KNOCK KNOCK
Elizabeth Marshall laid down her glass of pinot noir on the dresser beside her bed and closed her laptop, which had nearly fifty open tabs relating to coronavirus, an issue that she had desperately been trying to keep up with even ***before*** her wife Robbie had gotten infected at work.
“Come in, sweetie!” she said, trying to hide her rattled nerves.
Nine year old Billie turned the knob and burst inside the sunlit sanctum with the slam-bang energy of youth. A wide grin was on her face.
“I just wanted you to know that I'm all done with school! Can I go outside and play?” the little girl squealed.
For the last month, Billie's teachers had been instructing their classrooms over a streaming website called Zoom. Despite often being in her pajamas and eating a bowl of cereal or a peanut butter & jelly sandwich while she learned, Billie still had a regular schedule of coursework just like she had before, from nine thirty in the morning to four thirty in the afternoon. It was currently 4:33 P.M and was all done for the day.
Elizabeth, who had recently turned forty and grappling with the beginning of a mid life crisis, was unprepared for how rapidly Billie was growing up. It seemed like just yesterday she had been Billy, her five year old son, and just entering Kindergarten. Now her daughter was in the fourth grade and was growing like a weed, almost being as tall as Elizabeth. It was also starting to be obvious that when Billie eventually grew up to be an adult, she would end up looking a lot like Robbie. Elizabeth prayed that she didn't inherit Robbie's recklessness.
“Of course you can go outside, honey! Just remember to stay in the backyard where I can see you, OK? And no talking to strangers. And...”
“And no talking to Sammie if she asks me to come over. I remember, Mommy!”
Sammie Stafford was Billie's best friend, who thanks to her idiot parents didn't understand the gravity of the coronavirus pandemic. She kept trying to lure Billie to her house to play video games even after Elizabeth had very gently explained to the child over the phone the importance of social distancing. Sammie's parents Georgia and Molly had even invited Elizabeth out to dinner last week, which she politely declined, biting her tongue when she really wanted to tell the two of them to fuck off.
“That's a good girl. Do you have any homework to do?”
“Not today! Miss Allen said that I'm at the top of all my classes and that I can take a break.”
Elizabeth beamed with pride.
“What did I do to deserve someone as good as you?”
“Being the best mommy in the world!”
“Aww, and you're the best little girl in the world!”
A part of Elizabeth didn't feel like she was a good mother at all. Her baby was doing so well in this rapidly changing world while she was devolving into a neurotic alcoholic mess. She glanced at the nearly empty bottle of wine hidden from Billie's view laying on the floor beside the bed.
“I'd hug you, Billie, but you know the rules.”
“I know, we're trying to limit hugs to six times a day! I love you, Mommy!”
Billie flounced away to go to whatever it was that happy nine year olds do. Elizabeth stayed in her room and brooded, which she grimly realized was what depressed adults do.
The Great Change had really fucked her over, altering her husband-turned-wife's personality for the worse and transforming their formerly rock solid relationship into a roller coaster ride.
It wasn't all bad.
Despite it all, Robbie meant well. She was still a good person deep down just like she had been as a man, and in Elizabeth's opinion, that counted for a lot.
The sex was absolutely outstanding. Elizabeth was firmly a lesbian now, just like everyone else on Earth was, and Robbie was about as attractive a lady as one could possibly find in this new world. The bedroom was where Robbie truly shined, knowing how to make the housewife orgasm in ways that she never could have dreamed of when she had been a man.
When they weren't busy fucking like bunnies, Robbie had a vivacious, colorful personality that made life that much more interesting. There was never a dull moment when Robbie was around!
As a parent, Robbie was also extremely generous with her time and emotional labor, making it a point to spend as much time as possible with Billie and their two year old daughter Megan, who Robbie had carried to term herself. One phenomenon surrounding The Great Change that Elizabeth had found particularly interesting was that a majority of New Women reported having strong maternal instincts, Robbie being no exception. She wondered if the two Born Women she had briefly met who had created The Great Change were responsible for that.
Unfortunately, all of those positive qualities were counterbalanced by one simple fact, one unfortunate truth: Robbie was a raging nymphomaniac, and although Elizabeth would never call her this to her wife's face, a goddamned whore.
