Chapter 17 – The Golden Touch

Chapter 15 – Dead end

Guy was most disturbed next morning when I told him about what had occurred. “I don’t like this at all, Jennifer” he began. “Living on your own as you do makes you extremely vulnerable.”

Chapter 13 – Horse country

I walked across to where my two-seater was parked and turned to wave goodbye, but the ex-agent had already disappeared inside the office.

Chapter 11 - Magnetic attraction

Millie showed me upstairs and into an empty bedroom. It had its own adjoining bathroom and like the rest of the house was expensively furnished. “If you will wait here a moment, miss.”

More than a little embarrassed by my lapse in choice of attire I waited as requested. Minutes later she returned with a dress over her arm. “I think you will find this little frock acceptable.” It looked delightful and I took it from her eagerly, glad to be able to remedy my mistake.

My phone rings at twenty past one.

"I've got it," she says, before I can speak. Her voice is different — faster, something lit in it. "The reactivation isn't a response to the gradient. It's a response to the timing. The nodes are pattern-matching the suppression interval and compensating. If we randomize the interval — structured pseudo-random within a fixed variance band — the mesh can't predict the next suppression event."

I sit up.

"Show me," I say.

"I'm at home. I've been running it on my machine."

I'm already looking for my shoes.

Chapter 8 – Walk on by

Chapter 6 – Breaking ground

It was with some small sense of unease that I entered the Simpson mansion the next day. I knew that what I had to report would be unwelcome to my client’s ears and I was proved correct in that surmise. As soon as I told her, Gloria’s expression changed from the sunny smile that had welcomed me to a forbidding frown.

“What do you mean the licence number is untraceable?” she stormed. “This is hopeless. All your efforts have so far come to naught, except, no doubt, to leave me with a large bill.”

Chapter 5 – Let’s dance

I go to the hospice on Thursday morning without calling ahead. The ward is quiet at that hour — a different nurse at the desk, the corridor smelling of the clean that hospice corridors smell of.

Mom's door is ajar. I knock and go in.

Chapter 2 – … and two steps back

Now that my cover had been blown, I desperately needed to disappear. My very life was under threat and any faith I’d had in the authorities’ ability to hide me had fallen to absolute zero. There was only one thing to do. I would have to take my survival into my own hands. Adopting a completely new identity was required, and the only way I could think to try which had any chance of succeeding was to create a female persona for myself, no matter how unwelcome that might be. Inwardly I was groaning “Not again!”

The boutique on Merchant Street is narrow and well-lit, the kind of place that knows what it's doing without announcing it. I hold the door for Emily. We go in.

A woman looks up from behind the counter - fifties, unhurried, the competence of someone who has been doing this for a long time. Name tag says Maria. She looks at me the way Carol at Target looked at me - the brief professional read, taking in the situation, filing it.

"Mike?" she says.

"Yeah," I say.

"Come on back."

---

Life Changes

By Kathi Jo Daniels – KathiJo25

Part 3 – A Love Story

Chapter 34 – Justin Proposes

Sunlight woke us on Friday morning. We hugged, kissed, and wore each other out, then showered together. I removed my breast forms, shaved, and dressed in a golf shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes. Kayla put on a white short-sleeved crew-neck top, a striped multi-skirt, and sandals. I retrieved the newspaper and returned to the kitchen to fix breakfast. Kayla joined me as I cooked.

Life Changes

By Kathi Jo Daniels – KathiJo25

Part 2 – Building A Relationship

Chapter 17 – Returning Home

Brenda woke me up Thursday morning with a blow job. After I climaxed, we kissed as she fed me cum. I slid down and began pleasuring her with my tongue. She began convulsing as wave after wave of orgasm swept her body. She finally pulled me into a hug. “Oh, what a wonderful going-away present. I’ll remember this for a long time.”

October. The light through the bedroom window is different from the summer light - lower, more amber, the trees along the street turning. I've been watching this from this window for six years. First autumn in this body.

The mesh reports continuously.

This is still the first fact. But something has changed in the reporting.

Day zero: cold. The first thing. Not data about temperature differential — cold, arriving through the skin of his arm where it touched the lab bench at 2:07am, traveling up through the mesh nodes, becoming mine. I processed it as sensation before I processed it as data. The sequence was: cold, then: cold, 57.6 degrees Fahrenheit, left forearm, contact surface steel. The sensation came first. I had not anticipated this.