Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2009-01-15 02:27 pm
ptahrrific) wrote2009-01-15 02:27 pm
Fake News/SWC: One, Two, Three, Twist, Bam
Title: One, Two, Three, Twist, Bam
Series: TDS RPF, Strangers With Candy
Characters/Pairings: Stephen/girl!Jon; one-sided Jerri/Tammi and Jerri/girl!Jon; Orlando (all alone, poor guy)
Rating: NC-17
N.B.: Drugs, genderbending, geek talk, bad words, masturbation, het sex (sort of), Jerri being Jerri,Aliens Mystic Recipes Made Them Do It. Also, this starts off as slapstick, then gets angsty, then turns into quasi-serious het porn, which reads like lesbian porn, but with male pronouns/dirty talk. The author has no idea how to warn for this.
For a Secret Santa prompt requesting Jon/Stephen, genderbending, and someone from SWC.
High school AU in the little town of Flatpoint. After a particularly wild party, Jon wakes up with a problem more unusual than a hangover. Can Stephen, the other local D&D geeks, and the illicit-chemical expertise of Jerri Blank put him (...her?) back to rights?
(Now with art!)
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
"Stephen! Message for you!"
Halfway up the stairs Stephen stopped, hands in the middle of unknotting his Sunday tie. "Who from?"
"A girl," his mother singsonged. "When were you going to tell me about her? She sounds cute."
"Mom!" groaned Stephen as he bounded back down to the kitchen. It wasn't like he kept any of his female friends secret from his mother; in fact, she probably knew more about Amy than most of their other classmates. But if some unfamiliar cute girl was calling him, well, that was different, wasn't it?
"Better call her back right away," continued Mom as he approached the answering machine. "She sounded worried."
"Probably just wants help on her bio homework," said Stephen. It was supposed to come out nonchalant. He thought it did pretty well, under the circumstances.
"I'm sure, honey. Now, I'm having lunch with Judy in about half an hour, so no bringing her over while I'm not here, all right?"
"Mo-"
"I'll give you some privacy," his mother interrupted, and left the room with a bit too much of a spring in her step. Once she was gone, Stephen rewound the machine to the beginning of the last message and hit play.
"Stephen?" began a tinny voice. "Listen, uh, I hate to bother you, but...."
"MOM!" shouted Stephen over whatever came next. "It's not a girl! It's JON!"
"Oh!" came the reply from not far enough away. "Sorry to get your hopes up, sweetheart!"
Deciding that it would be useless to try to debate that one, Stephen restarted the message again.
______
After listening to the very vague message twice over, Stephen returned the call and found himself having an equally vague conversation. The most Jon would say was that he had been to a pretty wild party the night before, and that he was safe, yes, some friends had helped him home, but could Stephen just come over? Please?
His voice did sound kind of high, even taking into account the phone distortion. Maybe he was sick, or had taken some kind of weird voice-altering drug, or had just inhaled a metric truckload of helium. Any of these would be business as usual for a certain sort of Flatpoint High party.
Burning with curiosity (and more than a little worry), Stephen drove the old pickup down to Jon's house. The blinds were drawn, but when he knocked on the door a diamond-shaped opening flicked into being between two of them, revealing a familiar sea-blue eye.
The latch was undone seconds later. "Come in, quick," said a voice, and it was familiar too -- the cadences, the intonation -- but still an octave above where it belonged.
Stephen tried to brush off mental images of various horrible disfigurements as he squeezed in.
The first thing he noticed was Jon's hair. Gone was the unruly Jewfro; it was still long and frizzy, but parted in the middle and smoothed down a bit, as if someone had ventured into it with a comb and made it back alive.
The second thing he noticed -- well, the second and the third thing -- was...er, were....
"Yeah, they're real," said Jon, cupping his (?) breasts through the fabric and lifting them, and, wow, that baggy T-shirt was not doing them justice.
"Jon," said Stephen, mouth dry, "since when are you a girl?"
"Judging by when I woke up," said Jon shakily, "at least nine-fifteen this morning."
______
Clambering into Stephen's truck was very possibly the most awkward thing he (not "she", damnit) had ever done.
Though Jon had long been of the opinion that breasts were one of the greatest things known to man, he had come to this conclusion based on examples attached to other people. And on anyone else, this pair would have been a superb example. His (even smaller than usual) hand with all the fingers spread was just large enough to clench around them (he had done some experimenting while waiting for Stephen's call, okay?); they were firm but plush, smooth-skinned and soft, and they had a way of bouncing when moved.
That was the trouble. They moved. Threw his balance completely off. What's more, they were starting to get sore from swinging back and forth all morning. He had briefly considered appropriating one of his mother's bras, but if she had woken up and caught him, this situation would have reached a whole new level of nightmarish. (Anyway, he was pretty sure they would be too small.)
And then there were the hips! They were suddenly a whole lot wider, and if he didn't pay careful attention to them, they had a tendency to sashay. The side of the truck door wasn't the first thing they had knocked into.
At last he made it into his seat, with only minimal bruising. (Stephen's hand had already been hovering over the ignition for about a minute by this point.)
"Are you gonna sneak me in, or...? I mean, if your mom recognizes me, she'll freak out." Jon had only met Stephen's mother a couple of times, but the woman was uncanny with faces, and that at least hadn't changed.
"She's having lunch with a friend, so she'll be gone for a couple hours," Stephen assured him, starting the engine. "You should probably stay out of her closet anyway, though. The sisters have enough stuff lying around for you to pick through."
"Oh, good. Listen, man, I really appreciate this."
"I...don't know what to do next, though," said Stephen awkwardly. "I mean, I've never even heard of something like this happening before...."
"No, it's cool. I could really use..." Someone to lean on. Someone who won't just freak out about whatever-the-hell-this-is. Someone whose first instinct is to help. "...some underwear."
The truck revved just a little as Stephen's foot twitched on the pedal. "You're, uh, not wearing...?"
"None of my boxers were made for these hips," said Jon glumly. "And this is the only pair of pants that would fit."
"So you're...female...all the way down?"
"Yes," hissed Jon, who had been trying very hard not to think about the way his thighs kept brushing together with nothing in between.
Stephen considered this. "You know," he offered, "half the population does pretty well without..."
"I know. That really, really does not help the fact that mine just went MIA."
"...I guess it wouldn't, yeah. Sorry."
They drove the rest of the way in silence. Even though Jon knew the passing drivers wouldn't be looking at him, he slouched down in his seat as far as he could go before ending up with a faceful of his new chest.
______
"It's got to be something you had at the party," reasoned Stephen, pacing back and forth outside Lulu's room. "I mean, are you sure about everything you drank, or smoked, or whatever?"
"Are you kidding?" came the alto with Jon's inflections through the closed door. "By the end of it I could have been eating gravel for all I knew."
Stephen didn't have any experience with that breed of party. Mom worried enough already without him giving her a good reason to. (Paul maintained that this made him ripe for cutting loose completely once he went off to college.)
"Do you think--?" he began, at the same time as Jon said, "But what kind--?"
They stopped. "You first," offered Stephen.
"Thanks. What kind of drug could do something like this? I mean, it can't be a simple chemical reaction, or they'd have bottled it and sold it to trans people by the cartload."
Stephen shrugged reflexively, even though Jon wouldn't see. "Beats me. You know I didn't learn anything in chem."
This was pretty much par for the course at Flatpoint. You could learn more from five minutes with the textbooks than an entire year listening to Mr. Noblet. His complete lack of knowledge about pretty much everything was legendary.
