Return to Dreams of Change Episode 1
Episode 2
I left the phone on all the way through history class, but it remained silent. Afterward, I stared at it as I walked across the walkway to the northwest building. "Ring, damn you." I shook the phone, as if that would help. "Crap." I wondered why she might not call. She could be busy, yes, but for two hours straight? Maybe she was one of those people who only checked their messages when classes were over for the day. I put it away as I started down the long hallway leading to the lifts.
Guild was held on one of the lowest floors of the northwest building, in a space that had been "converted" decades ago from warehouse space. Mana-proof panels covered the walls, floor and ceiling, their runes scorch-marked and crater-pocked, but intact. A wizard's guild would have books and alchemical apparatus, supplies of reagents, and lots of studious apprentices. We had a big open space for making things go boom.
I stepped out of the lift into the little anteroom that we had built from discarded partitions and waved my hand over the sign-in book, to get credit for the day. My mark appeared there, a splash of rainbow colors in a stylized "B".
A man in a stained blue bathrobe stitched with swirling red embroidery waved a bottle at me from the sofa shoved up against the wall. "Ben?"
"Hey George." He was the only one there.
He took a pull of the piss-yellow liquor and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Why you bother with that damn book, Ben? It's just another way for those damn mumblers to keep their boot on your neck."
"It's the rule. I gotta sign in every day to keep my student status." I slung my backpack into a corner and sat in the overstuffed armchair. We'd had this conversation a hundred times, and I wasn't in the mood to have it again.
"Nice body today."
I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, I guess. "
"You don't look convinced. That Matheson prick on your case again?"
"Worse than usual. He practically jumped in the shower with me this morning, and tried to make me trip over a ward on the way out. Now he's saying that unless I do what he wants he's going to report me for spellcasting in the dorm."
"Bastard. So just blast him."
"I can't do that."
"Right, right, okay, so turn him into a goat."
George maintained a straightforward ethical system. Anyone who wound up on his bad side got a blast of sorcerous fire. Needless to say, George was mostly homeless. The guild tolerated his presence in the meeting room because he made a halfway decent security guard. Even drunk he had talent. As a teacher, though, he was worse than useless.
"If you're going to get thrown out anyways, at least get some justice first." He fished in a paper sack and pulled out a big can of corn. "First exercise. Gimme a refill."
"This isn't teaching me anything, George."
"Bullshit. It's teaching you to keep your friends happy. Make with the transmutation, book-boy."
I took the can, sloshed it a few times, and spoke. They were nonsense syllables to everyone, even the wizards, but they did the trick.
I handed the can back, and he emptied its contents into the bottle. "Want some?"
"Nah, I'll pass."
The lift clanked open. An older woman shuffled off and shot a little lightning bolt at the book. Her faded military fatigues contrasted sharply with the frazzle of gray hair sticking out of her head. "Afternoon, gentlemen." She creaked her way over to our growing conversation circle and sat in midair. The only clue that she had summoned a plane of force to sit on was a slight crackle of electricity.
I nodded in her direction. "Good afternoon, Miss Walters." It was all the deference she had ever wanted from me.
George took another swig and coughed.
The guildmistress glanced at her watch, and then up at me. "Looks like it's just the two of us. How's your fireball coming along?"
"No progress."
She pursed her lips and shook her head. A pair of knitting needles levitated out of her large handbag and began working on a camouflage colored scarf. "Can't be a proper sorcerer without at least a basic fireball, Ben."
George grunted agreement.
I sighed and stood up. "Alright, alright. I'll give it another shot."
I stepped away from the chairs and up to a chalkmark on the floor.
"Hold on, hold on," said the guildmistress. "You need a target."
"Right, what could I have been thinking." I took a piece of lint out of my pocket, passed my hand over it, and it blossomed into a plush stuffed toy in the shape of a bull with big red-rimmed eyes. I tossed it out into the target area. "Alright, here goes nothing." I closed my eyes and concentrated. Transformation came as easy to me as thinking. I imagined what I wanted, found the energy, spoke the words that sprang to mind, gestured, and it happened.
