On the Line (Alternate Places Book 3) (14 page)

“I knew it. You're actually a man?” He sighed and sat back,
waiting for more play hitting, which didn't come.

“No... I mean, I'm a girl. We're all
born
girls, but,
I can
look
like a man if I want to...” That wasn't the way that she
really looked at it, but it was the softest way she could think of to introduce
the idea. “And that change? That's really fast, a few minutes. Five maybe and I
can look like a guy. A really hot guy, but still, fully male, you understand?
Everything works I mean.”

He nodded and sat back, grabbing the pillow off the bed and
covering his face with it. He didn't scream and she ventured to touch his arm
softly, expecting him to jerk away, surprised when he didn't. His stomach moved
like he was sobbing, a slow rolling movement, he didn't move the pillow for a
long time, finally she asked if he was all right, concerned that she may have broken
his mind with this information. He pulled the pillow away, revealing that he
was laughing, not crying at all.

“Look... cool. It beats my shape shifting power of getting
fat if I eat too much. Hands down, right? I like women, no question, but that's
really all about looks. If you'd been born a boy, and looked like you do now, I
wouldn't kick you out of bed, so why should I freak about shape shifting
abilities? Other than to think it's neat, I mean.”

She kissed him then and noticed that he didn't back away at
all, which helped to reassure her. She'd heard a lot of stories about how
Humans would
say
they felt alright about this kind of thing, then freak
out later. Don still
could
she knew, but maybe not. A lot of younger
people seemed way more open minded about sex now. Probably thanks to the
Internet.

Don asked about the particulars of the change and if she
thought she might be able to alter what she looked like at all. She explained
about how much energy it took and that she'd want to make sure Zack was on tap
to power her back up, just in case it took several tries to do or to get back
to herself.

“I can show you a normal change and then come back, if you
want though. Boy me goes by Kyle. Zack always says that Kyle's cooler than I
am, which is ridiculous. Want to see?” Kate held her breath a bit. There were
so many places this could go wrong, but Don just sat back and nodded.

The change took a little over five minutes. Don gasped as it
happened, a few times, but she assured him that it didn't hurt at all. She knew
how it would look. A bit like she'd started to inflate a little, taking a
harder leaner form as it finished. After a few minutes Kyle sat up and smiled
lazily at the other man. He readied himself to fight, or run, not knowing how
Don would react to actually seeing him like this, sitting on the bed where he'd
just had sex for the first time not an hour before, with a nude guy in front of
him.

Rather than freak out, the other boy looked between his legs
and pointed. “So, are you like twelve inches when you get hard or something?”

Kyle laughed and reached between his legs, stroking himself a
few times until he hardened completely, it didn't take a lot, since his sex
drive was incredibly high in this form. He pointed at himself once hard.

“Nope, eight inches, almost exactly, about the same as you. Well,
a
little
bigger, but within the same range, definitely. Most Alede are,
even if they're black, stereotypes aside. Believe it or not, most women really
don't want a man that's hung like a baseball bat. Even those that
do
are
generally OK with something between five and eight inches. Honestly, if I
could, I'd back off a bit, aim for about an inch less. The virtue of being a
girl most of the time, I know firsthand what feels good and what's a bit too
much.” He rolled over and took the other man's hand, putting it on his
erection.

“See, it's real. Now, if you just move your hand up and down
for a while, I'll be greatly reassured that you'll still like me in the morning
and won't freak over this. Plus, you know... Free handjob.” He laid back and
smiled charmingly up at his friend, who shocked him by actually doing it. He'd
really thought the guy was going to pull back, at least at first. Kyle had to
admit he felt more than a little impressed.

“Blaine would
so
love to be me right now.”

Don used his hand, just stroking up and down, a standard
action, basic handjob technique, but not bad for his first time, Kyle thought.
He asked him to go a little faster after a few minutes, and when he got close
to coming, something he could have done at any time, like any Alede could, he
asked the other man to use his mouth.