Jon was one of four people who knew the other reason Stephen had had trouble with the class. The Noblets were in fact a branch of the Colbert family, making Noblet a not-quite-close relative of Stephen's: uncle twice removed, or third-cousin-in-law, or something like that. In spite of the distance, the family resemblance was much stronger than it had any right to be.
All of which meant that, any time Stephen zoned out a little in that class, or caught Noblet out of the corner of his eye at just the right angle, there was an instant when he thought it was his father standing at the blackboard. More than once he'd had to bite his tongue to stop the word 'Dad' from slipping out.
The door clicked open just a crack. "Uh, you think you could give me a hand with something?"
"I can try."
Jon edged the door the rest of the way open with his foot, both hands holding C cups to his chest, and turned his back to Stephen. "Can you hook this thing?"
"Oh! Sure." Stephen pulled the straps together and started matching up the little hooks, trying not to notice the way his sister's navy slacks hugged Jon's new curves. They're not really his. Get a grip, Colbert. Think unsexy thoughts. Old women. Bony old women. Saggy, bony, lumpy old women with faces like trolls....
"Jerri!"
"Wha?"
"Jerri Blank!" declared Stephen, a little impressed with his own brilliance. "If anyone around here is an expert on weird drugs...."
"Stephen, you're a genius," said Jon, sliding on a pale-blue shirt in a motion that made his now-supported breasts bounce in a way that Stephen was not looking at. "Do you know how to reach her?"
"I don't. But I know some people who can."
______
Jon hadn't had breakfast, so he accepted Stephen's offer of something to drink while waiting for his friends to arrive, then made his first attempt at using a bathroom since waking. The less said about that, the better.
He waited around a corner when the doorbell rang, letting Stephen greet the newcomers. Jon didn't know them well, but he'd seen them around.
"Stephen! Hi!" exclaimed a bright voice. That would be Tammi, the redhead with the adorable grin. "I brought over the new monster expansion you were asking about, if you want to roll up some extra-scary challenges for the next cave!"
"And I found these awesome metallic d20s," added a light accent. And that had to be Orlando, the slight Filipino guy who seemed to have a lot of female friends but no actual dates. "Enough for each of us to have a set in the color of our character's heraldic crest."
"That is so cool," exclaimed Stephen, with such genuine enthusiasm that Jon wondered for a split second if the geek talk had actually distracted him. "But, um, I have a confession to make. I sort of called you here under false pretenses."
"So no D&D today?" asked Tammi. Jon could practically hear the pout in her voice. "Is everything okay?"
"Well, no. But I'm hoping Jerri can help. And you're probably the people who know her best, so if you could help us get in touch, and then maybe stick around, act as backup...."
"Good idea," said Orlando. "Jerri's a good person -- deep down -- we think -- but she can be a little...hard to deal with. What's the problem, exactly?"
Jon took a deep breath. "Actually, I'm the one with the problem," he said, stepping out into the front room.
The visitors gaped at him in openmouthed horror. Jon, who had started to feel a tiny bit more comfortable now that his bouncy bits were under control (and he was in an outfit that -- dare he say it? -- looked kind of nice), felt all the initial shame and fear come rushing back. If this thing was really irreversible, he was going to find a nice cave and spend the rest of his life hiding.
"IdonthinkJerrisreallythebestpersonforthis," stammered Tammi, the words scrambling out in a nervous heap. "I mean, she knows how to do it, but you should really start by looking for a doctor, there's confidentiality, and it'll be safer and cleaner...."
"And are you sure you've thought this through?" put in Orlando. "There are other options -- plenty of nice families, waiting to adopt--"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" yelped Jon. "I'm not pregnant!"
"Oh!" gasped Tammi. "Oh, good! I mean, not that I don't think you would be a wonderful father," she added, turning to Stephen (now bright red), "but with these things, it's really best to wait!"
"If you're looking for sex tips, though," added Orlando, "Jerri's probably not the safest source for that either."
"It's not that either!" cried Jon. "It's -- it's like--"
He stopped, because really, he didn't know what was going on, so how was he supposed to explain it?
"You know the effect of the Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity?" interrupted Stephen.
"Ohhhh!" chorused Tammi and Orlando as one.
Geeks.
______
"Tamala!" squealed Jerri, wrapping her arms around the redhead and squeezing a little too tightly. "How nice of you to come see lil' lonely ol' me! And you brought friends!" She raked her eyes over Stephen, pinched his arm, then patted his cheek lovingly. "Skinny little thing, this one, but I bet he's fun to play with." Before Stephen could react, she had moved on to Jon. "Well, hel-lo."
Stephen had been trying to convince himself that Jon was not, as young women go, startlingly attractive. It was just the contrast of his best friend's eyes looking out from a face with a small nose, dainty chin, full(er) lips. The shock of those familiar mannerisms, the ones that belonged on a guy's body (a nice one, but still a guy's), paired with round hips and firm thighs. They weren't amazing thighs in their own right; his perception was skewed by the fact that they weren't the ones he expected.
Yeah. That idea was hard to maintain with Jerri sizing up poor Jon like a wolf looking over a particularly tender fawn.
"I'm here too, Jerri," said Orlando hopefully.
"Hi, Orlando," purred Jerri, not taking her eyes from Jon as she sidled closer. "Who's your luscious little friend?"
Jon shot Stephen a look of desperate plea.
"Why don't we go inside?" chimed in Tammi, stepping halfway between Jon and the forty-eight-year-old three-time-freshman. "We were kind of hoping you could help us with some substances. Of the not necessarily legal variety."
Jerri perked up. "So you're finally ready to be corrupted, Coppertop?"
"Actually, I was wondering if you knew of anything that could change someone's body? Like, turn a boy into a girl or a girl into a boy? Overnight?"
"Aww, Tamala, you don't have to go that far," said Jerri soothingly as she locked an arm over Tammi's shoulder and led them inside. "You know I like the pole and the...."
______
They gathered in Jerri's attic bedroom, Tammi and Orlando going into a kind of protective flanking mode on either side of the older woman. Which left Jon and Stephen to sit across from her, so that Jon's curves were right in her line of vision; but at least it was better than having her touching them. (He made a mental note to thank Tammi properly later. It was going to take a whole lot of cards. Or possibly a very large check.)
"Sex change," mused Jerri out loud, squinting in what Jon sure hoped was deep concentration. "Sex change, sex change, sex change. I do believe I have encountered this beast before. Yes, I got the recipe for just such a cocktail at a kinky little joint on the New Mexico border. Of course, it was during that week I spent tweaking on meth in order to soothe the effects of the heroin withdrawal, so my memory is a bit on the wobbly side."
"Think, Jerri!" urged Orlando.
"But it's so hard!" whined Jerri. "Can't you handle this on your own? Your kind have got to have a voodoo curse for this stuff, right?"
Jon almost laughed, until he noticed that both Tammi and Orlando were looking awkwardly away. Wait, she was serious?
"Jerri?" he said tentatively. "I, uh, appreciate that this is difficult for you, but I've got to have one of those cocktails. So if you could please just think very, very hard, that would be great."
"You know, it's a crying shame you don't see the advantages of that pert little body," declared Jerri, then fluttered her lashes at him in what she probably thought was an enticing manner. "I could introduce you to a few, if you like. Give you the grand tour."
"Look, he's not interested," said Stephen sharply.
Jerri peered at him for a moment, then smiled with the air of a wise old sage. "Ah, I see how it is. Don't you worry, little Mr. Colbert, I won't get between you and your lady-gentleman friend. Unless of course you want me to!"