This wasn't transformation. A fireball was much more about energy than matter, and I had never been good with energy. I imagined fire, blossoming out from my hand, enveloping the cow. I spoke. I touched. I reached deep, searching after the magic that would make my desires reality.
Nothing. I dug deeper. Nothing. Then, something… I channeled it, let it fly…
George's laughter echoed from the bare walls.
I looked. There in the corner, sat a fuzzy orange and red ball. .
"Now George," said Miss Walters, "That's not appropriate."
I sighed and threw up my arms. "I'm just not an evoker, Miss Walters. Why can't I work on the things I'm good at?"
"Looks like you're going to do that anyways," she said, nodding in the direction of the fuzzy ball in the corner. "Try again."
"Yes, ma'am."
* * * * *
I spotted Natalie in the corner of the dining hall as I came in. I smiled and waved. She scooped up her bag and ran for the door.
I stood, stunned. Someone had talked to her, someone had made fun of her for associating with me, or she couldn't handle the idea that I'd be looking like someone else in a few days. Crap. Couldn't she have waited even a few days for this? Crap crap crap!
My phone buzzed. The screen showed a text message… from Natalie? I opened it.
BEN SRY 2 RUN CANT TALK NOW THX 4 INV8 BUT BUSY TTYL
I shook my head. Something strange was going on. Why couldn't she have just called me? My stomach growled. The mystery would have to wait.
Rather than subject myself to yet another assault by Matheson or his buddies, I bought one of the "to go" bags and went straight back to the dorm. I had homework to do before meeting John Randall. A nap wouldn't do any harm, either.
The student doing clerk duty at the front desk waved me down. "Hey Ben, you've got mail." She grabbed an envelope from the cubbyholes next to her. The outside was blank. Had Natalie left something for me? Or was it another one of Matheson's torments?
I examined the envelope in the lift, both mundanely and with more magical senses. It seemed perfectly ordinary, so I broke the seal. Inside was a note. "See me in my office, Wednesday, 9 am." My head fell back against the elevator wall. The signature on the bottom of the paper belonged to Director Kennedy. Matheson wasn't waiting around to make trouble for me. He had gone straight to her that morning, probably to forestall hearing the truth from me first, and poisoned her against me. Crap! George's suggestion that I should get justice while I could looked better and better.
I flung myself into my room and sat down at my desk. There was research to do, essays to write, formulas to balance. I adjusted the chair and got to work, pausing here and there to munch on the sandwiches and chips in the bag. After an hour, I felt calmer. Lost in the anonymous haze of study, I felt confident and free.
My phone buzzed. I checked the incoming number. I flipped it open. "Natalie?"
"Yeah, Ben, uh… listen. We need to talk."
"Sure. Where do you want to meet?"
"No… no, I… listen, Ben… I don't think I'm the kind of girl you think I am."
"Hunh?"
"I can't go to the sixth floor with you. I'm just… not into that kind of thing. I'm sorry."
"What? I don't understand."
"Do you want me to lay it out for you? You're not stupid, Ben. Don't play games. I'm not going to be your date for an orgy. I don't have sex with people I've barely met. Just because I'm not the prettiest girl you'll meet in a day doesn't mean I spread my legs for any guy who comes along."
The torrent of vitriol broke me in half. My mouth couldn't form words. The phone beeped as the connection closed.
Crap.
The confidence and clear-headedness I had built up since dinnertime evaporated. Memories of my previous visit to the sixth floor played themselves in my head, still as clear as if they had been yesterday. I saw the large expanse of tile where the stalls had been ripped out to make one big gang shower, and a trio of gorgeous bodies in one corner soaping each other with gusto. The man had a tremendous erection, and it was receiving a good deal of attention. I stood in stunned fascination until one of them noticed me and smiled, extending a beckoning hand. I ran.
I called up the contact list on my phone and selected her number. It rang once and went straight to her voicemail. "Natalie Grace. Leave a message."
