Chapter 7

The pizza took forty minutes to arrive -- and it was questionable off and on whether anyone would want it when it arrived...

It all started when Mike poked his head through the now-open bathroom door. "You really don't have to put a ton of make up on..."

"I don't wear that much," she replied -- then frowned a bit as a thought occurred to her. "Why, exactly?'

Mike looked guilty. "No reason." His eye caught a smudge on his collar in the mirror, and he tried to pull it out, "It stains my shirt."

"It'll wash." She eyed him, frowning. "That isn't all there is to it, is it?"

Mike considered lying, but it appeared that he was already caught. "I guess not."

"Go." She pushed the door closed, forcing him through it. "I'll be right out."

Mike stood outside the door, sheepish, trying to figure out how to rescue the situation. Nothing came to him.

Inside the bathroom, Lois stood there, trying to decide whether to re- do her makeup and walk out or wash her face and walk out. Things had been going well -- dammit, why did he have to go there? How much proving herself was she going to have to do? Would anything be good enough?

She decided on clean; she scrubbed her face and got all of her eye makeup off, got a grip on her emotions, and opened the door. "There! Satisfied? Want to feel my shave? Well, surprise, surprise! I DON'T shave! I grow a long, grey beard and spend my evenings plucking it out while I watch old 'Will & Grace' reruns, okay?" She turned for the door.

Mike found himself grabbing her wrist again. "It's not like that!"

"It isn't?" Lois' eyes were wet.

"Look, I want to be your friend. As a friend, I don't care about that stuff. But if we go farther... I don't know what my limits are." Mike wasn't EVEN gay -- on the other hand, he wasn't a homophobe, either -- but he just didn't know if he could neck with a chick who wasn't a chick.

"So what am I supposed to do?" she asked. "Get naked?" She tried to tug her arm loose.

The short answer was yes -- and Mike knew that if he said that, she would tear her arm off to get out of there. There had to be another approach... "Why did you come here?" he asked. "Not this room -- why did you come to the hotel?"

Lois eyed him, caught short. "It's... anonymous."

"Right," Mike nodded. "It's safer than a bar or something -- you have control over what you're doing."

Lois glared at his hand on her wrist, but she stopped pulling. Mike moved on, "That's a good reason for being here, but it isn't what you came here for. What motivated you to check into this hotel? What were you looking for? What were you willing to do?"

Lois eyed him. "That's my business."

"It's mine, too," Mike insisted.

"Only if you make it so."

"I already have," Mike retorted. "Do you want me to tell you what I think? I think you came here looking for a relationship -- and were willing to have sex to do it. Tell me I'm wrong."

Lois was angry, but... Why did he always have to be right? "Okay," she snarled, "But YOU just came here to have sex!"

"Guilty as charged," Mike agreed. "I came here willing to risk a relationship to get sex and you came here willing to risk sex to get a relationship. If that doesn't define male and female, I don't know what does!"

"Yeah, maybe, but whether I'm female is an open question, isn't it?" Lois spun to face him and demanded hotly.

"No, that isn't it," Mike replied. "You're VERY female between the ears -- and just about everywhere else apparently. I don't know if the issue is so much you or if it's me; I don't want to hurt you by trying to give you something and not being able to follow through."

"Then don't bother!" Lois snapped.

"You know what? The problem here is expectations," Mike retorted. "You expect me to crap on you -- you're almost BEGGING me to do it, because it will let you off the hook! I've already offered you a relationship -- as friends -- and you need it -- you KNOW you do! But the whole situation has changed from where you thought you were going, and now you're trying to re- draw the lines to avoid doing what you came here to do in the first place because it doesn't fit where we are." He sighed. "You can have my friendship, regardless -- and we can watch TV and play cards or whatever -- but if you want to know how much farther it can go, you have to give a little, because I just don't know!"

"If I put myself on display, won't that ruin things?" Lois wailed.

"There's a chance I'll disappoint you," Mike replied. "Maybe too much, even to sustain what we have. But if you start building hopes and I dash them somewhere down the line because of something we knew about at the outset... This is your big problem -- the one that is a wall between you and everyone else. Maybe I can work through that wall and maybe I can't --but I need to be able to see it to make an estimate..."

Lois' shoulders slumped. "What do you want?"

"I know it sucks, but I need to see. I need to see the girl and I need to see that little spot that isn't girlish. I need to know what is there -- and whether I can deal with it when the time comes," Mike sighed. "If I can't, we can still be friends, if you want to -- but at least you'll know up- front that we're not going beyond that."

"That's... fair, I guess," Lois sighed. "And you're right -- I'd have done it under other circumstances. But I didn't want to..." 'What? Cheapen things? Push us into a sexual relationship when we had something else blossoming?' Lois wondered. 'I came here expecting to offer Mike sex -- and now, when things are going better than I dared hope... ' "How far?"

"How far what?"

"How far are we going?"

"No sex," Mike replied. "At least, that isn't on the table here. I need to see -- everything."