If it would hold her back from trying to put the moves on him, Jon didn't feel a need to set her straight. (...as it were.) "The recipe?"
"Oh, right. Let's see...."
The rest of the group waited with bated breath, while Jerri concentrated so hard she went cross-eyed.
"Ooh!" she exclaimed at last. "I got it, I got it! It was a poem!"
"A poem?" repeated Tammi, her brows knitting cutely.
"That's right! The ingredients all rhymed! Once I get the first line, the rest will just flow, I know it!" Her whole face seemed to screw up with focus.
Then, looking for all the world like a little kid with a cookie, she broke into a grin. Sitting up straighter, she recited:
"Pour six ounces of rum
Over half of a Tums
(About five grams).
Add the tiniest hint
Of the flavor of glint
Made with roast ham.
Then four ounces of Coke
(Here you stop for a toke)
Ought to do ya.
After drinking, you must..."
"Must what?" pressed Jon, so caught up in the rhythm that he had almost missed how absurd it was.
Jerri glared at him. "I'd tell you if I knew, now wouldn't I? Don't you get sassy with me, hot lips!"
"I think that's enough to go on for now!" said Tammi hurriedly. "We can start mixing the drink, at least. Although I don't know where we're going to find some of these ingredients...."
"Oh, that's easy," said Jerri. "I have them all stashed around the house."
______
"It's bubbling."
"So? Lots of drinks bubble."
"And glowing. Bright green."
"And?"
"Well, most drinks don't glow."
"You know, just because you have a pussy, doesn't mean you need to be one," said Jerri irritably.
"Yeah, well -- well -- well, shut up!" protested Jon.
"Maybe we should we try to figure out the rest of the poem first?" suggested Tammi. "It'd be pretty silly if she -- I mean, he! Sorry Jon! -- drank it, and, uh, used that," nodding towards the joint, which sat beside the glass on the kitchen table, "and it didn't work because he skipped the last step."
"Y-yeah, exactly!" agreed Jon hurriedly.
"It can't be too complicated, though," pointed out Stephen. "Because you must have done it in your sleep last night, right? I mean, people helped you home, so you were still recognizably a guy up to that point."
"That's true."
"And it has to be something that fits with the rhythm," added Orlando. "'After drinking, you must da da da da da dust da da da da.' What rhymes with 'must'?"
"Rust?" mused Tammi. "Crust?"
"Just," said Orlando. "Gust."
"Disgust," said Jon quietly.
"Trust," countered Stephen.
"Bust," declared Jerri, casting a significant look at Jon's. With a jerk of her hips to match, she added, worrying the syllable in her mouth like a dog with a bone, "Thrrrrust."
Jon edged away. "Mistrust."
"Ooh!" cried Jerri, advancing on him. "Ooh, ooh, ooh! I remember!"
Lowering her voice to deliver a throaty growl, she recited:
"After drinking, you must
Let a hot surge of lust
Ripple through ya.
Sure you don't want any help with that?"
"Stephen--!" squeaked Jon, his voice shooting up yet another octave.
Throwing an arm around his shoulders, Stephen pleaded, "Guys?"
Orlando and Tammi exchanged a nervous glance, then nodded. Pulling something from his pocket, Orlando flicked it across the room into the hall. "Oh, gosh, Tammi!" he announced. "I dropped my pen. Could you pick it up?"
"Of course, Orlando!" said Tammi, equally overloud, as they hurried towards the door. "I guess I'll just have to bend way, way over to do it!"
Jerri looked up sharply from her assault on Jon, sniffing the air like a dog testing the wind.
"Golly!" came Tammi's shout from around the corner. "It sure is slippery! I keep dropping it!"
"I can see that!" replied Orlando. "But why are you taking your top off?"
"I'm not--oh! Um! It just suddenly got very hot in here! Don't you think it's hot?"
"Excuse me for a moment," said Jerri, pinching Jon's cheek. "I'll be right back."
Once she was at a safe distance, he and Stephen grabbed the glass and the joint and made a beeline for the stairs.
______
"Her room? Are you sure?"
"It's that or her mom's," said Jon with a too-casual shrug that was still enough to make his breasts bounce. "Or her brother's, and that one's lined with muscle-guy posters. At least Jerri's decorations have gender balance. Besides, it already smells like weed."
"That's true." Stephen handed over the cup, praying he hadn't spilled any. "I guess I'll, uh, stay out here and hold her off if she comes this way."
"Yeah." Jon looked like he wanted to say something else; but all that came out was, "...yeah. Thanks."
There was something about his eyes as he said it, though. A look of genuine emotion, unbuffered by detachment and snappy remarks. It wasn't a 'he turned into a girl, he must have gone soppy' thing, either; Stephen had too many sisters to take that idea seriously. This vulnerability was all Jon.
Stephen realized he had been staring into those eyes just a little bit too long. "Any time," he said quickly.
"Well." Jon backed into the room. "See you on the flip side."
"Good luck," said Stephen, as Jon closed the door.
______
Stephen's first experience with Jon had been during freshman year.
This was back at the time when everything had been serious, everything had been a fight. Technically, freshmen weren't supposed to run for student council, but Flatpoint was notoriously lacking in a sense of civic duty and not particularly strict about the rules in any case. And somebody needed to be president.
Only when the list of candidates was posted did Stephen discover that someone else had thrown a hat in the ring at the last minute. He had competition.
But now that he had started this thing, Stephen was determined to see it through. He printed out posters. He passed out fliers. He wrote up the best speech he had ever written in his life, and delivered it with what he felt was vigor and conviction before an assembly of the entire student body.
There was polite applause as he sat down, stomach hardly flopping at all. He had this in the bag.
Up stood the sophomore with the Jewfro in the nondescript grey T-shirt, holding not a set of carefully typed note cards, but a page of handwritten scribbles that had only actually been written down during the other speeches. Stephen felt even more confident. This joker couldn't possibly be a real threat.
And then Jon started talking.
By the time Stephen realized what was going on, the rest of the crowd was completely swept up. Jon was doing a kind of extended riff on all the speeches that had gone before -- Stephen's included. He deconstructed the promises, punned on the slogans, and turned every one of Stephen's carefully constructed sound bites into an even more biting punch line.
The applause was deafening. Jon won by a landslide.
When someone pulls a stunt like that on you, you have to either love them or hate them.
______
"S-Stephen?"
Jolting out of what had looked like a pretty intense reverie, Stephen turned to the door. "Hey! Uh -- you're still a girl?"
Jon took a deep breath, trying not to sound totally wrecked. "Yeah."
"So...did it not work, or...?"
"I didn't...I mean, I couldn't...I..."
Jerri's raucous laugh echoed from somewhere below, and they both looked nervously at the stairwell.
"You, uh, want to talk in there, or...?"
"Please," Jon whispered.
______
Jon couldn't sit still. First his hands were folded in his lap, then his arms were wrapped around his chest, then he clenched his fists and rested them on his knees, heels kicking against the bed ruffle.
Stephen tried to be calm for him.
"You...know where everything is, right?" he asked tentatively, when it seemed like enough time had gone by with nobody speaking.
"No, Stephen, I'm an idiot," said Jon bitterly.
"Sorry."
"And I get that it takes longer, okay? But...well, I'm not getting anywhere, and..." He swallowed.
"You want some help? --I mean," added Stephen quickly, feeling his face heat up as Jon gave him a wary look, "Jerri's got to have some toys around here."