"Natalie, I need to explain. Call me, please?" I hung up, unsure of whether she'd even listen to the message.
I checked the time. Crap. I had a half hour before my scheduled meeting with John Randall. How could I get in touch with her? She hadn't told me where she lived, or anything else, really. She had been looking for an oneiromancy class, though. I checked the schedule to find the one that was scheduled when she had asked me about it. I could find her there, but the next class wasn't for two days. It would have to wait.
I grabbed a notebook and headed for the elevators. Anxieties and suspicions of what I was in for crowded my mind. I pushed them away. I had too few allies to be rejecting them now. Running away had been the solution to my problems for too long.
The sixth floor lounge looked no different from any other common area in the dormitory. Worn-out furniture sat in a cluster in the middle of the room, with small kitchen appliances on one side and a wide wall-screen on the other. A guy in a black tee shirt and tight black jeans sat with one leg thrown over the arm of a green chair, watching a skyball game.
"I'm, ah… looking for John Randall?"
He threw a thumb over his shoulder. "Room six fourteen."
"Thanks."
I turned towards the hallway and a tall man with a long dark ponytail strode into the room. "That's me," he said. "You must be Ben Stansfield." He shook my hand firmly but briefly. "You're a little early."
I smiled, embarrassed. "Sorry, I didn't want to keep you waiting."
"No problem." John led me into a side hallway and up to one of the doors.
He unlocked his room and ushered me in. "Can I get you a beer?"
"Uh, sure." I wasn't much of a drinker, but a drink sounded like a good idea.
John retrieved two bottles from a small refrigerator and handed me one. A manticore screamed silently on the label, tail arched over its back. Black Manticore wasn't the cheapest beer on the market, but it was close. I twisted off the cap and took a swig. People said it was nasty, but I didn't have much to compare it to.
John took a swig and sat on the bed. "What's your major?"
"Manology. You?"
"Double major. Law and public policy."
"Whoa. That must be a pretty heavy schedule."
"Keeps me out of trouble." He kicked a chair out from under his desk for me. "Thanks for coming. So Matheson's been giving you shit too, huh?"
"Yeah." I sat down, still not feeling entirely comfortable.
"He's been making trouble for any androgyne he thinks he can bully without getting in trouble ever since he became an R.A."
I relaxed a little. Getting straight to the topic we were supposed to be discussing helped. "That explains why he keeps harassing me. I'm not an androgyne, but I do wind up switching back and forth a lot."
John sat back, leaning back on one arm. "Can you tell me what's been happening on your floor?"
How long had I waited for someone to say that to me? I let it all go, starting from the first day I had a sleep transformation in the dorm. I described the constant assaults whenever I woke up in a female form, complaints to the director that went nowhere, and the lack of support from the university staff. I skipped over the incident in the sixth floor showers, but as I evaded the issue I saw a moment of recognition in his eyes.
"Wait," he said, "You came to the showers about that time, didn't you?"
I cleared my throat. "Uh, yeah. Miss Kennedy suggested it."
I swallowed a resurgence of anxiety. "To be honest," I said, "I didn't like the idea that I had to leave my floor to be able to take a shower in peace in the first place."
"And you shouldn't," John interjected. "You've been treated horribly and Matheson won't get away with it."
"There's more," I said, and described the incident in the bathroom that morning, and the threat at lunchtime. "Now he's threatening to get me expelled if I don't come to his room tonight."
"And no doubt he has plans to degrade you even further." He drew a deep breath. "This isn't going to be easy. He has a lot of connections, and people with an interest in protecting him. What we need is incontrovertible evidence that he's the one at fault here."
"He is!"
"Yes, you know that and I know that, but we need to make it so politically costly to support him that his friends will withdraw their protection. I had been planning to circulate a petition to get him removed as an RA, but things have progressed further than that."
"Why? I don't understand. Can't we just bring some kind of formal complaint to Miss Kennedy and just get me transferred to somewhere I won't have to deal with him?"
