For a certain--shifting--value of "normal"

The couch was different. It had been just a normal, dark brown, three cushion couch when I passed through the living area to make the coffee. Now it was a black leather sectional that made an L-shape, and it looked newer, less like something that had been salvaged from the last hours of a yard sale. I stopped and stared at it for a few seconds. What the hell, I concluded, new couch. Okay.

That settled, I continued into my bedroom in search of clothing. My senses were now on high alert, though. If furniture was just going to appear out of nowhere, I wanted to see the magic in action. Thus, I made sure to turn the bedroom light on as I entered the room, and stopped in the doorway to survey the scene. Nope. Everything looked completely the way it had when I'd turned the light off to go to sleep in the wee hours.

Which in turn reminded me that I'd only had three hours of sleep. I yawned hugely. The clothes I'd put on when Elspeth knocked on the door that morning had been disintegrated, and everything else scattered about on the floor was too ripe even by gamer standards.

Opening my underwear drawer for a pair of boxer briefs turned out to be one step too far, however, and the precious bubble of normalcy I was trying for popped with the discovery of a drawer full of boy shorts, lacy briefs, thongs, stockings, and panty hose. I went for the boy shorts as being the closest thing to what I'd hoped to find, but soon discovered that the "boy" in boy shorts was strictly a bit of advertising fancy. At least they were comfortable, and not as flourescent a pink as a couple of the thongs I'd seen in the drawer.

There was no strictly matching bra in the next drawer down, but a relatively unadorned grey sports bra went a long, long way towards resolving my nakedness dilemma. Only thus clad did I turn to the mirror that hung from my closet door. Unlike the bathroom mirror, this one was big enough and far enough away that I got the full effect.

I looked just how I expected to look. Namely, like a really cute eighteen year old girl who'd just climbed out of bed. Damn.

Back to the task at hand. The bottom drawer still held sweats, and when I pulled a pair out it felt like a huge victory. They were still mine. My lovely, baggy, well-worn, dark blue, bargain bin sweat pants. I pulled them on slowly, relishing the . . . oh, fuck. My eyes shot to the mirror and I got to actually watch as my token victory turned to ashes, the blue turned from dark and worn turned new and bright, and the material took on a slight sheen. Then they vacuumed themselves to me. Bam! Teal blue leggings.

Damn it all to Hell, I will not cry!

I didn't even worry about a top. I'd seen plenty of women wear sports bras as outerwear, and I was beyond done with this clothing nonsense. I did stop by the bedroom door and shuffle my feet into a pair of fuzzy white slippers, but that was only because my feet seemed to be more sensitive the cold, bare floor than I was used to.

Back to the kitchen, and I just ground my teeth when the only available mug for my coffee sported an adorable kitten on the side. I carried it with me to the living room, sat it on the unchanged coffee table, plopped onto the couch . . . and stared at the cute little student laptop sitting where I'd left my 17" custom gaming machine. It was pink and white. A single tear tried to escape my eye, but my rage burned so hot it evaporated before it could drip onto my cheek.

I would get used to bouncing tits. I would wear underwear with lace on it. I would tie my hair up in ponytails that swung when I walked, the better to attract male eyes. All that I could and no doubt would deal with. But couldn't I at least be a gamer girl if I had to be a girl?

Apparently not.

I gave in to the rage and hurled the cup of coffee against the nearest wall, burning myself with the hot coffee. The cutesy fucking laptop followed, and flew to bits with a satisfying crash, leaving a divot in the drywall to complement the huge splash of dripping coffee.

I screamed as loudly as I could, screamed from the bottom of my cute little feet, and dissolved into inarticulate sobs.