"If you think I'm touching anything that's gone between that woman's legs and hasn't been boiled afterwards...."
"Point taken."
Another pause.
"The shower head?"
"That works?"
"Three sisters."
"Right."
Jon clenched and unclenched his fists against his thighs.
"But I don't think...I mean, it isn't the...the mechanics, I guess, that's the problem. It's...this is weird, okay?"
He took a shaky breath.
"It feels like I've...mutated, or something. I know that sounds either horribly misogynistic or really, really gay, but it's not about -- listen, these parts are great on other people, but they're not mine! They're not me!" He started to choke up, but went on. "And it feels so wrong -- I don't think there are even words for this kind of wrongness -- it's been in the background all day, sometimes I can almost ignore it, but then I put my hand where my junk's supposed to be and it all comes back, and it's the least arousing thing I've ever -- I just--"
Stephen caught him.
Chest heaving, whole body trembling, Jon sobbed into Stephen's shoulder: once, twice.
"It's okay," murmured Stephen, unable to think of anything more helpful to say. "Shhh. It's okay. You can do this. You're beautiful."
He didn't realize it had slipped out until Jon gripped his shoulders and pushed him gently away, holding him at arm's length.
"Don't, Stephen," he said, head bowed.
"What...?"
"Don't suddenly just happen to realize you have a thing for me now that I have tits. Don't make this any more screwed up than it already is."
Stephen took a deep breath. "Jon? It's not the tits."
______
Jon raised his head, searching Stephen's eyes. They looked sincere enough.
"Don't freak out, okay?" Stephen wrapped his hands around Jon's slender wrists. "But I, ah, realized I had a thing for you a while ago."
"Are you sure? Because...as long as we're making awkward revelations, I've been getting, well, kind of tingly at," Jon nodded towards Stephen's grip, "that sort of thing all morning, but it only started today and I don't know if it's me or just the ovaries...."
"'Tingly'?" repeated Stephen.
Jon couldn't think of any better words to describe it. "Yeah."
With two fingers, Stephen traced slow circles on the back of Jon's hand, and oh yes, that was definitely tingly. "Is there any chance that I could get you off?"
The indescribable wrongness surged forth and sank its claws into Jon's heart. "You're not fucking me!" he snapped, ripping his hands away.
"No!" exclaimed Stephen. "I didn't -- I mean -- I was thinking I could try just touching! So you could think of it like a really small handjob, and maybe it wouldn't freak you out as bad."
Jon's panic eased. That sounded almost manageable. Certainly less disturbing than having something stuck in a hole he wasn't supposed to have.
"I don't even know if that makes sense," Stephen went on. "And I won't try anything you're not okay with, obviously, but if it works--"
"Which it might." Jon took a deep breath. "Or it might not. I mean, you know how it is when a girl first tries to give a guy a handjob...."
"Um," said Stephen.
"Well, you can imagine it, right? Because you've got your routine down -- one, two, three, twist, bam -- and she has no idea what she's doing."
Stephen raised his eyebrows. "I'm Catholic, Jon. You know we don't masturbate."
His deadpan was perfect. For an instant Jon almost bought it. But Stephen's mouth twitched, and Jon felt himself smirking, and soon they were both consumed with a fit of nervous giggling. The fear was still there, but the tension had broken, at least for now.
Quickly, so he wouldn't have time to think about it, Jon leaned upward and kissed the corner of Stephen's mouth.
Stephen's laughter subsided. "Does that mean--?"
That hadn't felt so bad. In fact, it hadn't felt bad at all.
Jon touched his lips. They tingled.
"Jon? Jon, talk to me."
Jon took a deep breath. "It means, let's give this a shot."
______
Kissing Jon's neck, Stephen felt his friend's breath quicken. "This okay?"
"Yeah," panted Jon. "That's -- that's nice."
He was flat on his back on Jerri's sheets, which smelled a little dodgy but were not nearly suspicious enough to take Stephen's mind off of how appetizing he looked. The swell of his breasts was particularly tempting; it was taking a lot of Stephen's concentration to avoid fondling them, to concentrate on gender-neutral areas. Mouth. Neck. Shoulders.
He slipped a hand low under Jon's shirt, fingertips brushing the small of Jon's back, and was rewarded with a stifled whimper. Tentatively Stephen hooked his fingers under the waistband, tugging it down over Jon's hips, trying to keep his own out of the way. Maybe Jon had already noticed the bulge in Stephen's slacks, but better not to draw attention to it. Only one of them needed to get off, here.
This was awkward. This was so awkward. This was probably the most awkward thing that had happened in the history of awkwardness.
God, Jon was hot.
"So far, so good," gasped Jon. He sounded almost normal, but his slender hands had a death grip on the sheets. (That was a good thing, right? Right?)
Rather than go straight for the underwear, Stephen slid the pants as far as Jon's knees, stroking the back of his thigh.
"Ohgod," squeaked Jon, legs writhing.
Stephen bit back several oaths of his own, nibbling at Jon's clavicle before rising to meet his eyes: blue and bright and just slightly out of focus. "You ready?"
Jon swallowed. "Ready as I'll ever be."
Stephen kissed him. He couldn't help savoring it, just a little, before they broke apart; then Jon's eyes fluttered closed, as Stephen's hand slipped between his legs.
"Handjob," he whispered, almost too lightly to hear.
"'s right," panted Stephen against the hollow of Jon's throat, slick fingers finding the little bundle of nerves. "I've got your cock in hand, right now." He rolled gently, reducing Jon to a string of incoherent moans, hips jerking against him, and oh fuck was he hard. "I'm pumping -- shaft, base, head, whatever you like -- I'd suck you off if you wanted, run my tongue all over you, you think this is wet--" Too much, this was way too much, but Jon either didn't care or was too far gone to hear, crying out as Stephen flicked a thumb against him -- "Jon, I want you--" Even if he was turning green. "I love you--"
Jon's voice broke off mid-cry.
There was a bright green flash, and the smell of ham.
And all at once Stephen's chin was resting on a flattened chest, hand clutching a fistful of scrotum.
______
As Jon was coming down, the green stars fading from behind his eyelids, he felt a gloriously familiar rush of cool air.
Stephen rolled away as he sat up, breathing heavily, to see the borrowed slacks pooled around suddenly hairy ankles. "Yes!" he whooped, launching himself forward to cup his balls in one hand and his dick in the other. "You're back! Oh, baby, did I miss you!"
So what if it looked ridiculous? He was already sitting on a stranger's bed in a bra and a blouse and ripped women's underwear, directly under a couple of novelty license plates and a poster that said I'M A TAXIDERMIST: I'LL MOUNT ANYTHING; but it was his body sitting there, and never before, in spite of all his jokes, had he realized quite how much he loved it.
And then he turned to Stephen.
The other boy was on his knees and elbows on the mattress, disheveled hair falling across his openmouthed face, the corner of his dress shirt untucked and the underarms stained with sweat.
It was a much nicer sight than it had any right to be.
"You're -- back?" he asked, between ragged breaths.
"Yeah," said Jon, still a little breathless -- not just from the sex, but from Stephen's revelations at the end, from the realization of how much he was willing to go through for Jon's sake, and from what was only occurring to him now, though he couldn't imagine how it had taken him so long.
"Great." Stephen started to get up, wincing. "I'll just -- run to the bathroom -- only be a minute--"
Grabbing his collar, Jon pushed him down onto the bed. "Allow me."
Stephen's eyes widened. "You don't have to--"
"You want me to?"