He shook his head. "And then he'll harass someone else… that's if he can't get revenge on you for humiliating him that way. Face it, you're in his sights, Ben. We need to take strong action."
I gritted my teeth. "So what do we do?"
"I want you to bring him up on charges. His actions are beyond harassment, they're criminal."
I didn't want a fight, but his words rang true. Matheson wasn't going to let up. I needed to do something. "Alright. I'll think about it, but what do I do about tonight?"
"Ben, you have to look at this as an opportunity."
"What?" I leapt from the chair. "I'm not going to throw myself into his arms just so you can put together a court case. You're not even a real lawyer!"
"Now calm down… I'm not suggesting that at all. You've been traumatized enough as it is."
He moved in behind me, and spoke low, conspiratorially. "I'll go in your place. If you're good enough to make yourself look like that, then you can do it to me, too. Give me your clothes, I'll go to your appointment and get all the evidence we need to stop him from doing this to you or anyone else, ever again." He put a friendly hand on my shoulder. "You can stay here, to make sure Matheson doesn't learn we've made the switch."
I drew a deep breath, and looked back at him. He smiled. The magic was entirely within my power. It wouldn't last more than a few hours, but that would be enough. Technically, it was against the rules, but I was through with the rules. "Alright," I said. "I'll do it."
I spent some time giving John a basic briefing on my life at the university, at least as much as Matheson knew of it. It didn't take long.
After that he stood up and unbuttoned his shirt. "Would it be easier for you to transform me if I start off in female form?"
"No, but the spell will last longer."
John shrugged off his shirt, and then suddenly he was a she. I turned away.
"Ben… Ben, you are going to have to look at me to work your magic, right?"
"Oh, ah…" I felt heat rising in my face. "Right."
"Pleased to meet you," she said, pulling John's trousers down over her hips. "You can call me Jane."
I lost myself, looking at Jane's magnificent body. When my gaze finally found its way back to Jane's face, I found her watching me with a gentle smile.
"Sorry. I just…"
She shook her head and laughed quietly. "You're acting like you've never looked at a woman naked before. Doesn't your room have a mirror?"
"I don't use it much."
"I see. Well, let's get started." Jane moved to stand next to a full-length mirror on the back of the door.
I rubbed my hands together slowly, and made contact with the source deep inside me.
"Don't you want to strip down, too?" She glanced meaningfully at the mirror.
"Uh… "
"We don't want any mistakes. Besides, when we're done, I'm going to need your clothes."
"Good point." I shrugged out of my tee shirt and pulled off my skirt and underwear, tossing them on the bed. A wave of vertigo passed over me. I had never been naked in someone else's presence before—not in their bedroom—not on purpose. I told myself it was okay, Jane was there to help me, but I could feel a heavy tension growing around me.
"Are you alright?" Jane's eyes held concern. "Do you need to ease into this? We've got time."
"No… No, I'm fine." I pushed on, in spite of the nebulous thoughts and feelings swirling in my brain. "Let's do it." I stared at my reflection, trying to see it the way an artist would, as a collection of curves and shapes, divorced from any sexual context. I knew I should have signed up for that figure drawing class.
I began weaving the spell, words and gestures coming to mind as they were needed, shapes and textures assembling themselves in my mind. The spell completed itself and shot down my arms, out across the room and struck Jane in the chest. Green light played over her body, darkening her skin, reshaping bone and tissue, until she matched the image in the mirror.
She came and stood next to me to look in the mirror. "Good job." We were as close as twin sisters. No one would be able to tell she wasn't me, at least not from seeing or hearing her. She went to the bed and started pulling on my clothes. "Feel free to raid the fridge if you get hungry. Oh, and there's some movies on the shelf up there, go ahead and watch if you like. If anyone knocks or calls, don't answer. I'm not on duty tonight, so they shouldn't be bothering me anyways."
"How long will you be out?"
"I don't know. It shouldn't take long, but you never know." Jane took a small voice recorder and stuffed it into a purse.
