Hot. Little. Husband. (Patreon)

Hot Little Husband

by T.G. Cooper

Chapter 1

How did I feel when I woke up to find my husband had popped out his very own pair of breasts? Disbelief, at first, I think. I mean, I had just woken up, and my eyes were blurry and still full of sleep, so when I pushed my hair back and looked at him, and saw those firm, smooth little cones--like the breasts of a tween girl--gently rising and falling as he slept, I rubbed my eyes and wondered if I were dreaming. I looked again. They were still there, his Hershey kisses, and now I noticed the little pink nipples, and how cute they looked, and how much they reminded me of my own breasts when I was, like, 13, and I looked closer, thinking now maybe it was some kind of prank, and I thought about last night, the last time I had looked at him before we went to sleep, and I was sure his chest had been flat and hard, covered with bristly black hair, but had I really looked at him? Had I really seen him? We'd been married for over two years, and you know how when you've been with someone for a while you don't always really look at them? I mean really look at them.

Maybe there had been some softening, some swelling?

But no. I was sure I would have noticed, and we'd made love two nights ago, and I remembered being on my back, digging my fingers into his thick chest hair, feeling my palms against all that hard, manly muscle, and there was no way I wouldn't have noticed if he'd been getting boobs.

And yet, there they were--tits--on my husband's chest.

I wanted to touch one, to see if it was real. Maybe flick a nipple as see if his little boobs jiggled-- because I still kinda thought it might have been some kind of joke, a prank, but they looked real, and glancing at his face, sleeping peacefully, his square jaw, stubbled with a week's worth of growth, he really seemed asleep, and what would be the point of this?

I thought about waking him up. Knew I should wake him up, but my hand was reaching out now, reaching toward one of his little breasts, and I saw the chipped pink nail polish on my nails, the glittering of my bracelets in the morning light that was creeping into the cave where we slept, and I reached out, shaking my head, no, and then I touched one his breasts with the tip of my index finger, and I felt the soft flesh and watched as his little breast jiggled, and I stifled a giggle, and pulled my hand back, and then propped myself up on an elbow looking down at my sleeping husband, and his newly grown little breasts, and what did I feel as it suddenly hit me that they were real, that somehow he had sprouted boobs overnight? I felt... embarrassed. Disgusted. Humiliated. Amused. Confused. I mean, this was my husband, my man, and now --what the fuck? He had tits? It was gross, and at the same time kind of funny, and I looked over the rest of him because I was also kind of scared in case this was a symptom of some kind of weird tropical disease he'd caught, and that thought got me looking over my own body, trying to see if anything looked-- wrong-- or felt different.

I heard a stirring in the back of the cave, where Jessica and Greg had made up their own little space. One of them shifted, made a sleepy groaning sound. I looked back but couldn't see anything- the sunlight hadn't reached that far back--so I pulled the layers of thin, airline blankets we'd been using up and over Adam's chest, afraid one of the others would see it, and then I leaned down and, as quietly as I could, I shook him, and whispered, "Adam."

He opened his eyes and squinted at me in the darkness. "Whaaaa-at?"

"Come. Um, something has happened."

"Can it wait?"

"No," I whispered, grabbing his arm. In the process, my hand brushed against his boob, and I saw him crinkle his nose in confusion at the alien sensation. I pulled and he sat up, his breasts bouncing, and he looked down in confusion even as I pulled him to his feet, and he followed me out into the morning sun outside the cave, both of us shielding our eyes against the bright light, and as I led him away from the cave, he was staring down at his jiggling breasts, shaking his head with that same, "am I sleeping?" Look on his face.

"What the fuck?" He stopped, reaching up and cupping one his breasts, squeezing it, and I slapped his hand away.

"Gross," I said.

"Why do I have tits?" He said.

"Let's talk about it away from the cave."

"What? Why?"

"So everyone else doesn't hear."

"Oh," he said, blinking, his eyes blurry and red like he was still half asleep. "Okay."