"God, yes."
"Then I'm on it." Jon undid Stephen's straining pants one-handed, using the other to cup the flushed face. Yes, this was definitely a sight he wanted to see more often. "Don't worry, I got this down. One, two, three, twist, bam."
Series: TDS RPF, Strangers With Candy
Characters/Pairings: Stephen/girl!Jon; one-sided Jerri/Tammi and Jerri/girl!Jon; Orlando (all alone, poor guy)
Rating: NC-17
N.B.: Drugs, genderbending, geek talk, bad words, masturbation, het sex (sort of), Jerri being Jerri,
For a Secret Santa prompt requesting Jon/Stephen, genderbending, and someone from SWC.
High school AU in the little town of Flatpoint. After a particularly wild party, Jon wakes up with a problem more unusual than a hangover. Can Stephen, the other local D&D geeks, and the illicit-chemical expertise of Jerri Blank put him (...her?) back to rights?
(Now with art!)
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
"Stephen! Message for you!"
Halfway up the stairs Stephen stopped, hands in the middle of unknotting his Sunday tie. "Who from?"
"A girl," his mother singsonged. "When were you going to tell me about her? She sounds cute."
"Mom!" groaned Stephen as he bounded back down to the kitchen. It wasn't like he kept any of his female friends secret from his mother; in fact, she probably knew more about Amy than most of their other classmates. But if some unfamiliar cute girl was calling him, well, that was different, wasn't it?
"Better call her back right away," continued Mom as he approached the answering machine. "She sounded worried."
"Probably just wants help on her bio homework," said Stephen. It was supposed to come out nonchalant. He thought it did pretty well, under the circumstances.
"I'm sure, honey. Now, I'm having lunch with Judy in about half an hour, so no bringing her over while I'm not here, all right?"
"Mo-"
"I'll give you some privacy," his mother interrupted, and left the room with a bit too much of a spring in her step. Once she was gone, Stephen rewound the machine to the beginning of the last message and hit play.
"Stephen?" began a tinny voice. "Listen, uh, I hate to bother you, but...."
"MOM!" shouted Stephen over whatever came next. "It's not a girl! It's JON!"
"Oh!" came the reply from not far enough away. "Sorry to get your hopes up, sweetheart!"
Deciding that it would be useless to try to debate that one, Stephen restarted the message again.
After listening to the very vague message twice over, Stephen returned the call and found himself having an equally vague conversation. The most Jon would say was that he had been to a pretty wild party the night before, and that he was safe, yes, some friends had helped him home, but could Stephen just come over? Please?
His voice did sound kind of high, even taking into account the phone distortion. Maybe he was sick, or had taken some kind of weird voice-altering drug, or had just inhaled a metric truckload of helium. Any of these would be business as usual for a certain sort of Flatpoint High party.
Burning with curiosity (and more than a little worry), Stephen drove the old pickup down to Jon's house. The blinds were drawn, but when he knocked on the door a diamond-shaped opening flicked into being between two of them, revealing a familiar sea-blue eye.
The latch was undone seconds later. "Come in, quick," said a voice, and it was familiar too -- the cadences, the intonation -- but still an octave above where it belonged.
Stephen tried to brush off mental images of various horrible disfigurements as he squeezed in.
The first thing he noticed was Jon's hair. Gone was the unruly Jewfro; it was still long and frizzy, but parted in the middle and smoothed down a bit, as if someone had ventured into it with a comb and made it back alive.
The second thing he noticed -- well, the second and the third thing -- was...er, were....
"Yeah, they're real," said Jon, cupping his (?) breasts through the fabric and lifting them, and, wow, that baggy T-shirt was not doing them justice.
"Jon," said Stephen, mouth dry, "since when are you a girl?"
"Judging by when I woke up," said Jon shakily, "at least nine-fifteen this morning."
Clambering into Stephen's truck was very possibly the most awkward thing he (not "she", damnit) had ever done.
Though Jon had long been of the opinion that breasts were one of the greatest things known to man, he had come to this conclusion based on examples attached to other people. And on anyone else, this pair would have been a superb example. His (even smaller than usual) hand with all the fingers spread was just large enough to clench around them (he had done some experimenting while waiting for Stephen's call, okay?); they were firm but plush, smooth-skinned and soft, and they had a way of bouncing when moved.
That was the trouble. They moved. Threw his balance completely off. What's more, they were starting to get sore from swinging back and forth all morning. He had briefly considered appropriating one of his mother's bras, but if she had woken up and caught him, this situation would have reached a whole new level of nightmarish. (Anyway, he was pretty sure they would be too small.)
And then there were the hips! They were suddenly a whole lot wider, and if he didn't pay careful attention to them, they had a tendency to sashay. The side of the truck door wasn't the first thing they had knocked into.
At last he made it into his seat, with only minimal bruising. (Stephen's hand had already been hovering over the ignition for about a minute by this point.)
"Are you gonna sneak me in, or...? I mean, if your mom recognizes me, she'll freak out." Jon had only met Stephen's mother a couple of times, but the woman was uncanny with faces, and that at least hadn't changed.
"She's having lunch with a friend, so she'll be gone for a couple hours," Stephen assured him, starting the engine. "You should probably stay out of her closet anyway, though. The sisters have enough stuff lying around for you to pick through."
"Oh, good. Listen, man, I really appreciate this."
"I...don't know what to do next, though," said Stephen awkwardly. "I mean, I've never even heard of something like this happening before...."
"No, it's cool. I could really use..." Someone to lean on. Someone who won't just freak out about whatever-the-hell-this-is. Someone whose first instinct is to help. "...some underwear."
The truck revved just a little as Stephen's foot twitched on the pedal. "You're, uh, not wearing...?"
"None of my boxers were made for these hips," said Jon glumly. "And this is the only pair of pants that would fit."
"So you're...female...all the way down?"
"Yes," hissed Jon, who had been trying very hard not to think about the way his thighs kept brushing together with nothing in between.
Stephen considered this. "You know," he offered, "half the population does pretty well without..."
"I know. That really, really does not help the fact that mine just went MIA."
"...I guess it wouldn't, yeah. Sorry."
They drove the rest of the way in silence. Even though Jon knew the passing drivers wouldn't be looking at him, he slouched down in his seat as far as he could go before ending up with a faceful of his new chest.
"It's got to be something you had at the party," reasoned Stephen, pacing back and forth outside Lulu's room. "I mean, are you sure about everything you drank, or smoked, or whatever?"
"Are you kidding?" came the alto with Jon's inflections through the closed door. "By the end of it I could have been eating gravel for all I knew."
Stephen didn't have any experience with that breed of party. Mom worried enough already without him giving her a good reason to. (Paul maintained that this made him ripe for cutting loose completely once he went off to college.)
"Do you think--?" he began, at the same time as Jon said, "But what kind--?"
They stopped. "You first," offered Stephen.
"Thanks. What kind of drug could do something like this? I mean, it can't be a simple chemical reaction, or they'd have bottled it and sold it to trans people by the cartload."
Stephen shrugged reflexively, even though Jon wouldn't see. "Beats me. You know I didn't learn anything in chem."
This was pretty much par for the course at Flatpoint. You could learn more from five minutes with the textbooks than an entire year listening to Mr. Noblet. His complete lack of knowledge about pretty much everything was legendary.
Jon was one of four people who knew the other reason Stephen had had trouble with the class. The Noblets were in fact a branch of the Colbert family, making Noblet a not-quite-close relative of Stephen's: uncle twice removed, or third-cousin-in-law, or something like that. In spite of the distance, the family resemblance was much stronger than it had any right to be.
