Chapter 14

You know the cliché of emergency workers covering people with a blanket as they're being led away from a disaster? Sometimes I think the blanket is just for comfort. I know that I was hugging the covers tightly around myself after I finished screaming, willing the whole situation to be a dream.

You can only wish for so long, however, and when I opened my eyes again, I found that I had apparently awakened the entire household with my shrieks. Julie, Trish and Courtney were all present, in nightshirt, sweatpants and nightshirt, and full coverage pajamas respectively. All of them had the same expression on their faces, now easily visible thanks to one of them turning on the light during my little bout with hysteria. It was a look that anybody might have when discovering a stranger, naked and in your bed. Curiosity, sure, but a healthy dollop of anger at the violation of the house was also present.

"You done yet?" Courtney broke the silence in the room that had taken over after the last shreds of my panic had faded.

"I ... yeah ... I..." I was shaking. Worse than a cold chill, worse than the panic a child might feel walking down a dark corridor where they were SURE monsters were present. I could feel each breath in through my shuddering jaw. I was still trying to come to grips with what had happened to me, and now the look of unfamiliarity on the faces of the women I loved was another blow. "I'm ... s ... scared..."

I never stuttered. Never. Maybe once, in a blue moon with my breath highly visible and no jacket did I stutter and that was only a physical reaction. But here I was, fighting for each word, feeling a chill running through me despite the warmth of the blanket I had yanked around my naked form. Or was it Eimear's form? I really didn't even know really, since there had time to do anything other than feel, and in some ways already, I knew my body felt different.

"Ok ... does anybody know where Henry is?" Trish asked, her eyes searching the room.

"I didn't hear his car, so I guess he's still..." Julie looked at me with a quizzical eye. "No way ... Sorry, but ... no way..."

She had thought of it. The most simple, if not the most logical answer.

"It's ... m ... m ... me..." I forced my lips apart despite the chatter that wanted to cut off my communication. Each exhalation was accompanied by yet another shudder. Was I hysterical? Even the thought of the word brought another reflection of the situation I was in, thanks a fucking lot, Freud.

"No. No way. You don't just ... you don't just turn into a girl, Hen ... You can't be him!" Trish exclaimed, coming closer to where I huddled on the bed.

My arms were crossed at my chest, and my face was turned slightly into the material of the blanket surrounding me. I don't even know how I must have looked. I just wanted this to be over, but the shudders of panic were still coursing through me.

"You ... you look like that woman..." Trish's hand moved to push a small bit of cloth away from my face. I couldn't help but recoil slightly at her touch. "The one that Lesley was ... I mean ... kinda..."

"Ei ... mear... ?" I gasped out. That name that Lesley had always called me. The woman she had made love to last night.

"Yeah, but not ... well, I mean you look a bit ... prettier than her." Trish looked back over her shoulder at Julie and Courtney, who had moved a bit closer and were scrutinizing me with a similar look of concern.

"I never saw her." Julie said, "I mean, the woman who Martha showed me was ... very different."

"What are you two talking about?" Courtney asked, breaking the mood of wistful contemplation.

"The woman who showed you ... well, whatever it was that freaked you out, also showed me a vision of her lover. And she looked kinda like ... her." Trish explained.

I could feel the shakes beginning to subside. The fear that I would be suddenly tossed out the door wearing nothing was being replaced with a resignation. Whatever it was, had happened. When Lesley and I had made love, had she somehow ... transformed me? Made me into her vision of Eimear? It had been so real, and so passionate, but I hadn't wakened anyone with my vocalizations last night, so it couldn't have been totally real, could it?

"And now your boyfriend is ... her? This makes absolutely no sense." Courtney spoke the words that honestly I was thinking. It didn't make any sense at all, and yet it had happened.

"You know, there's one way to be sure." Trish smirked. She looked at me with a knowing sparkle, and then with no further preamble, kissed me.

I think I was too shocked to do anything more than let her do so. It was Trish however, and after a moment of shock, I felt the familiar tease of her against my lips. I kissed her back, my hands loosening from their death grip on the fabric surrounding me. I wanted to stroke her hair, and contemplated doing just that when she suddenly broke off and stepped back.

"It's Henry." She announced to our audience.

"Oh, come on you can't be sure from that..." Courtney objected.

"I can." Trish nodded, looking over at Julie. "You want to try? It's him, I swear."

"Not ... just because I kiss YOU doesn't mean I'm going to..." Julie looked at Trish, then at me. "Maybe later. Maybe. I ... Sorry, but what in the holy fuck happened?"

I inhaled deeply, feeling the last vestiges of the tremors slacken, then stop completely as I exhaled. With my arms crossed, I was suddenly very aware of the fact that I was completely naked underneath the covers.

"I uh ... I was with Lesley last night." I explained, trying to think of the exact moment when it had happened. I couldn't remember, other than it had just seemed so natural, easing me into the lovemaking with no jarring or sudden shift of perception. "I was ... I wanted to experience it all."

"So what, she waved a magic ghost wand and poof, hello girlfriend?" Trish quipped, rubbing at her face with her fingers. She pressed against the corner of her eye, wiping away what I assumed was some of the vestiges of sleep. "That's impossible."

"I ... Ok, Fine, Impossible! Which is why I'm not sitting here naked and we're all just dreaming." I don't know how I managed to gather up the strength to blurt out the retort, but it did seem to have the desired effect, as Trish's expression seemed to soften a bit.

