Curse of the gender-hopper

"Well, uh." Chloe's voice fumbled for the right words, and you could feel her nervously bite the lower lip in your palm as she tried to explain. "It's a little weird. Right now I'm doing a pretty good job at keeping your form stable, my slime permeates every millimeter of you, and for the most part I just need to take caution if I modify your form, or do some repair work, or whatever it is I'm doing. Sudden, unexpected bursts of adrenaline--such as from a sudden scare, for example--can disrupt my slime's current effectiveness at keeping you looking normal."

"That doesn't sound good," you said with a sigh, leaning back into the barely tolerable pillows of your hospital bed. "So, are you saying if I don't hear someone coming up from behind me and then they startle me, then I'm not gonna make it?"

"Hah, uh, nothing like that. It's not going to be deadly, I promise you'll remain alive and fully healthy throughout this experience, that's the easy part actually."

You glance at Amanda, who simply shrugged before looking back at her phone. She just wanted to get out of here, it seemed, she was busying herself with some other activity while you talked. She wasn't going to be much help for you. "So, what is the big deal then? Not dying sounds great."

Chloe cleared her throat, which you felt almost all the way up your forearm. "So ever since I was created, I'd been imprinted with a human female shape, it's sort of my default, relaxed state that's easiest to maintain. So, if my stability of maintaining your form from the inside is disrupted, what's going to happen is you're going to, well, default to my imprinted shape, roughly."

"...You mean..."

"You're going to take on my shape externally if you get scared. That means you're going to look like a version of you on the precise opposite end of the gender spectrum, because that's a form I can more easily maintain if my processes are interrupted. It's just easiest for me to map my slime to your body that way, and then adjust to your male form, so that's why it is then easy for you to just suddenly change into a different body. And it will take hours for me to 'reset' my slime to regain stability and return you to normal whenever this happens."

You fell silent, your heart beating rapidly. You didn't really know how to feel about this--was this going to be a hindrance? An opportunity to see a different angle on living? What would your friends think if they knew? How in the world would you explain it if you suddenly changed in a public place? "Just an instant shift into being a woman? Would I sound like one? What about my hair? Could I, y'know, have a baby? How come this didn't happen earlier when you scared me with this hand mouth!"

"Oh my GOD Jason," Chloe growled, and you winced. "You'll sound like one, you'll have a cute little hairdo I'm sure, it's only going to be an external thing because I'm only imprinted with a female shape myself so no babies!" Chloe huffed for a bit, while you sat silently. "...and it didn't happen earlier because I was ready for you to freak out, I anticipated it. It's like how you can't tickle yourself, I can't scare you into this shape, though if you pester me enough about it I'll just turn you into your lady-self and maybe I won't change you back so quickly!"

"I, uh... okay. Whatever." You sighed, standing up, and began pacing while you thought. "How hard could it be to go a month without, like, watching scary movies or something? Maybe it's a non-issue."

Chloe snorts, and you glare back down at your hand. "I doubt it. You don't realize how often your daily life triggers those sorts of responses, it could be something as simple as a friend saying your name when you weren't expecting them to be near! You're going to become very aware of just what makes you jump or flinch or whatever else. Fortunately, Zoe is going to help out, Amanda's coordinating with her right now, right Amanda?" The blonde woman gave a thumbs up. "Dr. Hildebrand is discussing these things with your roommates and friends, to make sure they're all ready for this so you'll have a safety net of people you trust. In fact, Zoe will use her own bodysuit skills and participation from your friends in order to stay close to monitor us externally. You're going to want an accomplice to help out, for sure, and she's got some good tricks of her own."

You didn't even bother to ask about Zoe, but you gulped. People you trust? Your roommates and friends are people who live adjacent to you, do internship work with you, play games and eat dinners and watch movies, but you're constantly low-key antagonizing each other. Dan, your roommate and closest friend, would in a heartbeat post videos of one of these transformations of yours online. Your other roommate, Lisa, she'd probably do everything to make you get in touch with your 'feminine side'. Ken and Julia, a couple that you'd known since high school, would absolutely make sure you end up in awkward scenarios so they can swoop in and pretend to be good, helpful friends--maybe they make you spend time with Dan as a girl to double date..! And then there's Willow... sweet Willow. She was one of Lisa's friends and you'd grown pretty close, though still pretty flirty with her. You were working up the courage to ask her out, and now how much would something like this freak her out?

It felt like now would be a good time to panic, just the kind of event that Chloe warned against. So you did.