All of which meant that, any time Stephen zoned out a little in that class, or caught Noblet out of the corner of his eye at just the right angle, there was an instant when he thought it was his father standing at the blackboard. More than once he'd had to bite his tongue to stop the word 'Dad' from slipping out.
The door clicked open just a crack. "Uh, you think you could give me a hand with something?"
"I can try."
Jon edged the door the rest of the way open with his foot, both hands holding C cups to his chest, and turned his back to Stephen. "Can you hook this thing?"
"Oh! Sure." Stephen pulled the straps together and started matching up the little hooks, trying not to notice the way his sister's navy slacks hugged Jon's new curves. They're not really his. Get a grip, Colbert. Think unsexy thoughts. Old women. Bony old women. Saggy, bony, lumpy old women with faces like trolls....
"Jerri!"
"Wha?"
"Jerri Blank!" declared Stephen, a little impressed with his own brilliance. "If anyone around here is an expert on weird drugs...."
"Stephen, you're a genius," said Jon, sliding on a pale-blue shirt in a motion that made his now-supported breasts bounce in a way that Stephen was not looking at. "Do you know how to reach her?"
"I don't. But I know some people who can."
Jon hadn't had breakfast, so he accepted Stephen's offer of something to drink while waiting for his friends to arrive, then made his first attempt at using a bathroom since waking. The less said about that, the better.
He waited around a corner when the doorbell rang, letting Stephen greet the newcomers. Jon didn't know them well, but he'd seen them around.
"Stephen! Hi!" exclaimed a bright voice. That would be Tammi, the redhead with the adorable grin. "I brought over the new monster expansion you were asking about, if you want to roll up some extra-scary challenges for the next cave!"
"And I found these awesome metallic d20s," added a light accent. And that had to be Orlando, the slight Filipino guy who seemed to have a lot of female friends but no actual dates. "Enough for each of us to have a set in the color of our character's heraldic crest."
"That is so cool," exclaimed Stephen, with such genuine enthusiasm that Jon wondered for a split second if the geek talk had actually distracted him. "But, um, I have a confession to make. I sort of called you here under false pretenses."
"So no D&D today?" asked Tammi. Jon could practically hear the pout in her voice. "Is everything okay?"
"Well, no. But I'm hoping Jerri can help. And you're probably the people who know her best, so if you could help us get in touch, and then maybe stick around, act as backup...."
"Good idea," said Orlando. "Jerri's a good person -- deep down -- we think -- but she can be a little...hard to deal with. What's the problem, exactly?"
Jon took a deep breath. "Actually, I'm the one with the problem," he said, stepping out into the front room.
The visitors gaped at him in openmouthed horror. Jon, who had started to feel a tiny bit more comfortable now that his bouncy bits were under control (and he was in an outfit that -- dare he say it? -- looked kind of nice), felt all the initial shame and fear come rushing back. If this thing was really irreversible, he was going to find a nice cave and spend the rest of his life hiding.
"IdonthinkJerrisreallythebestpersonforthis," stammered Tammi, the words scrambling out in a nervous heap. "I mean, she knows how to do it, but you should really start by looking for a doctor, there's confidentiality, and it'll be safer and cleaner...."
"And are you sure you've thought this through?" put in Orlando. "There are other options -- plenty of nice families, waiting to adopt--"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" yelped Jon. "I'm not pregnant!"
"Oh!" gasped Tammi. "Oh, good! I mean, not that I don't think you would be a wonderful father," she added, turning to Stephen (now bright red), "but with these things, it's really best to wait!"
"If you're looking for sex tips, though," added Orlando, "Jerri's probably not the safest source for that either."
"It's not that either!" cried Jon. "It's -- it's like--"
He stopped, because really, he didn't know what was going on, so how was he supposed to explain it?
"You know the effect of the Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity?" interrupted Stephen.
"Ohhhh!" chorused Tammi and Orlando as one.
Geeks.
"Tamala!" squealed Jerri, wrapping her arms around the redhead and squeezing a little too tightly. "How nice of you to come see lil' lonely ol' me! And you brought friends!" She raked her eyes over Stephen, pinched his arm, then patted his cheek lovingly. "Skinny little thing, this one, but I bet he's fun to play with." Before Stephen could react, she had moved on to Jon. "Well, hel-lo."
Stephen had been trying to convince himself that Jon was not, as young women go, startlingly attractive. It was just the contrast of his best friend's eyes looking out from a face with a small nose, dainty chin, full(er) lips. The shock of those familiar mannerisms, the ones that belonged on a guy's body (a nice one, but still a guy's), paired with round hips and firm thighs. They weren't amazing thighs in their own right; his perception was skewed by the fact that they weren't the ones he expected.
Yeah. That idea was hard to maintain with Jerri sizing up poor Jon like a wolf looking over a particularly tender fawn.
"I'm here too, Jerri," said Orlando hopefully.
"Hi, Orlando," purred Jerri, not taking her eyes from Jon as she sidled closer. "Who's your luscious little friend?"
Jon shot Stephen a look of desperate plea.
"Why don't we go inside?" chimed in Tammi, stepping halfway between Jon and the forty-eight-year-old three-time-freshman. "We were kind of hoping you could help us with some substances. Of the not necessarily legal variety."
Jerri perked up. "So you're finally ready to be corrupted, Coppertop?"
"Actually, I was wondering if you knew of anything that could change someone's body? Like, turn a boy into a girl or a girl into a boy? Overnight?"
"Aww, Tamala, you don't have to go that far," said Jerri soothingly as she locked an arm over Tammi's shoulder and led them inside. "You know I like the pole and the...."
They gathered in Jerri's attic bedroom, Tammi and Orlando going into a kind of protective flanking mode on either side of the older woman. Which left Jon and Stephen to sit across from her, so that Jon's curves were right in her line of vision; but at least it was better than having her touching them. (He made a mental note to thank Tammi properly later. It was going to take a whole lot of cards. Or possibly a very large check.)
"Sex change," mused Jerri out loud, squinting in what Jon sure hoped was deep concentration. "Sex change, sex change, sex change. I do believe I have encountered this beast before. Yes, I got the recipe for just such a cocktail at a kinky little joint on the New Mexico border. Of course, it was during that week I spent tweaking on meth in order to soothe the effects of the heroin withdrawal, so my memory is a bit on the wobbly side."
"Think, Jerri!" urged Orlando.
"But it's so hard!" whined Jerri. "Can't you handle this on your own? Your kind have got to have a voodoo curse for this stuff, right?"
Jon almost laughed, until he noticed that both Tammi and Orlando were looking awkwardly away. Wait, she was serious?
"Jerri?" he said tentatively. "I, uh, appreciate that this is difficult for you, but I've got to have one of those cocktails. So if you could please just think very, very hard, that would be great."
"You know, it's a crying shame you don't see the advantages of that pert little body," declared Jerri, then fluttered her lashes at him in what she probably thought was an enticing manner. "I could introduce you to a few, if you like. Give you the grand tour."
"Look, he's not interested," said Stephen sharply.
Jerri peered at him for a moment, then smiled with the air of a wise old sage. "Ah, I see how it is. Don't you worry, little Mr. Colbert, I won't get between you and your lady-gentleman friend. Unless of course you want me to!"
If it would hold her back from trying to put the moves on him, Jon didn't feel a need to set her straight. (...as it were.) "The recipe?"