I led him down the narrow path that led from the cave to a grove of orange tress that stood on a bluff above the white sand beaches of the island where our plane had crashed. The air smelled of hyacinth and orange blossom, and we could hear the sound of the waves crashing on the beach below us, the squawking on seagulls that pinioned over the beach. Adam sat down on a rock, his little breasts bouncing again, and then he cupped them again, squeezing them.

"Stop feeling yourself up!" I said. "It's gross."

"I'm not," he said. "I just want to see if they are real."

"Are they?" I asked, curious.

"They feel real."

"Then stop touching them!"

He dropped his hands, but then we could both see that his nipples had gotten hard and were pointing proudly out and up, and then my husband awkwardly crossed his arms over his breasts, and looked away from me, his cheeks blushing. "This isn't possible."

"I know," I said. "What the fuck?"

"Right?"

"We can't let the others see this."

"No," Adam agreed, his face turning sour at the thought. "Greg would never let me hear the end of it."

"Jessica wouldn't be any nicer," I said, sourly. "Especially after the supply dump."

"That wasn't my fault," Adam started. "I told you...."

"Not NOW," I said. "Just... wait here."

"Where are you..."

"To get somethings to hide your tits!"

"Oh. Okay."

I made my way back to the cave as quietly as I could, trying to process what I had just seen, the sight of my husband cupping his little tits, bashfully crossing his arms over them like a schoolgirl, how much shit Jessica would give me about my husband's little bitty titties. She was already constantly going on about how much of a stud stupid Greg was, the last thing I needed was for her to find Adam had breasts.

I cautiously snuck into the cave. The sun had risen higher, and as I moved in and grabbed what I needed, I looked back and caught my breath and stifled a shout of joy because Greg was sleeping on his side, facing me, and I could clearly see a rounded, girlish hip sticking into the air, and Jessica was spooning him from behind, and she had one arm dangling over his slender waist. I crept a little closer, not sure I could trust my eyes, but yes--Greg's hips had widened and rounded like a woman's, and his waist had gotten smaller. The rest of him looked the same--his chest was still flat, but he had serviceable birthing hips for sure.

I grabbed the stuff I needed to help Adam manage his boobs and then retreated from the cave, hurrying down the path until I finally got far enough away to burst out laughing out loud as I hurried back to the grove, still laughing uncontrollably.

"What is it?" Adam said, crossing his arms over his breasts as I entered.

"Omigod," I said. "Greg has hips!"

"So?"

"I mean, he has..." and I was still struggling to control my laughter as I made a curvy shape like an hourglass... girl hips!"

"What? Like..."

"What happened to your chest happened to his hips."

Adam still had his arms over his breasts, and he shook his head. "Did he know? Is he awake yet?"

I shook my head, wiping tears of laughter from my eyes. "And Jessica.... She was..." I burst into giggles.

"What?"

"She had her arm draped protectively across his slender little waist, just like he was the girl. He just looked so ridiculous." I laughed more, doubling over, but when I looked at Adam, I saw him force a smile under his pained, embarrassed eyes.

"Oh," I said. "No. It's not the same with you."

"Yeah, no, I know," he said, but I could see he was feeling extra ashamed.

"Greg is an asshole."

"Can we just get to hiding these things?"

"Yeah. Sure. Lift up your arms." I wrapped an ace bandage from the airplane's first aid kit around his breasts, flattening them, and then he put on a t-shirt and then a loose-fitting button-down Tommy Bahama shirt on top of that.

"How does it look?" He asked.

'Let me see your profile."

He turned. "You look normal. No one would ever know."

"Thank god." He stood taller now, like his old self, and he sounded stronger, too.

"Yeah. Now, what say we go back and surprise them?"

"What do you mean?"

"Wake them up, let them know we know all about Greg's curvy new shape before they can hide it."

"Hmnnnn," Adam said. "It could give us the upper hand, but I'm not sure."

I noticed he was nervously tugging at his shirt. Shit. I needed to remember that he was feeling ashamed and embarrassed, and anything I said about Greg, he might take personally. "It's just in fun. We need to win this contest, and the sooner we do, the sooner we get off this island.

