He is perfectly supportive, and brings bad news

I briefly consider washing my face and changing into less feminine clothing before Mark gets back, but I don’t want to disappoint Sasha. I’m already blushing just thinking about being seen like this by Mark, but I know she wants to show me off in makeup, both because she did my makeup and because she wants to prove how right she was about embracing my femininity.

So when we hear a car door shut, I’m not surprised that Sasha ushers me over towards the front door to show off her handiwork. Okay, I can do this. It literally just involves standing here. I don’t actually have to do anything. Just stand here, and not run away. Preferably also while making eye contact with him when he walks in, but let’s not shoot for the moon. That would take emotional resources I don’t have to spare and could result in me burning up in the atmosphere. Even landing amongst the stars would be terrible, as I don’t know any stars and would certainly hate being surrounded by them.

I need to stop overthinking common expressions that weren’t meant to be analyzed that deeply, as the door is opening. Unsurprisingly, it’s Mark. He walks in with an expression of being deep in thought, until he sees me with Sasha standing behind me, making a tada gesture at her creation. “Mark! Meet Melody, our new roommate! Isn’t she adorable!” Yup, eyes are dragged right to the ground. It is way too embarrassing to have her gush about how cute I am right behind me while looking anyone in the eyes, let alone someone my ex is both dating and trying to convince me to date. Still, I can’t help but feel the edges of my lips turn up in a shy smile as I wonder if he agrees with her assessment.

Mark walks up to me in his brown shoes and black slacks. Very professional looking shoes. I resist the urge to cover my face. He kneels down in front of me and his hand lifts my chin up gently so I can’t help but look him in the eyes. Thankfully he’s smiling at me. “May I?”

I have no idea what he’s asking, until his face gets closer, and closer. I’m frozen as his lips touch mine. I can barely register Sasha squealing happily behind me. “Yes! Charm her socks off, handsome!” Mark pulls away and smiles at me… damn you Sasha and your tendency to get what you want. “Don’t just kiss her, tell her how she looks!”

Mark snorts at Sasha’s insistence, but looks me in the eyes. “You look lovely, Melody.” No! My heart! It shouldn’t be affected this much!

“Th-thank you.”

Sasha excitedly speaks up. “We should all go out on a date! We could go to the company picnic next week and dinner after!” I feel lightheaded as blood rushes to my head at the idea of going out in public like a girl. Yes, biologically I am one now, and I am finding the idea in general far less objectionable than I would have thought before the Change, but that doesn’t get rid of a lifetime of being a boy and hearing other boys make fun of each other for any perceived girliness.

Thankfully Mark shakes his head, so I don’t have to tell Sasha no. “We can’t do that. You know the new HR manager? Mr. Locklan? Turns out he’s… very religious.”

“So? What do we care if he likes his Jesus?” Sasha is as confused as me.

“… I mean he takes his pastor’s opinions as facts.” I still don’t understand… wait.

“So what? We don’t go to his church.”

Mark sees the fear in my eyes and knows I’ve already understood what he’s trying to avoid putting too bluntly. He sighs. “He encouraged the whole company to refuse to serve non human clients, fired Sherry the janitor despite her being literally better at her job now that she doesn’t have a 70 year old body, and is demanding every employee get a physical just in case their transformation is too subtle to notice. I don’t even know if subtle transformations are possible. I hope he gets fired soon for this, but honestly I don’t know the higher ups. They might promote him for behaving that way for all I know.”

Despite still having to get used to craning my neck up at them, I had managed to put the outside world out of my head for a bit. I’d actually forgotten that this wasn’t just about being a girl now, but about not being human. Sasha hugs me from behind. I try not to cry, both on general principle and to not ruin Sasha’s work with my makeup. “It’s okay. You’re safe here with us. We’ll just have a nice stay at home date! We can even do it tonight.” Sasha kisses my cheek lightly and looks me in the eyes to make sure I’m okay. I’m not, but she makes me feel like I will be.

————————————————————————

Dinner comes around and Sasha makes a nice chicken dish. I go to sit in a chair with an old plastic booster for children, but Sasha takes my hand and leads me over to Mark. “This is your first date, you get the best seat in the house.” She picks me up and deposits me in his lap. He casually smiles at me, as if this isn’t incredibly weird. Even in the context of a normal first date, the girl doesn’t just casually sit in the guys lap! At least, I’m pretty confident that’s not the case. My only other first date was with Sasha… and come to think of it she did find an excuse to sit in my lap by the end of it. Only for a second before we had to move, but still.

