"I'm fine," you say.
Letting go of Rick, you sit down on the couch, patting beside you to indicate to Rick that you want him to sit down beside you. While the act comes from seemingly nowhere, it's as though you've been doing it for years. Rick complies. As you look him over, you find your mind drifting to more sensual thoughts of what you'd like Rick to do to you or what you'd like to do to (or with) him.
Inside, you're terrified. Your life, as you know it, is apparently over. Even if you could change back to a human male, you know that logically, there is no guarantee that you'll be able to get history back to the way that you know it. You have no idea how to be a skunk, let alone a female one.
Finding males alluring and having relations as the female gives you a strange thrill. On one hand, it scares you. On the other, you're curious as to how it will feel. Knowing it’s perhaps wrong given you were male only minutes ago only manages to increase the sense of danger, which only serves to increase the thrill.
"Something must be bugging you," Rick says. "I mean, you don't normally walk around naked. I mean, I like the view and all but, it's not like you."
You look into Rick's eyes. Telling him that this life is a lie seems cruel. You wonder how you would feel if a close friend one day begun to act strange and blurted out that everything about your life was a lie.
"Rick, could you do me a favour?" you ask. "I know this sounds strange but can you tell me about our life together?"
Rick blinks. Your feelings for him seem to get stronger. A part of you wants to jump him right there and then. Even if this reality is a lie, what you’re feeling certainly isn’t. You try to ignore such thoughts. Now is not the time to act like this.
You wonder if somewhere in the cosmos, a former skunk lady just tried on a shirt that turned her into a male human and she’s going through the same thing you are.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Rick asks.
You nod. "Please, just humour me."
Rick nods. You know this must be awkward for him but it seems he’ll humour you. After some consideration, you decide to put on some clothes. Indeed your naked form is distracting to him. A gaze at his mid section makes that clear.
"Actually, let me get some clothes first," you say. "This isn't fair to you. If we're not going to do something -- well yet anyway, I shouldn’t run around like this."
Rick nods.
You run upstairs and into your room. A gaze around the upstairs level makes something obvious to you. This isn’t the same house you were in before you tried the shirt on. Yet, it feels like your house. While you’re afraid of thinking of this reality too much, it’s hard not to.
Memories of moving out and perhaps being a bit more successful flood your mind. Unfortunately, they also seem to replace your human memories. You can no longer remember why you still lived at home at twenty-four in the former reality.
This version of your room seems right. In fact, you cannot remember how your old room used to look other then a few vague images. Trying not to dwell too much on it, you go to your drawers and pull out a brown tee shirt.
You put the shirt on, electing for now not to wear a bra.
As strange as it feels to you, your sense of fashion seems to have developed a bit. You know what goes and does not go with brown. You consider putting on some underwear but you're not comfortable with the idea of panties. You fish out a pair of blue jeans from another drawer. Checking the backside of them, you see that they have a strap for your tail in the back. Putting the pants on, you look at your reflection in the mirror. You look good.
As fully dressed as you're going to get, you walk back downstairs and sit beside Rick. He's put a black tee shirt on. He looks at you with concern. Knowing someone cares this much about you feels good, although it is a guy.
"Okay, that's better," you say. "Like I was saying, tell me about our life together."
"But why do you..."
"I just need to make sure my memory is working properly," you say. "I had a weird vision or something where I was a different person."
"What kind of vision?" Rick asks.
Telling him that it's a vision was a lie, which makes you feel bad. More then anything, you want to tell him the truth but you worry that it will be too painful for him.
"Well, I thought I was a guy, a human guy," you say.
"A guy? You?" Rick says. "Come on, I mean, we can do guy stuff, but you're definitely not a guy! I mean, what we did last week -- you're no guy."
You have a feeling of what Rick is referring to and can't deny how you're body is respond to the idea of it. Then, the memory hits you. You re-live the memory in a matter of seconds. It wasn’t your first time with Rick. While he was a perfect gentleman, he also had a slight glint in his eyes that showed that he knew that he wanted and you were more then willing to deliver it.
"I..."
"Then there a couple of months ago when were walking in the woods," Rick says. "It was hot out and you said you felt sweaty. We were alone and walked by a lake. You took my hand and ran me to the lake. You took your clothes off, pulled my shirt off, unbuttoned my pants..."
You stare at Rick, feeling as though he's reading the plot of a novel to you. At first, the memory isn't familiar to you then as with the previous one it hits you. For a few seconds, you're there under the hot sun. You can hear the water splash around you as the two of you run into it.
"I remember," you say. "How did we meet?"
"It was at a bookstore at the mall," Rick says. "I was looking for a book for a book report. It was hard because I was never much into books."
If your brain was a computer, with your memories locked away in encrypted files, Rick's descriptions of his and your life together are the passwords. You remember the event not as though remembering someone telling you something, but remembering being there and experiencing it first hand.
"Of course, how could I forget," you say. "I helped you to find a book that actually interested you, unlike all the ones they always made you read that never interested you. After you read the book, you started reading a lot more. You always said I helped you get you into books."
“You did,” Rick says.
Looking at Rick, you wonder if it would be best to stay in this reality. However, you can’t help but wonder about the ethics of doing so. You wonder if you have the right to play God with reality. However, your parents did ask you to clean the basement. Perhaps, you wonder, they wanted this to happen. On the other hand, assuming the box is still down there perhaps you could show it to Rick and explain what’s happened.