“Hey Mommmm!” Jen, you’re so full of crap, she thought to herself. “How’s Seoul?”
“Oh quite cold, we’re expecting flurries in a few days. I must say that the staff here is exceptional, very well behaved as Mr. Trump likes them. But enough about me, Dear, do tell me about Brown.”
“Lisa and I finished the interviews a few hours ago, and we both think we did well. We then watched a very dull football game, got some lunch, and went shopping.”
“Oh that’s good to hear,” cooed Audrey. “What about the other thing?”
“The other thing? The one positive is that the hair on our faces has stopped growing. As for the rest, Mom, we are changing steadily. The skin of our chests won’t be visible much longer. The hair will wrap around our torso, then down our legs, and finally our arms. Eventually, Mother, hair will grow to completely cover our faces.”
“Oh Honey!”
“Yeah, Mom, whatever. My breasts are beginning to feeling tender, so I expect that I’ll be giving off milk soon, not that I could give it to a child since it is seething in these damned hormones and my muscles will be getting bigger…so there is a positive to that…of course since I’d pop positive on any steroid or hormonal drug test we’re effectively banned from any real athletic competition. But yes, other than that we’re just fine.”
“Jennifer, listen.”
“No, you listen, Mom. I hope things are going well for you in Seoul, considering the choice you made. Maybe you will see your beautiful daughter in a month or two, but right now she is among friends. I love you, Good-BYE.” She clicked the phone shut.
“That was pretty harsh,” noted Andy with arched eyebrows.
Jennifer nodded quickly. “THAT was pretty necessary, God knows I love her, Andy, but I needed her to know that she wasn’t fooling me.”
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Audrey sat shakily on the sofa. She wept with guilt.
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With the packages from shopping tucked safely away in the car, they made their way back across campus to the address Emma had given them. Emma greeted them all with warm hugs and invited them in.
“Nikki,” Emma said to her roommate, “These are the three girls I’d told you about that I met at Paragon. We saw them on the telly last night.” She turned to Lisa, Andy and Jennifer, asked them to sit down and told them. “Nikki’s a senior, she’ll be going to medical school next year.”
Emma offered them all wine coolers. “Like what you see of the campus so far? What did you see?”
Relaxing slightly, they told Emma and Nicky of the response they received while shopping. The eyes of the two Brownies fell. “But that’s not fair! It’s not like you’re…contagious or anything.”
“No Em, you’re right. But when we start giving off milk, the hormones are quite capable of bonding to the relevant cells and DNA. Our blood is probably pretty potent as well.”
“How bad will it get,” asked Emma sympathetically.