"Okay." She was scared to death. She let him gently lead her to the open space between the bed and the window, then stepped beyond her to draw the curtain. Lois started unbuttoning her blouse with trembling fingers. It was stupid; she'd worn clothing that made her look like a slut and she'd displayed herself -- and fucked -- guys whose names she never knew -- but there was so much at stake, here... The buttons finished, she pulled the tails of her white blouse out of her skirt and let it drop off her shoulders; it wasn't a striptease -- she couldn't go there.

Mike sat on the bed; he honestly didn't know what to expect. He had a lot of chest hair -- would she? That would kill it...

She didn't.

Was the bra some kind of trick to cover a flat chest?

It wasn't. The breasts it revealed weren't monster mammaries, but they were breasts -- small cones capped with puffy pink areolas. Mike drew a breath; Lois, watching him like a hawk, started on the button and zipper of her skirt.

She stepped out of her heels as she stepped out of the skirt, leaving pantyhose over pink satiny bikinis. "How am I doing so far?" she croaked.

"You're batting a thousand," Mike said softly, while thinking, 'My God -- she looks like a Victoria's Secret model!'

She turned away to work her way out of the pantyhose, revealing a pair of cute little dimples on either side below her hipbones. Mike just couldn't believe what he was seeing... When they were off, she turned around in the bikini panties. "Now?"

"No," Mike croaked. "Come here." Lois came forward slowly. He reached up and caressed her cheek, her neck. "You said something about shaving..."

"I don't," she said simply. "Oh, my armpits -- and my legs, occasionally. But they don't get bad. I have this syndrome -- it's the basic problem, actually. I have an extra chromosome -- the two for a girl and the one that sort of made me a guy..." She paused, then said diffidently, "Even genetically, I'm two-thirds female..."

'Sort of a guy', Mike echoed in his mind. 'Where?' He slid his hand up her ribs to just below a breast. "May I?"

"Yes." She was watching him like a hawk -- and only seeing wonder. While he cupped her left breast gently, she said, "They're all mine -- well, courtesy of a little extra estrogen."

"They're sweet -- I love the nipples," Mike gurgled. Looking up at her, he said, "I don't have to see it -- I can live with it. Put some clothes on before I get stupid. Want to see me?"

"No," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "We're too close. Let's finish this. Then, yeah, I'd like to see you..."

"You're sure?" Mike asked. "I'm serious -- I've seen enough..."

"Take them down," she said softly.

Mike took a breath and gathered himself. "Okay." He reached out and took the sides of the skimpy panties in his fingers and slowly drew them down. She was furry -- and it sat there, surrounded by wiry curls. It looked like he did after swimming in a cold pool -- only even smaller; all you could see was the glans. Below that was a little wrinkled sack... "May I?" he asked, leaving her panties at mid-thigh.

"Yes."

He reached out to touch the scrotum; it was empty, as advertised. He could tell by looking, but he'd have never had the guts to ask some surgeon to remove HIS at ANY cost, so verification seemed necessary. He slid a finger along the underside of the source of all of Lois' pain and said, "That's it?"

"Yeah." Her voice shook. "It used to get to be maybe three and a half inches when it was hard, but now that I'm neutered..."

The thing just wasn't a threat -- Mike looked at it and looked at it and it just didn't bother him. Hell, he might even suck it, if it made her feel good...

"Well?" Lois' fear was palpable.

Mike looked up. "Want to see me with a hard on? I don't see how I'm going to get it to go down, looking at you."

"Mike, don't screw with me -- I can't take it!" Lois gasped. "What about my..."

"Clit?" Mike finished. "It's cute. Does it feel good if it's played with?"

"It's not a clit, it's a..."

"It doesn't matter what it is -- it doesn't bother me. NOTHING about you bothers me. And about one hundred percent of you makes me horny. Put some clothes on, or I won't make any promises about what I'll do..."

"Mike! Be serious!"

"I'm DEADLY serious!" Mike declared, rising to his feet and towering over her. "Your big problem is just irrelevant, as far as I'm concerned. I couldn't care less about that little hunk of flesh -- unless there is a way to use it to make you happy, in which case I want to hear ALL about it!" He drew her to him, rubbing the soft flesh of her back, "You are THE hottest babe I have ever had the pleasure of seeing naked!"

"You're deprived!" Lois husked, trying to fight a meltdown.

"Not any more..." Unable to resist, Mike reached down and cupped an ass cheek. Lois, unable to dam her emotions, exploded into tears.

It took ten minutes for Lois to get a grip -- ten minutes of soft compliments and promises. He had a vague moment of worry when she lifted her lips to his, but it was gone before she could register it. Once started, Mike had no interest in stopping, either; her lips and tongue poured passion into his mouth -- passion he had no problem returning. It took a knock on the door and the announcement, "Room service!" to tear them apart.

THAT surfaced an issue -- she was totally nude, after all... "Bathroom!" Mike yelped. "There are robes!"

"Right!" Lois squeaked, and dashed inside, closing the door.

The waiter was the soul of discretion, unperturbed by the puddle of female clothing on the floor or the muffled thumps from the bath. "Will there be anything else, Sir?" he asked.