"Yeah," Adam said. "Let's do it."

We headed back to the cave, sneaking up quietly. Greg was fine, but I had to put my hand over my mouth. What Adam didn't know was that Greg had ogled me constantly since we'd gotten to the island, so I was extra happy to see him with these strange changes. It hadn't occurred to me yet that I might end up changing as well. Adam led the way, me with one hand on his back, as we crept into the cave. Greg was still sleeping on his side, his round hip thrust in the air, though Jessica had rolled onto her other side, and was facing away from us. I looked with fascination at Greg's rounded, feminine hip, and how soft it looked, and then to the narrow waspy waist, fascinated. It looked so strange to see those round hips on Greg, his jockey shorts pulled tight, and I pictured him wearing a pair of panties...Adam was reaching out, as if to gently rock Greg's shoulder, and the image of Greg wearing a pair of panties showing off his sexy hops was too much; I couldn't control myself anymore and burst out with an explosive laugh that echoed through the cave and had both Jessica and Greg sitting up, muddled headed, looking around in shock.

"What the fuck?" Greg shouted as Jessica instinctively put a hand on his shoulder and peaked nervously toward the front of the cave, her other hand over her mouth.

"It's okay," Adam said as I continued to laugh. "It's okay."

"What's so funny?" Greg said, standing, dusting the sand off his legs, and when he reached his full height his jockey shorts were down around mid-hip, and I could see his hips were bigger than I had even though, and his waist more narrow. His mid-section was definitely shaped like a woman.

I just covered my mouth and shook my head, my eyes dancing with glee as I drank in his shape, and I could also see Jessica's eyes going wide with confusion as she looked down at his hips and booty.

"Dude," Adam said. "You're um... well..."

"What the fuck?" Jessica whispered, and I saw her reach out and cup one of his ass cheeks.

"What's going on?" Greg said, turning to face Jessica and showing Adam and I his backside-- his spin arched gently and then swooshed out into the prettiest, plumpest ass you could ever see on a woman. Even in men's jockey shorts it was sexy as hell.

"You're body?" Jessica said. "It's..."

"Dude, you've got... hips."

"So?" Greg said, but then he looked down, paused, and then put his hands on those wide, round, shelf-like hips, and then he said, "What the fuck?"

"And your ass..." I added.

"Shut up!" Jessica said, red-faced with anger and embarrassment.

"Well, he does have a great ass...."

"Shut up!"

"What's wrong with my ass?" Greg said, trying to get a look at himself, turning in a circle, craning his head around.

I started to answer, but Adam gave me a look. "It's just gotten.... Plump."

"Plump?" Greg said, his own voice rising with anger and confusion. "What the fuck is plump?"

"Could you two get the fuck out of here and let us talk?" Jessica said, stepping around Greg.

"Hey! Don't fucking curse at me!" I said.

"Fuck you! Bitch!" Jessica said, and she tried to pounce on me, but Greg grabbed her around the waist and lifted her up off her feet, dragging her away from me.

"Let's go," Adam said, grabbing my arms and pushing me toward the front of the cave.

"You fucking bitch! Fuck you!" I screamed. Not my most articulate moment, but I hated Jessica, and this was my chance to totally lose it all over her. "Your fucking boyfriend has bigger hips than you do, bitch!"

"Enough," Adam grunted in my ear. "Take it easy."

"I'll fucking kill you!" Jessica screamed, but Greg seemed to have her under control. As Adam pushed me back out of the cave, I saw that his jockeys had slipped, revealing the top of his panty model perfect ass cheeks, and for a moment, I added jealousy to my anger and gloating.

Adam picked me up, caveman style, and carried back up the path toward the spring. I writhed and punched him on the back, screaming, and the gulls answered my screams before scattering in terror. When Adam finally plumped me down on the ground, I tossed my hair back and still seething with anger, shouted, "You're supposed to be on my side!"

"I am on your side!"

"Then why did you let that bitch talk to me like that, tit boy?"