"Ok, but she can ... You can go back to being ... Can't you?" Trish asked the question that was on my mind. But what was it that Lesley had said? She was becoming? What exactly did that mean?

"I don't ... I don't know." I admitted, now suddenly very aware of the feeling of my ... breasts ... under my hands. "Can I ... can I get a shirt or something?"

"Sure. T-shirt?" Julie crossed to the pile where I had filed my tops. She yanked a large white shirt out of the mess and shook it out like a matador with a cape. She then held it up for my approval.

"Fine, great." I shrugged the blanket off of one shoulder, still covering myself with my free hand. Then, realizing the company I was in, I sighed, and let the rest of the blanket drop. The chill air had an immediate effect on my now exposed body, but I dried to ignore it as I groped for the shirt that Julie tossed me.

The cloth easily fit over my head, but felt much looser than I had ever experienced. It was a familiar t-shirt too, so I was surprised to feel the only tightness was in the chest area. I also could feel my hair caught in the neck of the shirt, and pulled the much longer strands out of it to cascade along the back. Long hair. Lesley hadn't missed a trick on making me into her ideal lover, it seemed.

"And now I need pants." I joked, looking at Trish and Julie, who had watched the whole procedure with interest, and in silence.

"We're all girls here." Trish joked right back. "But I don't think you're going to ... your pants probably won't fit.

"Shirt's a little loose," I agreed, pulling the fabric down to where it bunched around my waist. If I got up it might provide a bit of modesty, but only the slightest margin.

"So what do you mean, you don't know?" Julie asked as she dug through my pants pile. She came up with a pair of sweatpants which I don't believe I'd worn in years.

"Lesley ... she said something weird at the end and then she was ... just gone." I grabbed the pants, slipping them under the covers to find my feet. I pulled the soft cotton up my bare legs, and was very aware of the fact that I was now, without a doubt, very female. Compared to everything else, this just seemed like almost an afterthought, but as I pulled on the drawstring to tighten the pants around my waist I wondered why it didn't seem to affect me so strongly.

"Gone? Like when Martha was gone?" Julie asked.

I slid the covers off of my legs and swung them over to the side of the bed. It was then that I got a glimpse of myself in the full length mirror that covered the closet door. I wasn't the vision that Lesley had shown me of Eimear. I was ... different. It was like all the imperfections and hard edges which I had seen were gone. I wasn't Lesley's memory of me at all. I was somehow her idealized version.

"So, do I get to call you, "tits" now?" Trish had come up beside me as I gaped in the mirror. Dark hair, pale face. I felt like I was somehow what Eimear had always wished she was. What Lesley had always wished her lover was.

"Fuck y ... sorry ... just a bit..." I snarled out, before checking the hostile impulse. I had called Trish "tits" to her face, and looking over the body I now possessed, her returning the favor was being, if anything, understated. She was also taller than me now, I noted as I looked at us both in the mirror. "I don't know what I..."

"You're still my baby-daddy..." Trish's arms surrounded me, and for a moment, the contact was a welcome relief.

"Don't leave me." I whispered, clutching at her arm as it gripped me.

"I was going say that." Trish reassured me. "It's ok ... we'll make this work."

"What did she say?" Julie asked, taking in the sight of me and Trish.

"That's actually a really good question. What did she say?" Courtney chimed in.

"Julie, I think ... I think you might be pregnant." I admitted, breaking free of Trish's grasp.

"WHAT? Sorry, but ... Oh fuck..." Julie groaned, her hand immediately dropping to her belly. "I can't be ... oh god, I knew I shouldn't..."

"And I think ... I think it might be twins." I added rapidly, thinking about what Lesley had said about "Becoming".

"Twins? Jesus, you really shot me down good..." Julie gaped, moving to the bed and sitting heavily on it. "And now ... my baby daddy is a girl..."

"I didn't mean..." I began, trying to think of something, anything I could say.

"No, no ... I can't be ... Ok, I thought about it ... I admit it. But I didn't think ... I didn't think it would actually be ... sorry, but Twins? Why Twins?" She babbled, looking back and forth from me to the image of me in the mirror. It seemed almost like she was trying to fend off the situation with words.

"Lesley said you were. And then she said she was ... well, she said this word, becoming." I tried to reason it out.

"Was that the reason you brought me here?" Courtney asked, her voice taking on an accusing tone.

"No, no, Courtney, I didn't ... I asked Lesley the same question and she said it wasn't what she wanted. But then ... She just vanished like Martha did." I reasoned. It had to make some kind of sense. Maybe she did want last night, but for some reason, Julie had conceived a second time, or her egg had divided. And there was Lesley's spirit, without a body.

"And she's ... inside me?" Julie's mouth hung open as she took in the full thought

"This is ... this is just crazy." Courtney spoke up, her voice clear and determined. "I'm NOT going to be sleeping with you three."

"That wasn't why we wanted you here," Trish turned to Courtney with a conciliatory tone in her voice. "We wanted to help you.

I admit that I had multiple fantasies about Courtney, but now they seemed almost comical. There was no way that I was going to be fucking anyone it seemed.

Oh, you had fun with Lesley last night, didn't you, Mr. Studly. There you were begging for her to treat you like you fantasized about treating Courtney. And you loved it. Every single second of it. Don't even think that you wouldn't love to do the same thing with that beautiful pale body...

I fought back the thought, very aware of the tension present in the room.