Informed Consent caption (v1) - part 2 (Patreon)

The carpet fibers drag against the soles of my bare feet. I take the five steps from the bathroom threshold to the edge of the mattress, focusing on the friction of the synthetic weave against my skin. My gait is altered. The new tilt of my pelvis forces my knees closer together. My upper thighs brush, slick skin sliding against slick skin where there used to be empty space. A dull ache settles in my lower back, right at the base of the spine. I reach the bed and climb up. The mattress springs creak. I sink back against the stacked pillows, bringing my knees up slightly, and rest my hands flat on the cotton sheets beside my hips.

Vicky shifts closer. The morning light leaking through the plastic blinds catches the edge of her collarbone. She smells like sleep and the vanilla lotion she buys at the drugstore downstairs.

"You took your time," she says. "Did you make a mess in there? I told you to sit down like a good girl. I heard you. It sounds different now, doesn't it?"

She reaches out. Her fingers are warm against my sternum. My chest is exactly the same as it was yesterday. The virus rewrites the male phenotype from the bottom up, and the secondary metabolic shifts haven't reached my ribcage yet. The skin here is flat and undisturbed.

"Were you getting yourself ready for me?" she asks. Her tone is bright, laced with the sharp cadence she uses when we lock the front door. "I know you were playing with it. Trying to get wet before you even got back into bed."

She drags her nails lightly down my breastbone. Her thumb catches my left nipple, pinching the skin. It hurts. I wince and pull back a fraction of an inch.

"So sensitive," she says. "Just like a girl. You want me to treat you like a girl, don't you, Marcus? You wear those button-down shirts to the clinic and act like a man all day. But I know what you really want."

She pinches harder, rolling the nub of my nipple between her thumb and forefinger. I bite the inside of my cheek. The pain bridges into a heat that shoots straight down my torso into my groin. The tissue between my legs swells, pressing wetly against the cotton of my boxers.

She traces the line of my ribs. I try to breathe evenly. My chest feels tight, restricting the air to short pulls. I'm looking at the woman I love. We bought the pine dresser in the corner together. We spent two Christmases in this apartment.

"You're shaking," she says.

"It's cold," I say. My voice sounds raspy.

"You're just excited," she says. Her hand moves lower, trailing over my stomach. "You love it when I remind you what you are. You love knowing I'm going to use that little cunt. I'm going to make you open your legs and take it."

Her palm rests flat against my lower abdomen. The skin there is pulled tight, leading down to the broadened pelvic bone. She doesn't notice the structural shift yet. Her hand sits just above the elastic waistband of my gray boxers.

A slick drop of moisture breaches the inner labia and touches the cotton fabric.

"I bet you're making a mess in these," Vicky says. She hooks her index and middle fingers under the elastic band. "I bet if I pull these down, you're going to be dripping wet. I'm going to pull them down and just look at you for a minute. I'm going to watch you leak on the sheets."

I grab her wrist. My knuckles are white against her pale skin.

"Wait," I say.

She looks at my face. She smiles, misinterpreting the grip. She thinks this is part of the routine.

"Don't fight me, Marcus," she says, her voice dropping into an authoritative register. "You know you want me to look at it. You've been thinking about me touching you all morning. I'm going to lay you flat. You're going to take my fingers and you're going to beg me to stretch you out. Move your hands."

She pulls her wrist free easily because I let her. I put my hands flat on the mattress beside my hips. The cotton sheets feel rough against my palms. I press down.

Her hands move to the sides of my hips to get a better grip on the boxers. Her thumbs trace the curve of the bone. She stops for a fraction of a second. A tiny furrow appears between her eyebrows. The bone is wider. The narrow structure of my pelvis has softened and flared.

She doesn't say anything. She just grips the cotton.

She pulls.

The elastic clears my hips. The fabric catches briefly on the new, heavier swell of my upper thighs. She pulls the boxers all the way down to my knees in one swift motion, then tosses them onto the floor beside the bed.

I'm exposed. The morning light from the window hits my lower half. The flushed tissue of the vulva rests between my legs, stark against my flat chest. The cleft is slick with my own arousal, a sheen of moisture catching the ambient light.

Vicky is looking down.

Her hand freezes mid-air, hovering just above my thigh. The teasing smile drops off her face instantly. Her features go slack. The bright energy drains out of the room.

She stares at the swollen folds of skin. I watch her eyes track the anatomy. She's looking for the seams. She's looking for the silicone prosthetic, the strap, the joke I must have constructed while I was in the bathroom. She stares at the junction of my legs.

Her gaze shifts. She looks at the broadened pelvic bone. She looks at the way the skin of my lower abdomen naturally gives way to the labia. She sees the flush of blood. She watches the involuntary twitch of the tissue as the cool air of the bedroom hits it.

She looks up at my face.

"Marcus," she says. Her voice is barely a whisper, thin and devoid of the rasp from thirty seconds ago.

I swallow hard. My throat is dry.

"What is that?" she asks. She doesn't point. Her hands remain frozen in the space above my knees.

"It's real," I say.

She blinks twice, slowly. She looks back down at the damp folds resting against my thighs. She reaches out with one trembling index finger and brushes the outer edge of the labia majora.

The contact sends an electric shock of pleasure straight up my spine. My hips jerk forward involuntarily. A soft gasp escapes my mouth.

Vicky jerks her hand back. She scrambles backward on the mattress, her spine hitting the headboard. She pulls her knees up to her chest.

"You feel that," she says, her breathing turning shallow. "It's... flesh. It's a part of you."

"Yes," I say.

"How?" The word cracks in the middle. She stares at me, her eyes wide, searching my unchanged face. "How is this possible, Marcus? You were sick. You had a fever for five days."

"The clinic," I say, keeping my hands still on the sheets. "The Expression strain. I injected it."

Her mouth opens and closes. She looks around the room, at the pine dresser, at the closet door, as if looking for an exit or a camera. "You did this to yourself? On purpose?"

"I've always wanted it," I say.

"It was a game," she says. Her voice rises in pitch, breaking into something panicked. "We were playing a game. I told you, I like the control, I like the dirty talk. I'm not attracted to women, Marcus. I told you that."

"I know," I say.

My new flesh throbs with a slick heat, reacting only to the friction of the sheets and the exposure to the air.