Adam's eyes went hard at that, he set his jaw and I could see the veins at his temples pounding. I did not like that look--not at all--and rarely did I see that kind of animal anger in his eyes directed at me. That one look was like a splash of water in the face, and the anger left me instantly. Adam had never hit me, and I don't think he ever would, but when he looked at me like THAT- I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach.

"Sorry," I said, glancing meekly away.

Adam didn't answer. He walked away, breathing deeply. That's how he calmed himself. Then, he finally sat down, sighed, looked up at the sky and laughed.

I laughed, too.

"What the fuck just happened?" He asked.

"I don't know," I said, chuckling as the tension left my body.

"Is this part of the game?"

"It must be, right?"

"I guess? But... is it even possible?"

"I don't know."

We were both refusing to believe what he was seen with our own eyes. Hell, Adam had even felt his tits with his own hands, and yet he couldn't believe it was true; it all seemed so impossible. Men didn't just pop out boobs overnight, and yet that seemed more possible than what had happened to Greg. He had not had those hips when he went to sleep. A man could not go to sleep and wake up with wide, round womanly hips, and yet he had them, and a perfect heart-shaped ass to boot.

"If this is part of the game," Adam said, his voice now serious, "the game is a lot more complicated than we thought."

I nodded. "Maybe it isn't even a game."

Chapter 2

Let me backtrack a little bit. Maybe you are wondering how and why we found ourselves sleeping in a cave on a tropical island? Well, I hope so because I am about to tell you the story before the story. Some people would call this a flashback, and they would call it that because it is a flashback.

I know you've heard of "Transformative Biogenetics." Everyone has, but not everyone knows what the company actually does. Transbio researches bleeding edge bio- technologies they believe will one day make it possible for people to regenerate limbs, regrow organs, even reverse the aging process. Science fiction stuff. I know. I didn't really believe they could do it, but it didn't matter what I believed; they had managed to get glowing write-ups in Forbes and The Wall Street Journal, and then Jessup Northwright, yes, THAT Jessup Northwright, had publicly called the company the "next Apple."

Boom! Investors lined up begging to get in on the ground floor. Billions rolled into the company. They went on a hiring spree. I came home one day to our apartment in Chicago, tired from a long shift at the hospital-- I'm a nurse-- and Adam was sitting on the couch. He looked up at me with a weird smile on his face and said, "Sit down."

I felt my heart leap into my throat. Sit down? "What?" I said nervously, my mind racing, running good and bad scenarios. Did we win the lottery? Was he dumping me? Did someone die?

"Just sit down."

I sat down, a smile on my face, and I could also feel tears starting to build up. I stress cry, so whether something is good or bad I always start bawling.

Adam took my hand. "I got a job offer today from Transformative Biogenetics."

"What? You were looking for a job? Why didn't you..."

"No. I was never looking for a job. They just called me--their headhunter--and they offered me a job."

"Wow," I said. "Congrats. I mean, is it a good job or are you going to take it, and what does it..."

"It's a great job. Doing what I am doing now. They offered me 175,000 dollars a year. To start."

I could see it in his eyes. There was something more to it. "But?"

He smiled. "The job is in Wyoming."

"So, we'd have to move."

"And I need to be there in a week."

"One week?"

"One week."

I shook my head. "No," I said. "No. Wyoming? I'd die there."

"I know. I know. I also get stock options. We'd own stock now, and it will be worth a ton ten years from now."

"Maybe," I said.

Adam moved over to sit next to me, put his arm around me. Kissed me. "I know I'm asking a lot, but this is the chance of a lifetime. Come on. We always talked about wanting our lives to be an adventure!"

"Wyoming isn't an adventure."

"Hiking. Camping. Kayaking."

"I hate all that stuff."

"You've never really done it."

"No. No. I love you, but we're city people, Adam."

We talked. Argued. Made love. He called them and declined the offer. I cried. We kissed, we went to work, and that day during my break my phone rang. The caller ID read "A Friend." Weird. I answered. "Is this Taylor Kelly?"

"Yes?"

"Hi. I'm Landry Toms. I work for Transformative Biogenics, and I have your husband Adam on the line."