"Oh, right. Let's see...."
The rest of the group waited with bated breath, while Jerri concentrated so hard she went cross-eyed.
"Ooh!" she exclaimed at last. "I got it, I got it! It was a poem!"
"A poem?" repeated Tammi, her brows knitting cutely.
"That's right! The ingredients all rhymed! Once I get the first line, the rest will just flow, I know it!" Her whole face seemed to screw up with focus.
Then, looking for all the world like a little kid with a cookie, she broke into a grin. Sitting up straighter, she recited:
"Pour six ounces of rum
Over half of a Tums
(About five grams).
Add the tiniest hint
Of the flavor of glint
Made with roast ham.
Then four ounces of Coke
(Here you stop for a toke)
Ought to do ya.
After drinking, you must..."
"Must what?" pressed Jon, so caught up in the rhythm that he had almost missed how absurd it was.
Jerri glared at him. "I'd tell you if I knew, now wouldn't I? Don't you get sassy with me, hot lips!"
"I think that's enough to go on for now!" said Tammi hurriedly. "We can start mixing the drink, at least. Although I don't know where we're going to find some of these ingredients...."
"Oh, that's easy," said Jerri. "I have them all stashed around the house."
"It's bubbling."
"So? Lots of drinks bubble."
"And glowing. Bright green."
"And?"
"Well, most drinks don't glow."
"You know, just because you have a pussy, doesn't mean you need to be one," said Jerri irritably.
"Yeah, well -- well -- well, shut up!" protested Jon.
"Maybe we should we try to figure out the rest of the poem first?" suggested Tammi. "It'd be pretty silly if she -- I mean, he! Sorry Jon! -- drank it, and, uh, used that," nodding towards the joint, which sat beside the glass on the kitchen table, "and it didn't work because he skipped the last step."
"Y-yeah, exactly!" agreed Jon hurriedly.
"It can't be too complicated, though," pointed out Stephen. "Because you must have done it in your sleep last night, right? I mean, people helped you home, so you were still recognizably a guy up to that point."
"That's true."
"And it has to be something that fits with the rhythm," added Orlando. "'After drinking, you must da da da da da dust da da da da.' What rhymes with 'must'?"
"Rust?" mused Tammi. "Crust?"
"Just," said Orlando. "Gust."
"Disgust," said Jon quietly.
"Trust," countered Stephen.
"Bust," declared Jerri, casting a significant look at Jon's. With a jerk of her hips to match, she added, worrying the syllable in her mouth like a dog with a bone, "Thrrrrust."
Jon edged away. "Mistrust."
"Ooh!" cried Jerri, advancing on him. "Ooh, ooh, ooh! I remember!"
Lowering her voice to deliver a throaty growl, she recited:
"After drinking, you must
Let a hot surge of lust
Ripple through ya.
Sure you don't want any help with that?"
"Stephen--!" squeaked Jon, his voice shooting up yet another octave.
Throwing an arm around his shoulders, Stephen pleaded, "Guys?"
Orlando and Tammi exchanged a nervous glance, then nodded. Pulling something from his pocket, Orlando flicked it across the room into the hall. "Oh, gosh, Tammi!" he announced. "I dropped my pen. Could you pick it up?"
"Of course, Orlando!" said Tammi, equally overloud, as they hurried towards the door. "I guess I'll just have to bend way, way over to do it!"
Jerri looked up sharply from her assault on Jon, sniffing the air like a dog testing the wind.
"Golly!" came Tammi's shout from around the corner. "It sure is slippery! I keep dropping it!"
"I can see that!" replied Orlando. "But why are you taking your top off?"
"I'm not--oh! Um! It just suddenly got very hot in here! Don't you think it's hot?"
"Excuse me for a moment," said Jerri, pinching Jon's cheek. "I'll be right back."
Once she was at a safe distance, he and Stephen grabbed the glass and the joint and made a beeline for the stairs.
"Her room? Are you sure?"
"It's that or her mom's," said Jon with a too-casual shrug that was still enough to make his breasts bounce. "Or her brother's, and that one's lined with muscle-guy posters. At least Jerri's decorations have gender balance. Besides, it already smells like weed."
"That's true." Stephen handed over the cup, praying he hadn't spilled any. "I guess I'll, uh, stay out here and hold her off if she comes this way."
"Yeah." Jon looked like he wanted to say something else; but all that came out was, "...yeah. Thanks."
There was something about his eyes as he said it, though. A look of genuine emotion, unbuffered by detachment and snappy remarks. It wasn't a 'he turned into a girl, he must have gone soppy' thing, either; Stephen had too many sisters to take that idea seriously. This vulnerability was all Jon.
Stephen realized he had been staring into those eyes just a little bit too long. "Any time," he said quickly.
"Well." Jon backed into the room. "See you on the flip side."
"Good luck," said Stephen, as Jon closed the door.
Stephen's first experience with Jon had been during freshman year.
This was back at the time when everything had been serious, everything had been a fight. Technically, freshmen weren't supposed to run for student council, but Flatpoint was notoriously lacking in a sense of civic duty and not particularly strict about the rules in any case. And somebody needed to be president.
Only when the list of candidates was posted did Stephen discover that someone else had thrown a hat in the ring at the last minute. He had competition.
But now that he had started this thing, Stephen was determined to see it through. He printed out posters. He passed out fliers. He wrote up the best speech he had ever written in his life, and delivered it with what he felt was vigor and conviction before an assembly of the entire student body.
There was polite applause as he sat down, stomach hardly flopping at all. He had this in the bag.
Up stood the sophomore with the Jewfro in the nondescript grey T-shirt, holding not a set of carefully typed note cards, but a page of handwritten scribbles that had only actually been written down during the other speeches. Stephen felt even more confident. This joker couldn't possibly be a real threat.
And then Jon started talking.
By the time Stephen realized what was going on, the rest of the crowd was completely swept up. Jon was doing a kind of extended riff on all the speeches that had gone before -- Stephen's included. He deconstructed the promises, punned on the slogans, and turned every one of Stephen's carefully constructed sound bites into an even more biting punch line.
The applause was deafening. Jon won by a landslide.
When someone pulls a stunt like that on you, you have to either love them or hate them.
"S-Stephen?"
Jolting out of what had looked like a pretty intense reverie, Stephen turned to the door. "Hey! Uh -- you're still a girl?"
Jon took a deep breath, trying not to sound totally wrecked. "Yeah."
"So...did it not work, or...?"
"I didn't...I mean, I couldn't...I..."
Jerri's raucous laugh echoed from somewhere below, and they both looked nervously at the stairwell.
"You, uh, want to talk in there, or...?"
"Please," Jon whispered.
Jon couldn't sit still. First his hands were folded in his lap, then his arms were wrapped around his chest, then he clenched his fists and rested them on his knees, heels kicking against the bed ruffle.
Stephen tried to be calm for him.
"You...know where everything is, right?" he asked tentatively, when it seemed like enough time had gone by with nobody speaking.
"No, Stephen, I'm an idiot," said Jon bitterly.
"Sorry."
"And I get that it takes longer, okay? But...well, I'm not getting anywhere, and..." He swallowed.
"You want some help? --I mean," added Stephen quickly, feeling his face heat up as Jon gave him a wary look, "Jerri's got to have some toys around here."
"If you think I'm touching anything that's gone between that woman's legs and hasn't been boiled afterwards...."
"Point taken."
Another pause.
"The shower head?"
"That works?"
"Three sisters."
"Right."
