his balance. As he stumbled through the doorway, something flashed and crackled. Black tentacles erupted from the doorway, grabbing him by the arms and legs and holding him suspended in midair.
Leo, standing in the hall, looked at the two of us, and slunk away. He didn't want to get involved. No one ever wanted to get involved.
Matheson hung there, spitting and growling. "You're not going to get away with this!"
I ducked under the tentacles and out into the hallway, past Matheson, and down the hall to my room.
I slammed the door behind me and sat on the bed. I had escaped without significant incident, but it didn't feel that way. Rage and shame roiled in my stomach and I had to fight to keep from breaking down into tears.
He was NOT going to get to me.
When I finally got myself under control, the clock showed that I only had minutes to get to class. I pulled open the dresser drawer with my "female" clothes in it and fumbled around for some underwear that would fit, but none of the bras were big enough. I tried. I knew I would pay for leaving out that essential undergarment, but I didn't know then how much. I spat a curse and grabbed a tee shirt from the "large" pile on top of the dresser. The tee shirt read "Ben Stansfield" across the front, just like the rest of them. A pair of white cotton panties, and a mid-calf denim skirt went on quick. I strapped on a pair of adjustable sandals and scooped up my backpack on my way out the door.
Miss Kennedy and Matheson were in the lobby, talking by the front desk when I came off the lift, but I didn't stop to give them any more opportunities to harass me. I hustled out onto the street, painfully conscious of the movement underneath my shirt. Not only was it gathering even more attention, but every bounce twinged in my shoulders and breasts. I hugged my arms over them for support while I jogged.
I managed to make it to class only a few minutes late. I tried to slip in quietly and take a seat in the back, but Doctor Swallowtail acknowledged my presence with a stern reminder that there were assigned seats in her class. She flew back to the overhead projector and wrote out another series of runes, holding the marker in both tiny hands. As a Pixie, she could have moved it by magic, but she saved that for demonstrations.
"Yes, ma'am." I hustled down the stairs to the front of the hall to my usual seat, trying to look small and inconspicuous.
Someone was already there. Worse, he was wearing a "Ben Stanfield" tee shirt. He looked up at me, then back at Doctor Swallowtail. "Nice joke, whoever you are. Now fuck off."
"Joke?" I stamped my foot.
Doctor Swallowtail flew up to her lectern, where the amplification spell would make her tiny voice audible through the entire room. "Mister Stansfield, if you're having some kind of dispute, take it out into the hall."
"No problem here, ma'am," said the impostor.
"In that case I expect no more trouble."
The jerk snickered as I slid into the empty seat behind him and took out my notebook. I let the frustration ebb out of me as I opened myself to the lecture. I let the indignities go as I listened and wrote. For the first time the whole morning, I felt comfortable. This was where I belonged.
The lecture ended too soon. Doctor Swallowtail dismissed the class, but questions and theories still danced in my brain. I scribbled them in my notebook before they evaporated and then crossed the narrow gap to the lectern.
"Doctor Swallowtail, if I may…"
"No you may NOT." She looked up from the console built into her lectern and regarded me with ice in her eyes. "Others may find your little games amusing, Mister Stansfield, but I do not. When you learn that my class is a serious endeavor, and show me by treating it with the gravity it deserves, I will be happy to discuss anything relating to our discipline." She turned back to her notes and waved a dismissive hand in my direction. "Until then, good day."
I felt like I had been kicked in the teeth. "But…"
"Good. Day. Go on back to your guild. I'm sure you'll get answers more suited to your kind."
I fought the crowd coming in to get to the door. Two guys brushed against my chest more closely than they had to, but I hardly noticed. I found an empty classroom and collapsed into a chair. I told myself I was taking a break to get myself under control, but it was a lie. Tears dropped onto the desk. My tears. Why did it have to be so easy to cry when I was female? Why did I have to be female at all? Why did I deserve this?
The chair next to me squeaked against the floor. A hand on my shoulder. "Are you alright?"
I looked up. He had those rugged features women went for—dark eyebrows, angular jaw, and deep blue eyes. "Yeah, I'm… I'm okay. I just…" I leaned back and choked back the tears. I had to get myself together.
"What's… oh." His face darkened as he spotted the name across my chest. "You."
"The one and only." I snorted, half laughing, half crying. My composure was returning, but slowly.
His mouth tightened to a thin line, the look of someone weighing whether the stories were true. I held his gaze, blinking away the last few tears.
He shook his head and stood abruptly, knocking the chair away. "Freak."
When he was gone I went over to the window. How many stories was it, to the next skyway down? Ten, twelve? It looked like a long way. I put my hand on the transparent plastic that separated me from the yawning void. Supposedly, the walls were woven with spells to prevent anything from penetrating them, but I knew a spell that would transform the tough plastic window back into petroleum sludge.
"Excuse me, is this, um, oneiromancy?" A bat-form theriomorph stood in the doorway. Her voice was high, almost too high to hear. Large blue ears stood out from the sides of her head, and her nose turned up at a disturbing angle. Dark fur covered her gangly arms.
"I don't know, I'm just… um…"
"Wait, You're Ben Stansfield?" I had trouble pulling emotional context from her piercing voice.
"Yes." I hugged my arms around my belly, preparing for yet another assault.
"My name's Natalie Grace. Pleased to meet you." She held out a hand with impossibly long fingers.
I hesitated. She withdrew. A fleeting grimace crossed her face that might have been a smile. "I need to find my class. Sorry to bother you." She left before I could say anything.
Crap crap crap! One moment, not even a second, thinking "why would someone want to look like that voluntarily?" She saw it, she saw the hesitation, and took off before I could humiliate her further.