In the past two years, Elizabeth had caught her cheating(***Again***) on her with her coworker Lucretia, who claimed that Robbie had forced her into a custodian's closet and began making out with her during a lunch break.
There was also Aimee, an intern, who Robbie ignominiously admitted to hooking up with at the office Christmas party.
Not to mention the time that she had missed Billie's birthday party because she was out with her friends at a brothel getting fucked by prostitutes.
The blonde vixen also admitted to shamelessly flirting with her boss all the time, although it apparently stopped at that.
The constant orgies with Mary and Lucy at home meanwhile had gotten wild enough and frequent enough that Elizabeth finally put a stop to it once and for all, one night snapping at her friends turned fuckbuddies turned annoying houseguests that the party was over and that they had to leave. After making it clear that she was serious, this ultimatum resulted in a major fight between the four women, ending in Mary/Lucy and Elizabeth having a falling out. Hurtful things were said that night which still stung months later.
Elizabeth thought naively at the time that her faithful wife would stick by her side and support her decision. Loving spouses did that for each other, right?
Wrong. Robbie had bitched about it for the entire night and into the next day, dredging up Elizabeth's decision to return to her old body when the Great Change had first happened, long repressing her resentment about it. When Elizabeth called that ancient history, Robbie replied that it wasn't the only thing that's ancient.
After a big fight, Robbie had stormed away to Mary and Lucy's apartment for their umpteenth fingerbanging session.
That had been months ago, but the trauma was long lasting. Many sleepless nights were had
After Robbie's job had made its employees undergo mandatory testing for coronavirus, Robbie had been one of ten who tested positive. She, and the nine others, were now in quaratine.
Elizabeth hadn't seen her wife in nearly two weeks and desperately missed her, even in spite of how much The Great Change had altered her personality.
**
The Entity was angry. Angry on a scale that few mortals could ever understand. The kind of anger that shatters mountains and explodes stars. But anger led nowhere. Even for reality altering demons, it was a corrosive, self defeating emotion.
Instead, it looked for opportunity. Despite the so-called “Sorceress Supreme” banishing it from the body of its host, the former Kyle Perkins turned Kylie Perkins, the young Arab woman had not been able to destroy it. She couldn't contain The Entity either, so instead The Entity fluttered off into the night. It now had an entire new dimension to play in!
By sheer cosmic coincidence, there just happened to be a Glendale, California in this unfamiliar reality.
By a not-quite-as-big-but-still-notable coincidence, there also just happened to be a seventeen year old girl there named Jennifer Smith who lived in Glendale. She wasn't at all like the one that The Entity remembered from its own reality, the bitchy queen bee who enjoyed humiliating her lessers in the recesses of the high school hallways. This Jennifer Smith was, in fact, a painfully unremarkable girl. Not particularly popular. Not particularly catty or mean. Not brilliant but not dumb either. Certainly not rich, and not a cheerleader. She wasn't even blonde. She was just your average, workaday teen girl worried about things that every teenager worries about.
It made no difference. One mortal fool was just as good as another.
That night, the girl received a phone call while doing homework. She picked up her Android and pressed the green answer icon.
“Hello?” asked Jennifer.
“Hello, is this Jennifer Smith?”
“Who may I say is calling?” asked the curly haired girl.
“Transform or Dare?”
**
“Look what I brought home for Jo!” announced Kayla Saviano, grinning from ear to ear.
“Seriously? A kitten?” asked Martha skeptically as she side eyed the nearly four year old Joanna trying to climb out of her playpen. Another expensive ragamuffin running roughshod over the house was honestly the last thing that she needed.
“Don't be such a sour puss, honey! I couldn't resist snatching up this little cutie. Don't worry, he's not infected at all and he has all of his shots. I didn't even meet the owner in person, I just left the money on the door after seeing an ad on Craigslist.”
“Craigslist still exists?”
“Sure does! The poor boy is a stray and needed a home. I nearly had to slap myself from buying the entire litter. Don't you think that Jo is going to love having a pet to play with? I was thinking of calling him Oliver.”