Jon clenched and unclenched his fists against his thighs.
"But I don't think...I mean, it isn't the...the mechanics, I guess, that's the problem. It's...this is weird, okay?"
He took a shaky breath.
"It feels like I've...mutated, or something. I know that sounds either horribly misogynistic or really, really gay, but it's not about -- listen, these parts are great on other people, but they're not mine! They're not me!" He started to choke up, but went on. "And it feels so wrong -- I don't think there are even words for this kind of wrongness -- it's been in the background all day, sometimes I can almost ignore it, but then I put my hand where my junk's supposed to be and it all comes back, and it's the least arousing thing I've ever -- I just--"
Stephen caught him.
Chest heaving, whole body trembling, Jon sobbed into Stephen's shoulder: once, twice.
"It's okay," murmured Stephen, unable to think of anything more helpful to say. "Shhh. It's okay. You can do this. You're beautiful."
He didn't realize it had slipped out until Jon gripped his shoulders and pushed him gently away, holding him at arm's length.
"Don't, Stephen," he said, head bowed.
"What...?"
"Don't suddenly just happen to realize you have a thing for me now that I have tits. Don't make this any more screwed up than it already is."
Stephen took a deep breath. "Jon? It's not the tits."
Jon raised his head, searching Stephen's eyes. They looked sincere enough.
"Don't freak out, okay?" Stephen wrapped his hands around Jon's slender wrists. "But I, ah, realized I had a thing for you a while ago."
"Are you sure? Because...as long as we're making awkward revelations, I've been getting, well, kind of tingly at," Jon nodded towards Stephen's grip, "that sort of thing all morning, but it only started today and I don't know if it's me or just the ovaries...."
"'Tingly'?" repeated Stephen.
Jon couldn't think of any better words to describe it. "Yeah."
With two fingers, Stephen traced slow circles on the back of Jon's hand, and oh yes, that was definitely tingly. "Is there any chance that I could get you off?"
The indescribable wrongness surged forth and sank its claws into Jon's heart. "You're not fucking me!" he snapped, ripping his hands away.
"No!" exclaimed Stephen. "I didn't -- I mean -- I was thinking I could try just touching! So you could think of it like a really small handjob, and maybe it wouldn't freak you out as bad."
Jon's panic eased. That sounded almost manageable. Certainly less disturbing than having something stuck in a hole he wasn't supposed to have.
"I don't even know if that makes sense," Stephen went on. "And I won't try anything you're not okay with, obviously, but if it works--"
"Which it might." Jon took a deep breath. "Or it might not. I mean, you know how it is when a girl first tries to give a guy a handjob...."
"Um," said Stephen.
"Well, you can imagine it, right? Because you've got your routine down -- one, two, three, twist, bam -- and she has no idea what she's doing."
Stephen raised his eyebrows. "I'm Catholic, Jon. You know we don't masturbate."
His deadpan was perfect. For an instant Jon almost bought it. But Stephen's mouth twitched, and Jon felt himself smirking, and soon they were both consumed with a fit of nervous giggling. The fear was still there, but the tension had broken, at least for now.
Quickly, so he wouldn't have time to think about it, Jon leaned upward and kissed the corner of Stephen's mouth.
Stephen's laughter subsided. "Does that mean--?"
That hadn't felt so bad. In fact, it hadn't felt bad at all.
Jon touched his lips. They tingled.
"Jon? Jon, talk to me."
Jon took a deep breath. "It means, let's give this a shot."
Kissing Jon's neck, Stephen felt his friend's breath quicken. "This okay?"
"Yeah," panted Jon. "That's -- that's nice."
He was flat on his back on Jerri's sheets, which smelled a little dodgy but were not nearly suspicious enough to take Stephen's mind off of how appetizing he looked. The swell of his breasts was particularly tempting; it was taking a lot of Stephen's concentration to avoid fondling them, to concentrate on gender-neutral areas. Mouth. Neck. Shoulders.
He slipped a hand low under Jon's shirt, fingertips brushing the small of Jon's back, and was rewarded with a stifled whimper. Tentatively Stephen hooked his fingers under the waistband, tugging it down over Jon's hips, trying to keep his own out of the way. Maybe Jon had already noticed the bulge in Stephen's slacks, but better not to draw attention to it. Only one of them needed to get off, here.
This was awkward. This was so awkward. This was probably the most awkward thing that had happened in the history of awkwardness.
God, Jon was hot.
"So far, so good," gasped Jon. He sounded almost normal, but his slender hands had a death grip on the sheets. (That was a good thing, right? Right?)
Rather than go straight for the underwear, Stephen slid the pants as far as Jon's knees, stroking the back of his thigh.
"Ohgod," squeaked Jon, legs writhing.
Stephen bit back several oaths of his own, nibbling at Jon's clavicle before rising to meet his eyes: blue and bright and just slightly out of focus. "You ready?"
Jon swallowed. "Ready as I'll ever be."
Stephen kissed him. He couldn't help savoring it, just a little, before they broke apart; then Jon's eyes fluttered closed, as Stephen's hand slipped between his legs.
"Handjob," he whispered, almost too lightly to hear.
"'s right," panted Stephen against the hollow of Jon's throat, slick fingers finding the little bundle of nerves. "I've got your cock in hand, right now." He rolled gently, reducing Jon to a string of incoherent moans, hips jerking against him, and oh fuck was he hard. "I'm pumping -- shaft, base, head, whatever you like -- I'd suck you off if you wanted, run my tongue all over you, you think this is wet--" Too much, this was way too much, but Jon either didn't care or was too far gone to hear, crying out as Stephen flicked a thumb against him -- "Jon, I want you--" Even if he was turning green. "I love you--"
Jon's voice broke off mid-cry.
There was a bright green flash, and the smell of ham.
And all at once Stephen's chin was resting on a flattened chest, hand clutching a fistful of scrotum.
As Jon was coming down, the green stars fading from behind his eyelids, he felt a gloriously familiar rush of cool air.
Stephen rolled away as he sat up, breathing heavily, to see the borrowed slacks pooled around suddenly hairy ankles. "Yes!" he whooped, launching himself forward to cup his balls in one hand and his dick in the other. "You're back! Oh, baby, did I miss you!"
So what if it looked ridiculous? He was already sitting on a stranger's bed in a bra and a blouse and ripped women's underwear, directly under a couple of novelty license plates and a poster that said I'M A TAXIDERMIST: I'LL MOUNT ANYTHING; but it was his body sitting there, and never before, in spite of all his jokes, had he realized quite how much he loved it.
And then he turned to Stephen.
The other boy was on his knees and elbows on the mattress, disheveled hair falling across his openmouthed face, the corner of his dress shirt untucked and the underarms stained with sweat.
It was a much nicer sight than it had any right to be.
"You're -- back?" he asked, between ragged breaths.
"Yeah," said Jon, still a little breathless -- not just from the sex, but from Stephen's revelations at the end, from the realization of how much he was willing to go through for Jon's sake, and from what was only occurring to him now, though he couldn't imagine how it had taken him so long.
"Great." Stephen started to get up, wincing. "I'll just -- run to the bathroom -- only be a minute--"
Grabbing his collar, Jon pushed him down onto the bed. "Allow me."
Stephen's eyes widened. "You don't have to--"
"You want me to?"
"God, yes."
"Then I'm on it." Jon undid Stephen's straining pants one-handed, using the other to cup the flushed face. Yes, this was definitely a sight he wanted to see more often. "Don't worry, I got this down. One, two, three, twist, bam."