"Be careful," I said.
"He's a bully and a coward. I'll be fine."
After she left, I poked through the movies. There were a few romantic comedies, a few action-adventure thrillers, and some ninja movies with covers in Yamatoan. At the bottom of one stack, one title made me cough in surprise. "Hot-swap Hotties." The cover left no doubt as to the contents inside. Since when did androgynes go in for androgyne porn?
I felt more than a little weird. Jane had given me permission to watch the movies and raid the fridge, but not to put on any of her clothes. I'd be naked the entire time she was away, masquerading as me. At least the room was warm.
I took down one of the romantic comedies. I don't usually watch that kind of movie. They depress me. This one was pretty good, though, and after I had it on for a few minutes I managed to forgot my troubles. During a lull in the otherwise fascinating plot I opened Jane's little dorm-sized refrigerator for a beer.
Sitting there in the freezer portion, was an object whose function was more than obvious. Between the ice cube tray and a small frozen dinner, lay the unmistakable shape of an ice dildo.
I slammed the door shut. Did Jane know she had a sex toy in there? She had to. Where else would one keep it? Looking around the room, I realized they were everywhere; the interesting little steel sculpture on the bookshelf was a Kegel exerciser. The muscles the massager on the desk was intended for weren't on Jane's back. Even though there was no one there to see me, I felt my face flushing with embarrassment.
And I was suddenly keenly aware of my nakedness. This was the worst part about being stuck in a woman's body. My mind hadn't changed, at least not in the most essential nature; I found this body intensely arousing to be around. What's worse, this particular body had a powerful sense of touch, and I felt a distinct need to satisfy it.
But I knew that Jane could be back at any minute. What would I do about the inevitable mess? I noticed a container of disposable antiseptic wipes on the shelf next to the exerciser. Stupid imagination.
No, I couldn't. Jane could be back any minute, and I couldn't be caught masturbating in her room. I glanced at the door, expecting her to walk in any second.
Any second.
Could be…
I shook my head and returned my attention to the movie. The hero and heroine were walking along one of the upper skyways as traffic zoomed past them, arguing about something or other. I had missed too much of the movie to know why. Suddenly, he stopped and took her in his arms and kissed her passionately. The sun peeked around the Citadel, silhouetting their entwined bodies. I shivered. They looked up, they were standing right by the entrance of a beautiful hotel. They smiled lustfully at each other and dashed inside.
I shut off the player. I stood up. I looked around. I went over to the narrow window and looked down at the traffic six stories below. A robe. I needed a robe. That would help. Surely Jane wouldn't mind if I borrowed a robe? I opened the closet. There it was, a plush terrycloth robe hanging on a hook on the back of the closet door. I took it down, revealing a harness made out of steel rings and leather straps. My imagination flashed on Jane's body wearing it, and then my own, the shiny steel rings standing out against the black skin and black straps.
Served me damn right for poking my nose where it didn't belong. I closed the closet, wrapped the robe around my body and sat down on the bed. How long was this going to take?
From the clock I saw that about twenty minutes had passed. "Probably not long enough," the rational side of my brain said. "She can't possibly be back for another half hour."
"Plenty of time," the irrational side of my brain said.
I fast-forwarded through the opening credits. I didn't want that, and I didn't want a thin pretense of plot and character, either. As soon as I saw some action, I set it back to normal speed and set the remote aside. A muscular adonis with perfect blonde hair was pulling a lacy babydoll nightie over the head of an equally gorgeous brunette. She, in turn, pulled down his boxers and exposed a long, hardening cock and stroked it with her delicate fingers.
I ran my fingers through the rapidly moistening folds of my pussy. This was not unfamiliar territory for me; I had masturbated as a woman once or twice before, but it had always felt a little wrong somehow. This time, no such thoughts intruded on my pleasure.