"Hey, Taylor," Adam said, sounding a little sheepish.

"Taylor, I am calling to--" Landry started.

"If this is about the job, we already said no," I cut in, annoyed. "Adam, what is this?"

"Just listen for a minute."

"No! We discussed this and agreed, and I can't believe you would call me now with this stranger, and try to..."

"They asked for a chance to talk you into it, and I said okay."

"But why? Since we already agreed to say no? I can't believe you thought some stranger would change my mind. I have to go--"

"They have an offer for you."

"What?"

"They want to offer you a job as well."

"Me?" I am slightly ashamed to admit that got my attention. I suddenly wanted to hear what they had to say.

"Yes. We would like to offer you a position with our company."

"What would I do? I'm a nurse."

"You are, and a very good one. In addition, you have a degree in biology from The University of Chicago, and we would like to bring you in to work with our research team in the labs."

"I haven't been in a lab since college," I said.

"Fresh eyes," Landry said. "I believe you are a brilliant woman and are more than capable of contributing to the ground breaking research we are doing at our facility. Taylor Kelly, I have a very important question to ask you right now."

"What?" I said, snorting.

"Are you ready to change the world?"

"Um, sure?"

My phone chimed. "I just sent you our offer sheet. Talk it over. No pressure, but I wouldn't feel right if I didn't say that we believe both of you are amazing, and our company needs you."

That night when Adam walked in the door, I was the one sitting on the couch with a weird smile on my face. "What the hell?" I said, laughing.

"I know, right?"

"If she'd asked me to marry her, I probably would have said yes," I said.

Adam sat across from me, right where I'd been sitting the night before. "What do you think"

"The only thing crazier than taking this crazy offer and moving to fucking Wyoming would be not taking this offer and moving to Wyoming."

We kissed. Hugged. Made love. The next morning, I called and asked for a little more money, more stock. They said yes. We sent back our agreements in principle and joined the one percent. Made love some more.

Greg and Adam started the same day, in the same pool of new hires going through the hastily thrown together new employee orientation, and they had become friends and so we had started doing a lot of things as a couple of couples. Couple of couples. Hahaha. I am so funny.

We settled into our new lives, found we were so busy that it didn't much matter whether we were living in Wyoming or on Mars. I was more excited about work than I'd ever been. It was like going back to college. I dove into the lab work, spent hours reading up, had passionate conversations with my colleagues --really, really smart colleagues. Everything was good. Better than good.

The only weird thing, and it was a big, weird thing, were the references to The Founder. From the first orientation session, we heard mysterious references to The Founder. There were things like The Founder's Key to Achievement, or else a line that would say something like, "Since the day The Founder started Transformative Biogenetics, the company has sought to always see the world with new eyes." Okay. So far, not so weird, but the thing was The Founder was otherwise a total mystery; no one knew the founder's name, no one had ever seen a picture. There were rumors, and some people even speculated that The Founder didn't exist, was just a character that had been created to serve as a kind of motivational tool or something, which still seemed weird. Off.

But after a while it didn't seem to matter. We knew our bosses, and Tank Harper, the Operations Manager and CEO was always around, grinning, slapping backs, praising and encouraging. The company was amazing, the culture great, and the value of our stock options rose day after day. Just when it seemed like things couldn't get better, the company informed us that we'd won the quarterly prize for employee excellence; an all-expense paid trip to a tropical island for an adventure vacation called Island Escape.

Ever heard of those escape the room places, where you pay to get locked into a room and have to solve a bunch of puzzles to get out? This was like that but for the super-rich. You were "stranded" on a tropical island with no phones or outside communication, and you had one week to solve all the puzzles, follow the clues and make your escape. If you didn't, you still got to leave, you just didn't feel cool about it.

----

Eventually, Greg and Jessica came out of the cave and found us in the clearing. Greg was wearing a baggy t-shirt and an unbuttoned tropical shirt that hung very loosely, and it hid his hourglass shape. Even knowing how he'd changed, I couldn't really see his shape, though I did notice he was walking a little differently with his new, wide hips.