Don laughed. “Don't push it buddy!”

After using a towel to clean up, he switched back into
Kaitlyn and asked the boy how he felt about all this. After a minute he
answered.

“Kind of stupid.” He looked away, staring at the wall while
he spoke. “I mean, I still like girls and don't even
really
find Kyle
attractive, no offense, but, well before I was kind of afraid, that, I don't
know, if I did something like that it would change me? Make me less or
something, or like I'd instantly be turned gay. Now I can see that I'm exactly
the same. The only difference here is that now I'm a little less afraid of the
world as a whole.” He bubbled up with laughter and made a funny face, crossing
his eyes and sticking out his tongue for some reason.

Kate reached over and hugged him again, then cuddled against
his chest. After a while she sat up and kissed him, mainly to reassure them
both that things were back to normal, then went and got her clothing on. He followed
suit without asking why. At midnight exactly Zack walked through the rift,
carrying several boxes, nearly dropping them when he stopped. Don jumped
forward and caught them, helped stabilize them in Zack's arms then took the top
two off and put them on the desk that sat on the other side of the room.

“Hi Don. I came to deliver some stuff and pass some energy to
Kaitlyn. Oh, Kate... Merri, Libby and Valerie want to stop by tomorrow. Is that
all right with you? They can reschedule if need be, but told me to ask.” He
moved over and gave the girl a hug.

“Sure! They can meet everyone else and come to dinner. I bet
Merri will pass out when she sees what they try to pass off as food here. It makes
McDonald's seem like heaven.”

Kate stepped forward and lifted her shirt, letting Zack give
that needed energy to her. After a few minutes she started to orgasm and
stepped back, indicating that she was done. The thin line-walker turned and
looked at Don, nodding and smiling.

“That's right! The energy gets passed through the other
person, and each time I collect a little more from the environment around us.
You can see it?” Zack waited for an answer, probably from Don's deeper self or
subconscious mind, Kate knew, but got a surprise when the boy answered him
directly.

“Yeah, I mean everyone has a little bit of that around them,
but you practically glowed with it. Doesn't everyone see that?”

Sitting down on the table top, Zack grinned.

"Yes. Most people don't understand that they do though.
If you can see it though, you should try working with it. Moving it around and
starting up a circulation like I have going on. Like this?" He did
something that Kaitlyn didn't see, but after a bit Don started tracing the
pattern in the air.

Then, nodding, Hartley went on.

“It's a rare thing.
Knowing
what you see... I need to
get back. Can I drop the girls off at about eleven tomorrow? That way I can
bring them just before work for the rest of us. It's Sunday, so it should be a
light day. I can come pick them up whenever. If you need to get some work done
or something... You know, that whole college thing that we sent you here for?”

She kissed him on the cheek and Don moved forward to shake
hands with him. Like a grown up. As he did Zack grimaced a little, and shook
his head.

“I
know
! They all do, well, not the Vampires, but
they're almost as bad in their own way. Not a lot to be done about it though,
it's in their natures.” He patted the boy on the arm and walked back through
the rift, leaving the boxes.

Reaching over, Don pulled one of the boxes out of the pile,
the middle one, which had his name on it and pointed to the strange letters
beside it. “Is this Alfric then? That's right, isn't it? Alfric? They're the
elves,
but don't call them elves
, people? What does it say, do you
know?”

Looking at it, she tried to sound it out carefully as Merri
had taught her to do. She wasn't perfect at it, but oddly reading Alfric was
pretty easy. Speaking it was a
lot
harder. She could barely ask for
someone to pass the salt so far. “D, ah, we, neh. Dawena. I'm pretty sure
that's your name in Alfric, or at least as close as Merri could come to a
phonetic spelling. What... did Zack mean at the end there?” She asked,
interested, since Vampires had been brought up.

“Oh. I mentioned to him that you were totally orgasming at
the end there. So,
all
the Alede do when he does that? No wonder you all
like him so much. Talk about a happy meal.”