On the screen, the brunette knelt and put her lips around his cock. He definitely seemed to be enjoying it, letting out a contented sigh as her mouth slowly moved down his shaft. The camera zoomed in on the action around his shaft, showing the brunette's cheeks pulling in as she sucked. The brunette pulled back, revealing that the blond man's cock had shrunk to about four inches, and lost its head. The camera zoomed out, revealing that the blond man had transformed into a hermaphrodite, with two small breasts on a slim figure. His cock wasn't really a cock anymore, but an oversized clit.
That was a bit of a surprise, I didn't know androgynes could do that. The blond lay back on a bed, and the camera zoomed in again on his genitals. Underneath his organ where balls would be, he had a small vulva. The folds of inner lips ran up over the top like a clitoral hood, making the combination all one organ. The brunette flicked her tongue over those lips in between kisses and slurps on that huge clit.
My surprise at the situation only made me hornier. I felt oddly disconnected, as if none of it was real. I took deeper strokes at my pussy, probing to find the places that felt best. Little spasms ran through me, but nothing like the real orgasm that I could sense just waiting. I fumbled around on the shelves above the bed until I found the heavy steel Kegel exerciser. With one hand still fingering my vulva I pushed its smaller end inside. It felt good to have something unyielding for my muscles to hold onto. I closed my eyes for a moment, transported by the sensations flowing through my body, but I opened them again when I heard a moan of pleasure from the video.
The brunette had transformed into a man and was pushing his cock into the blonde's pussy while she stroked her engorged clit. The sight sent shudders through my body, and I thrust the ball-shaped head of the exerciser deeper inside. That was what I needed. I came, my body jerking with the spasms, forcing wordless grunts and squeaks from my lungs.
When I returned to my senses, I shut off the video, cleaned up the exerciser, and put everything back where it belonged. There was a wet spot on the robe where I had been sitting on it, but that couldn't be helped. I felt ashamed and dirty, like I had soiled the place, and I fretted about what I would say when Jane… or worse, John, returned.
I took out my cell phone and flipped it open. John's number was there, but would it jeopardize things to call? What was happening? What was taking so long?
I thought perhaps of trying Natalie's number again, but I knew what I would hear, and besides, John might call. If he ran into trouble, there weren't many people he could come to.
I perused the books that filled the lower shelf above the bed. Textbooks, a few novels, and a copy of the Canticle of Eli. I pulled the leather tome down from the shelf and cracked it open at random. I had never been particularly religious but I didn't actually reject the faith, either, and there was something comforting about those ancient words. I read.
* * * * *
I woke up still in John's room, still wearing the robe, still with the Good Book open in my lap. An alarm clock somewhere in the room was going off and I had to hunt around to locate it. I pushed buttons until it stopped.
Five in the morning. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. Where was Jane? She had stayed out all night. That wasn't a good sign. Not at all. The time had long passed to find out what happened to her. I rooted around in the closet until I found some clothes that would fit and hurried out the door. This early, the corridors were still mostly empty, though a few other bleary-eyed students were making their way towards the bathrooms.
The elevator opened onto my own floor and a uniformed policeman held up a hand. "Sorry," he said. "Crime scene. I'm afraid you can't come onto the floor unless you live here."
"I do, I'm Ben Stansfield. I live in sixteen, right at the end of the hall." I leaned out to point past him and saw two more cops stationed at the entrance to Matheson's room.
"Do you have some ID?"
I took out my student ID card and handed it to him.
"You think I'm stupid? This ain't you."
"I'm, ah… kind of a special case."
Miss Kennedy tapped the officer on the shoulder. "He's the one I was telling you about."
The officer nodded. "Right. Okay, Mister Ben Stansfield, Lieutenant Harcourt wants to talk to you." He nodded in the direction of the common room. I thought I detected a hint of satisfaction on Miss Kennedy's face, the merest hint of a smile.
I walked in. "The Lieutenant" turned out to be a canine theriomorph with a trenchcoat wrapped around his barrel chest. In the back of my head a voice was making a lame joke about a police dog until he spoke.
"Ben Stansfield, you're under arrest for the murder of Herbert Matheson."