Chapter 2: The Scent of Sexuality
The taste flooded his mouth before he could even process the act—bitter salt, clean skin, a faint metallic hint like licking a battery. His brain short-circuited, caught between revulsion and a deep, primal curiosity.
Whitney’s groan was a low, ragged thing above him. Her fingers tightened in his hair, not pushing, just holding. “Just like that,” she breathed. “Now… move.”
He didn’t know how. His experience was theoretical, observational. He mimicked what he’d seen, tentatively sliding his lips down an inch. The texture was smooth, heated silk over solid core. He felt the subtle throb of her pulse against his tongue.
“Use your hand, too,” she instructed, her voice trembling with restraint. “Base. Keep it steady.”
He obeyed, his own new slender fingers wrapping around where his mouth couldn’t reach. The scale of her was daunting. He set a rhythm, awkward and slow, a scientist running a first assay. Up. Down. The slide of pre-ejaculate made the glide easier.
His own body, kneeling on the hard floor, was a chorus of conflicting signals. The cool air on his bare back. The delicious, heavy ache in his breasts with each slight movement. A fresh trickle of heat from his own new center, a silent, sympathetic response. It was a feedback loop, just as she’d said. Every sound she made, every twitch of her hips, echoed in his own nervous system.
He found a rhythm, a mechanical up-and-down, focusing on the technique to avoid the enormity of the situation.
“Stop thinking,” she moaned, her hips giving a small, involuntary thrust. “You’re doing a lab report with your mouth. Just feel it.”
He pulled off, gasping for air. “It’s weird.”
“It’s new,” she corrected, looking down at him, her face flushed. Her blue eyes were dark, pupils blown. “Weird is the burnt popcorn smell. This is just… a different kind of Tuesday.”
A disbelieving laugh choked out of him. It broke the tension. He rested his forehead against her thigh, the muscle tense under his skin. He could smell her—properly now, not just the scent of her arousal, but the Whitney-smell underneath. Her shampoo. Her sweat. The familiar laundry detergent on her torn shorts. It was all still her.
This was still Whitney.
He turned his head, pressing a kiss to the inside of her thigh. She shuddered. The action felt more natural, more like him. Or the him he used to be. He did it again, trailing kisses upward, avoiding the central, demanding reality until he couldn’t.
He took her back into his mouth with less hesitation, this time letting his tongue explore the shape of her. The smooth head, the prominent ridge underneath, the fascinating shift in texture along the shaft. He listened. Her breaths became hitched, little gasps that punctuated the hum of the fridge. Her fingers in his hair loosened, stroking now instead of gripping.
He was learning her. Not just the new anatomy, but her new responses. The jerk of her hips when he sucked just a little harder. The catch in her throat when he swirled his tongue. He felt a powerful, surprising sense of agency. He was causing this. In this utterly disorienting new body, he could still make her fall apart.
“Randall,” she whispered, a warning and a plea.
He increased his pace, his jaw beginning to ache in a brand new way. He used his hand in tandem, twisting on the upstroke the way he thought might feel good. Her thighs tightened around his ears. The sounds she was making were unchecked, raw, filling the cluttered kitchen.
Her climax wasn't a quiet thing. It was a violent, beautiful seizure. Her back arched away from the counter she was braced against. A guttural cry tore from her throat, part shock, part triumph. He felt her pulse, intensely, against his tongue, and then the hot, salty spill filled his mouth. He swallowed reflexively, the act itself as transformative as anything that had come before.
She sagged, sliding down the cabinet until she was on the floor with him, a tangle of limbs on the cold linoleum. They sat there, shoulder to shoulder, backs against the cupboard doors under the sink, breathing hard. The fluorescent light continued its irksome buzz.
For a long time, neither spoke. The only sounds were their slowing breaths and the distant hum of the apartment building.
Whitney reached out, lacing her fingers with his. Her hand felt exactly the same.
“So,” she said finally, her voice hoarse. “The experiment has a 100% rate of significant side effects.”
He snorted, a wet, exhausted sound. “You think?”
“We should probably… I don’t know, take some notes. For Greeley.”
“My note is: what the fuck.”
She laughed, resting her head on his shoulder. The movement felt different. Her hair smelled the same, but the curve of her head fit against him in a new way. “Accurate. Concise.” She paused. “Are you okay?”
He considered the question. He was naked on a dirty kitchen floor. His body was a foreign embassy. His mouth tasted of sex. The love of his life had just come in his mouth after growing a penis.
“No,” he said honestly. “But I’m not… I’m not freaking out anymore.”
“Progress.”
They sat in the quiet. The initial storm of sensation and panic had passed, leaving a strange, exhausted calm in its wake. The questions were still there, mountainous and terrifying, but they seemed slightly farther away.
“We can’t stay on the floor,” Whitney said, ever practical. “And we probably shouldn’t answer the door like this.”
“The door?”
As if on cue, a sharp, loud knock rattled the apartment door.
They froze, eyes wide. The real world, the one of landlords and pizza deliveries and nosy neighbors, came crashing back through the thin wood.
“Shit,” Randall whispered.
“Double shit,” Whitney agreed, her eyes darting around the kitchen as if looking for a place to hide. The knocks came again, harder this time. Insistent.
Whoever it was, they weren’t going away.