Four Months

Your new life isn't easy to adjust to, but that's a good thing. You're constantly aware of your new feminine self, of how people now look at you not as a respectable and upright young man, but a pretty and charming young woman.

Women treat you ****. Men hold doors for you. People always smile in your presence. Whenever you make a mistake or speak out of turn, you're forgiven almost out of hand. Things are handed to you without asking that you never would have dared ask for in your old life.

With the start of the new summer semester, you've dropped all of Carrie's old courses and found yourself in a whole new lineup. Dusting off your old portfolio, you've also been working hard on new pieces. Between your new life and reignited passion, it's easy to spend hours a day working in your new studio apartment, every day.

And finally, it's all paid off. You've been accepted into the university's illustration program!

Your admittance was issued with special remarks. Your artwork, they reported, is especially more mature than your age might suggest. The admittance committee also noted that your drawings lack typical gender markers. Normally they can tell at a glance whether work was produced by a man or woman, but in your case, there's a fascinating blend of the two, as you give off the impression of being perfectly comfortable with both aspects.

Now, you face a whole new college career ahead of you, with an array of fascinating classes like 2D animation, painting, life drawing, and conceptual illustration booked for this semester.

But as for you, you're hardly the same Carrie you've left behind.

You've got a new studio apartment next to campus. All of Carrie's old clothes that you didn't love, you've given away (most to your new little sister Cassidy, the ones that fit her anyway). In their place you've filled out a new wardrobe comprised of all the things you've ever fantasized about being able to pull off as a woman. Skirts, athletic clothes, tights, stretchy tops and comfy shorts, and of course, dresses.

Your style has a particular feminine slant, mixed equally with pragmatic tomboyish sensibilities you bring over from your prior life. At the same time, you've leaned into a darker, gothier color scheme and flair you've always found so appealing on others, but that now you can make your own. You've cut your hair to jaw-length, dyed it black with a streak of blue, and even picked up a little tattoo of a crow on your left shoulder.

Carrie - that is, Cassidy, your little sister - helped you choose most of your new wardrobe on a dozen or more marathon shopping expeditions. Once a month or so, she drives over to visit from out of state and stay the night.

On Cassidy's side of things, she's been having a blast with her new life, with little to no trouble adapting. She's taking her classes more seriously, but also herself. Her friends have all noticed, and now she's the mature, popular one in her group of friends, the one who always has a fun idea for how to make a night memorable, and a party something worth buying the beer for.

For a while she was dating new boys (after breaking up with her current boyfriend, who wasn't assertive enough for her liking), until one time when she was visiting you, you lent her Automaton Dave for the day while you were busy with classwork.

You'd long ceased worrying about what your old body was up to, so long as the routine payments kept appearing in your bank account. You were exploring a new life, and new people, and a new sexuality. Girls were of course a part of that, but keeping to your promise to Nicolas, every week or so, you drop by to hang out and game, dress up, and maybe have some fun, no strings attached sex.

But putting Cassidy and Dave together led to predictable results.

Cassidy asked you nicely - very nicely - and you gave her what she wanted. Dave's now free (sort of) of the most dulling aspects of your programming. Now only compelled to do whatever you say, when you say it, and continue providing for your new lifestyle, he's free to live the life you would have lived if Carrie hadn't moved aside for you.

After breaking up with him to live your own dreams, your sister stepped in just as quickly.

Now Dave and Cassidy are an item - as strong as you ever were when you were Dave, and she was Carrie. Well, maybe not as strong. You still call the shots for both of them. Every time your little sister visits, she drops by your place first, and you show her just how much you love her, and who's the one in control. And sometimes when Cassidy has a date planned with her new boyfriend, you appoint yourself as a chaperone to make sure it goes how you'd like between them.

Occasionally, you even send Cassidy home while _you _take her place, accompanying her boyfriend out on dates for her. Thankfully, you know Dave inside and out, so he's putty in your hands even without the absolute power you hold over him. Dating 'yourself' is weird, but addictively fun, and the sex is something else, at least when you're in the mood for it.

Mom doesn't approve at all of Cassidy dating Dave. She's spoken with you hundreds of times on the phone trying to understand why you left 'that nice boy', and if he wasn't good enough for you, what makes him good enough for your 'innocent little sister'.

You stonewall her every time. "Love is love," you say, and "Live and let live."

--

You come home from class, your canvass art bag over your shoulder. You let yourself into your modest apartment and set it down, and run your fingers through your sweaty hair. Damn it's hot outside.

You pause at the environment control to turn the temperature to sub-arctic, then head to the bathroom to freshen up.

You barely recognize yourself as Carrie, you look so different otherwise.

Dark eyeliner and lipstick matches a baggy shirt patterned in a dark grey and covered in stars. The long-sleeved top is loose enough at the neck to spy the black sports bra strap over one shoulder. You also wear a tight pair of cute little shorts in charcoal grey, with black tights beneath. Your feet meanwhile are clad in a pair of slightly heeled converse.

You brush your hair, splash some water on your neck, then grab your purse before heading out again to meet your girlfriend.