Okay, maybe letting her set the pace isn’t the smartest idea as she definitely has peculiar ideas about normal romance. But, my idea of romance is to just have an emotional meltdown thinking about talking to someone. Our past relationship owes everything to Sasha being the aggressor. So really, Mark is my only hope of bringing reason back to this whole situation. I look into his eyes… crap. He may not be as wrapped around her fingers as me, but I shouldn’t be surprised he’s willing to go along with her scheme. Not only does she clearly like guys that indulge her whims, but this whim is literally to put a second girl in his bed. And his smoldering eyes drive home that I’m the second girl. I’m a girl, on a date with a boy.

Rather than put two plates in front of us awkwardly, Sasha just put one down and loads it extra full. She only puts down one set of silverware, so Mark switches between feeding himself and me. I blush every time I have to open my mouth to let him slide a fork full of food inside. I feel bad, because I think the food is really good but I can’t really focus on its taste right now while fighting to keep my face straight.

We haven’t really talked much, but there is less food now… so shit. Words. Conversation topics. I need something to come to mind! “Uh… tho… SO… what do you do for fun?” Standard question! … and one I already know the answers to because I live with him and we’ve had basically this exact conversation before, just without the date night atmosphere. Shite. I stare downwards at my lap in embarrassment at the stupid question.

He chuckles at my burning cheeks. “Well, I like kissing cute girls. Want me to show you?” Damn it, in most situations that would be a terrible answer, but right now he nailed it. Why is he so good at this? I look up at him with my eyes, still unable to move my face from its slanted downward position. He gently raises my chin up and kisses me softly. I never thought much about how I would be as a girl, but I am finding that the chin touch maneuver before the kiss is really effective on me.

Dinner finishes without much more conversation. Much to Sasha’s delight, Mark begins to kiss me after every bite he feeds me. Finally the meal is done after much kissing, blushing, and Sasha gushing over her plan working. She pulls out a bottle of wine. “Why don’t we have a couple of glasses, and then… go to bed early tonight?” Her flirtatious tone makes it clear she doesn’t mean go to sleep early.

Fucking ay Sasha! I need my head not to explode, why the sudden escalation! I try to glare at her while controlling my malfunctioning face at the same time, but Mark nuzzles into my neck and kisses it… and suddenly that doesn’t seem so unreasonable. Mark isn’t crazy like Sasha about me joining them, so if he’s okay with it, maybe it’s fine… somehow. Sasha pours three glasses and hands me one.

I clink my glass with them both as prompted, and take a polite sip. Sasha wastes no time and downs her glass, while Mark shows more restraint but still drinks half in one go. Sasha sees my barely drank glass. “You don’t like this wine?”

I shyly look at it. “I… don’t want to be drunk tonight.” My track record for smart decisions while drinking is pretty bad right now.

Sasha’s wide smile makes me think she has read a different meaning into my words. She saunters over to me and steals me up from Mark’s lap. “Hey, give her back.” Mark laughs at Sasha’s theft.

“Come and take her!” She skips away, both of us laughing at the silliness of the situation. Mark follows us, and I stop laughing when I realize she ran away with me to her bedroom. Sasha hops onto the bed, and rolls over so I’m laying on top of her with her arms still around me. I shyly look up at her past her breasts. I then feel the mattress move and turn my head to see Mark climbing up behind me.

Oh shit oh shit oh shit. I feel cute and sexy and wanted, and also like the universe is pranking me somehow. Can this really end well? It shouldn’t, every aspect of this sounds wrong when I think about it. But Sasha keeps saying it’s okay… and Mark’s taking his shirt off. I was a muscular guy, but I also had some padding so the muscle wasn’t as clearly defined. Mark seems to be very low body fat. Not quite on the level of magazine cover abs, but he definitely looks more picturesque than I did without a shirt. One more thing he’s better at than I was… but he’s not just the guy Sasha replaced me with, he’s the guy Sasha wants to give me to.

I know that’s not the best way to look at it, but with her having pushed for this date, dressing me up for it, and now holding me tight as he approaches, it’s hard not to think that she’s gifting me to Mark. I turn to her to see if she’s maybe changed her mind last minute as this inches closer to becoming a reality. Her lips on mine catch me off guard and make it clear she has no regrets. Her hands slip down under my dress, and she pulls it up over my head to leave me naked on top of her but for my panties. She kisses me one more time before twisting me around so I face up towards Mark as he smiles at the sight of me facing him with Sasha hugging me from behind.