Steve’s apartment had a two-car garage, and Xandal was over so often that Steve had given him a garage door opener so that he could let himself in. Ordinarily it took Xandal about 15 minutes to get to Steve’s place, but it felt like it was a lot less when Steve heard the garage door below his apartment begin to open.
Steve wasn’t sure if Xandal had rushed over due to his concern about Steve’s agonized cries on Riscord, because Xandal was hoping that he could use the app to live out his own fantasies, or because Steve’s sense of time was just off in his new body. Whatever the case, a soothing butterfly flittered through Steve’s chest as he heard Xandal’s car pulling into the garage. Now that he knew that a strong, hands… that Xandal was here, Steve felt calm and, more importantly, safe.
It was that feeling of safety, and the absence of the dread that it replaced, that caused Steve to realize just how frightened he had been since he caught the first whiff of himself in front of the community center. Steve was used to deadening his emotions, which was probably why he hadn’t noticed that underlying current of terror, but its sudden absence seemed to make all of the aches and pains of pregnancy so much easier to bear.
The stairway door opened, and a loud voice called out, “Oh christ, what stinks in…” Xandal turned the corner and caught his first glimpse of Steve’s new, skunky body. “Here… That… that’s not a fursuit, is it?” Xandal asked as he half sprinted into the computer room and knelt down in front of Steve. “Man, can you smell yourself?
Just like when Leon and the other “men” in the community center had pointed out his stench, Steve felt a pang of humiliation, though this time it cut deeper. It wasn’t just some random person who was disgusted by his body’s scent, this time it was his friend. And not just any friend… Steve’s eyes scanned up and down Xandal’s body, taking in the well tall, well-toned body of a man who took fitness seriously. The idea that someone who looked like that found Steve repulsive…
Steve took a deep breath as he stuffed his body’s breeding instincts back into whatever hole they had popped out of. As he felt his masculinity return, Steve gave the only response he could think of on such short notice, “I mean, I’m a skunk. What do you expect?”
A look of surprise briefly came over Xandal’s face, only to fade into laughter as Xandal clapped his hands and said, “goddamn you sure are! Holy shit dude, that app really is real, isn’t it?”
Steve reached out and grabbed onto Xandal’s arm, forcing him to look Steve straight into the eyes. He wanted to explain the situation to Xandal so badly, but he felt so timid and submissive. It just… it just didn’t seem right to tell Xandal unless he asked first. Fortunately for Steve, he didn’t have long to wait. Xandal’s voice softened as the full reality of Steve’s predicament seemed to dawn on him, “Steve… did you seriously do this to yourself?”
“No! The app it’s… I don’t know. It’s sentient, at least, and I don’t know… it might be a demon. Look it… I think it chose me because I have a pregnancy and birth fetish and it seems to uh, you know, have the same fetish. I know that sounds crazy but it’s true and the thing, is… you know… it tricked me.”
Xandal seemed to ponder on what Steve had said before walking over to his computer and bringing up the technical diagram of Steve’s body that Steve had closed earlier. With a quick double take, Xandal seemed to be comparing Steve to the picture on the screen, before coming to the obvious conclusion that the two were the same. “That’s what it turned you into, isn’t it?” Steve just nodded in silence as Xandal brought up the next picture.
Putting his hand on Steve’s belly, Xandal felt the squirming mass inside, then once again looked at the picture as though he were comparing the two. “That thing inside of you, it’s the dragon from this picture, right? The one the skunk couldn’t push out?” Once again, Steve just solemnly nodded as Xandal processed Steve’s predicament.
“So, I’m guessing you don’t want to up like that? Where’s the app?”
Steve picked the phone up off his desk, only to catch the reflection of a frightened and exhausted skunk girl in the otherwise black screen. Steve ignored the look of… his face and slid his finger along the screen, eliciting the lock page and the same frowny face from the failed face check.
Steve handed the phone to Xandal and, with a timid voice, said, “It’s on the phone but I can’t unlock it.” Xandal looked at the screen and, as though he had just divined the solution to one of the world’s great problems, blurted out, “well I think the face recognition is looking for a human man and not a… you know, skunk girl.”
Xandal turned the phone towards himself, then pressed his finger on the screen a few times. Looking up, he asked Steve, “did you try using your pin?”
“My pin?” came Steve’s bewildered reply, “I…” of course, how had he forgotten to try his pin? He might not be able to read the numbers, but he pantomimed his fingers over a phantom phone, letting him know that he still had the muscle memory to unlock it. Xandal handed the phone back to Steve, who unlocked it before handing it back.
Xandal gave Steve an odd look at he took the phone back, “don’t you want to fix yourself?”
This was it, Steve realized, there was no point in trying to hide the limitations that the app had imposed on him. With a meek gasp, Steve said, “I can’t read.”
“You can’t read?”
“No, I can’t read. The app… I told you it’s like a demon or something. It didn’t just change me into this, it made me stupid, ok?”
“And it’s into pregnant girls?”
“No, well… yes. But I think it’s more than that, I think its into turning men into girls and then making them give birth.”
Xandal seemed to almost lick his lips as he pondered the possibilities that the app had laid out before him. Steve watched as Xandal closed his eyes and took a deep breath, all while the room around them seemed to grow darker. Steve barely had time to feel the fear come rushing back as wormy tendrils seemed to reach out from the phone before wrapping themselves around Xandal’s body.
Eyes still closed, Xandal pointed his face towards Steve and asked, “I’ve always wondered… what’s it like Steve? What’s it like to be pregnant like that?”
“It sucks! Everything aches and my back hurts. My breasts… oh god, Xandal, I have breasts! And they’re so full, you have no idea how uncomfortable they are, or how uncomfortable this baby is. Every muscle in my body is begging to relax but I just can’t. No matter what I do, it feels like my entire body is made out of pure discomfort. And then there’s false contractions they… you heard me earlier. They’re agony.”
“It sounds…” Xandal began to trail off as Steve interrupted, “don’t listen to it Xandal! It’s the app trying to get to you, trying to turn you into this. You think you want this, but you don’t!”
“Please…” Steve begged, “please just turn me back and delete the thing!”
A smile came over Xandal’s face. Opening his eyes, he knelt down in front of Steve, put on a hand on Steve’s belly, then looked Steve right in the eyes.
“Yes Steve, I know exactly what I’m going to do.”