I followed her out into the hallway. "Natalie, wait!" I ran around in front of her and offered my hand. "Ben Stansfield. You surprised me. I'm not used to people reacting to me that way." Her spindly fingers felt oddly cold against my palm, but I didn't mind.
She smiled back. "I really am looking for oneiromancy." She checked her watch and shook her head. "I might as well skip it now."
"Then, ah… can I buy you coffee?"
Her smile revealed a set of pointed teeth. "I'd like that."
We found a quiet table in the back of the Student Union, shielded from the busy main floor by a planter full of greenery. She took her coffee black, iced, in a wide cup.
"I have to ask," she said, after taking a few laps with her tongue, "Is it true?"
I grunted like I'd been hit in the gut.
"I'm sorry. I only just met you, I shouldn't have pried. Forget I said anything." She looked down into her coffee.
"No, no… it's alright." I sighed. "Every few nights, my magic takes control and transforms me. If I'm lucky, there's time between transformations for me to spend a day or two in my natural form."
"That sounds inconvenient."
She flicked her ears.
"You don't believe me."
"Well, I've heard people say if you really didn't like the shape you wake up with, you could just cancel the spell, or transform yourself back or something."
"And how did that go?"
"Wow! That's terrible."
I drank the rest of my coffee and crumpled the cup in my hand. "Yeah." I threw the ball into a nearby trash bin and leaned back in my chair. "So, that's my sad story. How about you? Why a bat?"
"What?"
"Hey, if you're allowed to ask prying questions, so am I. Why a bat?" I waved my hand in the direction of the dozens of students milling around in the lounge. "When women take the curse, it's something they think is attractive. Felines. Rabbits. Birds, mice, raccoons. Either that, or something powerful. Wolves. Bears. Eagles."
"I didn't have much choice. My family have been bat-morphs for generations."
"That makes more sense."
"I don't know. I don't particularly like looking like this, but I suppose I have it better than you. At least I have some control." She set the cup aside, now holding mostly ice. "Thanks for the coffee, Ben, and the conversation, but I need to go. Skipping one class is enough for today." She stood and gathered up her books.
"Which way are you going? I'll walk you there." No one had treated me so fairly in months. I didn't want it to end. Unfortunately, her class was only around the corner and up one floor, and I could only prolong our conversation by a few more minutes. At the door to the classroom we exchanged phone numbers. I couldn't stop smiling. It didn't matter that she was hideous by any objective standard. She liked me.
* * * *
At lunch, I found myself scanning the cafeteria for Natalie, lingering over a meal I usually rushed through.
Instead, two of Matheson's cronies spotted me. One of them winked. I groaned and put down my fork. My appetite, already mostly sated, disappeared. I stood up.
He said something to his buddy and they both laughed. I took my tray to the cleanup station and ducked out into the hallway.
Matheson lurked right around the corner. "Hey Benita, where you running off to? Time to take another shower?"
"Fuck off, Matheson."
I tried to slip past him but he grabbed my arm. "I got a witness who'll swear you cast a spell at me in the dorm," he whispered. His breath smelled of garlic.
I stiffened, and he felt it. He moved in.
"You make trouble and you're history, Benita."
I shivered. "It's a lie. I didn't do anything."
"Oh yeah? All Leo saw, you cast a spell, and the next thing you know I'm spreadeagled in the doorway."
"Midnight. You come to my room tonight for a little show, and I'll forget the whole thing. You got a really hot body this time and it's a shame you're the only one who gets to enjoy it."
Something told me a show wasn't all he had in mind. "Fuck you." I stomped on his foot. He yelped and I wrenched my arm out of his grip.
He growled through clenched teeth. "You like being a girl, Benita. Face it. You like it, and we all know it."
I ran, his shouts bouncing off the walls behind me. "So just take the curse and join the fucksluts on the Andie floor! You'll fit right in!"
By the time I got to my room I was hysterical. I collapsed onto the bed and curled up in a ball. Fuck the classes. I wanted to climb into bed and stay there until my body returned to normal. Did I really want this? The very thought was absurd. Why would anyone want to be treated the way they treated me? Why would anyone choose this hell?
When the tears finally subsided, I turned onto my back. I couldn't go on like this. I had to get myself together. No one was going to scrape me up and put the pieces back. I sat up and rubbed my eyes.
I looked at the wooden prosthetic limbs lying on the table next to the bed, waiting for me. I wanted them. They were anonymity, protection. No one bothered me when I was just ordinary Ben Stansfield, cripple. They were my friends. Loyal. Dependable.
My phone rang. I fished in my backpack for it. "Hello?"
"Ben Stansfield?" His voice was calm. I didn't recognize it.
"Yes."
"My name's John Randall. I heard about what happened outside the caf'. I wanted to let you know you're not alone."
"I'm not?"
"No. Matheson's a bigot and an asshole, and he doesn't deserve to be an R.A. I want to get him thrown off the dorm staff. Can you come down to the sixth floor tonight?"
"Uh… I don't know…" I shook my head, trying to dispel the images of that disastrous morning in the sixth floor showers. I knew they weren't going to assault me but with everything happening with Matheson I had no appetite for their sort of entertainment
"I just want to talk, Ben. Maybe there's a friend you could bring with you?"
Natalie. "Mm… maybe. I'll have to check."
"Meet me at nine, in the main lounge."
"Alright."
I hung up the connection and dialed. She didn't pick up. Her automatic message clicked on. "Natalie Grace," it said. "Leave a message."
"Natalie, it's Ben Stansfield. There's this meeting on the sixth floor tonight at nine, and I'd like you to come with me. Maybe we could meet at dinner beforehand? Call me back." I returned the phone to my backpack.
The ray of hope that something could be done about my situation did wonders for my mood. I checked the time… I could make History class, and salvage something from the day. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. "You can do this," I said to myself. After a brief stop at the bathroom to splash some water on my face, I headed out.