Kate thought back to all those times she thought she was
fooling him, having Zack go on for
way
longer than any of the others
ever did, and blushed. Not that she'd stop doing it in the future, it felt too
good to give up, but she did feel a little embarrassed in the moment.

Ah well.

A bit past twelve-thirty, Don gave up and went back to his
room, telling her that he wanted to be fresh when he met the others the next
day. If she
wanted
him to meet them. Giving him a kiss, she leaned in
her chest against his, and lips nearly on his cheek.

"I'd really like that. Just remember, don't thank Merri
for
anything
. Tell her you liked the stuff, kiss her, hug her, even
offer to have sex with her. But, and this is a real rule, under no
circumstances
thank her
. For one thing, even though she's little, she
could take both of us in a fair fight. Without even calling for her magic
sword." Then she kissed him again. “And she won't fight fair. I've seen
her fight, so let's avoid that.”

After he left she made certain she had all of her homework
done before they all got there the next day. It took longer than she thought it
would, because after she finished her paper on Etruscan art she decided her
premise, that it had clear links to ancient Greek and Roman artistry, would be
too obvious.
Of course
it had clear links to those places, a child could
see that, it was literally what the book said in the first paragraph on the
subject. So she decided to try and demonstrate some of the more obscure links,
to show just how deep the probable connections went. She was just putting the
finishing touches on it when her black cell phone rang, at about ten. To her
surprise it turned out to be Jelly, and not Zack as she'd expected.

“Hi... Kate? I was wondering if you'd like to get together
sometime this week, and I don't know, do something?” The voice sounded a little
breathless, even a bit scared.

“Jelly? That sounds... Really nice, actually. Do you mean you
wanted to do something, like
do
something, or have sex? I'm fine with
either,
or
both, but I like to know what I'm supposed to schedule for. I
have people in tonight, but I should be free any time after eight or so the
rest of the week? Or all day on the weekend, though I may be going home next
week, so a week night would be better for me.” There was a matter of fact tone
to her words, but it felt right. After all, the girl had been listening in to
them at dinner for weeks now. She
had
to know what Kate was like that
way.

Jelly answered with a half articulate “ack” sound, but
recovered quickly enough, suggesting they go to the geology museum on Monday,
then see what happened after that. Kate didn't know if the geology museum would
be fun or not, but agreed anyway, since the girl would almost certainly put out
on the first date and seemed interesting enough even if she didn't. Regardless,
she hadn't even known that the campus
had
a geology museum. More to the
point, she hadn't been aware there
were
such things. That could be fun,
right? If not, she'd get the girl to come back with her early, and do other
things for a while.

Three minutes later the phone rang again. This time Val asked
if it would be safe to come through, laughing as she said it. After all, Alede
rules said that if they could catch someone having sex, the other person was
obligated to do them, too. True, this rule only applied to school, but, as Val
pointed out, Kate's room
counted
for that. Kaitlyn laughed because her
school had that rule, too. It wasn't an
official
rule, just something
that the kids made up. She hadn't known that other schools had done that, too.

“Yeah, come on through. It's just me and the books here.”

The next few minutes were a confusion of hugs, kisses,
explanations about who knew what and large amounts of food being passed over.
They'd all brought warm clothes, and some lighter things for indoors, Merri
assured her. Zack gave her a quick hug and left, telling them that he'd be back
again the next day at the same time, if he didn't hear from them sooner.

The second that Zack left they all plopped into various
chairs, or on the bed for Val, and asked for the full story on
everyone
there.
It took a while to explain, but she finished just in time, as her three best
friends on the campus knocked on her door at just before noon.

“We heard a rumor that you had guests, and didn't want to be
left out.” Blaine said with a kiss, walking in quickly, since Britney had
pushed him from behind. Don walked in more sedately, smiling at Kate
apologetically, even though they'd all been invited.