"Hey, guys," Jessica said. I thought she was eyeing the both of us, maybe looking for changes.

"Hey," I said.

"Adam."

"Greg."

They sat down, and all four of us looked around, feeling awkward and strained.

"So, what the hell do we do now?" Greg finally said.

"What can we do?" Adam said.

"We have to find some way to call for help. Cancel the game," Jessica said. "We have a major medical situation here."

"There's no way to call for help," Adam said.

"None that we know of," Jessica said.

"There isn't any way," I said. "It was all in the paperwork."

"There has to be a way," Jessica said. "What if someone broke a leg? Are you telling me a place like this wouldn't have some kind of failsafe?"

"I'm saying the paperwork didn't mention one."

"Why don't we go back to the cave? Look around? See if there's something," Adam said, standing. "Let's go."

We went back to the cave and searched through all the supplies, the walls and everywhere. Found nothing. Went back down to the beach, where we'd left the little rubber boat we'd come in on and found that it had deflated and seemed to be decomposing rapidly. Nothing there either. The wind had picked up, and we were being pelted by the sand, the sound of the crashing waves making it hard to hear. My hair was whipping around my face. Jessica was staring out to see, squinting against the white hot sun. I think she was looking for any sign or land, or a boat or something. I realized that she was really worried about Greg, and not only did I feel bad for how I'd acted earlier, but I started to worry about Adam as well.

"Let's go back up!" I yelled, so they could hear me over the surf.

Adam and Greg nodded and started toward the path that wound its way back to the top of the cliffs and our cave, but Jessica kept looking out there to see, staring as if she could will help to appear. I touched her arm, gently and she jerked it away. "I'm sorry," I said. "I was an asshole earlier. I'm worried, too."

Jessica nodded.

"Let's go," I said, touching her arm again. "We can see more from higher up!"

She finally nodded, and the four of us climbed back up to the top of the cliff, the gulls still squawking in the breeze. We were all hungry, so we ate and found ourselves once again sitting around in the clearing. My mind was racing already with suspicion. I mean, we worked for a company that was exploring bioengineering, and now both of our husbands had experienced sudden body changes. Could they have been exposed to something at work? I wanted to say something, but I didn't want to sound paranoid, so instead I said the other thing that was on my mind: "What if we play the game?"

"What?" Jessica said, annoyed.

"What if we play the game?"

"We have a medical issue."

"But winning the game gets us off the island," Greg said, sitting up.

"Yeah," Adam said, also clearly excited by the idea. "We're four smart people. We can probably solve this in no time, get off the island sooner."

"I just don't feel like we should be playing a game right now given Greg's condition," Jessica said, but I could see she was weakening.

I started to speak, but Greg stood and said, "I'm fine. Better than fine."

I kept my mouth shut, sensing it would be better for the two of them to work it out, plus I was pretty sure Jessica was still annoyed at me and would just resist me based on personal spite, so I sat back and let them talk, and they went off a little and talked in whispers, and then the two of them came back, smiling, and Greg said, "Let's get after that first clue while we still have sunlight."

--

We'd been given the first clue on the plane as we raced along the crystal waters of the Indian Ocean; On sunrise' side seek the veiled cave. Follow the monarch.

Our staging location-- the cave we'd slept in the first night on the island, was on the sunset side of the island-- the West, and so we started along the twisting jungle path around the steep mountain face and circled our way to the East. Greg and Adam led the way, Jessica and I walking tentatively behind. I had a terrible fear of snakes and had urged the men to make sure the path was clear, but I was also scanning the branches; it seemed like in every jungle movie I had ever seen a huge, hissing snake had dropped onto someone from the trees.

We made our way around and found ourselves on a bluff that looked down on a crystal pool fed by a waterfall that dropped down from the cliff face on the opposite side of the pool, which was about 200 feet below us. There was thick loop of rope that stretched across the length of the pool and dropped down to a sandy beach on the opposite side, a little to the right of the waterfall. At the bottom we could see a kind of basket it looked like people could ride in, and Greg cleared away some fronds to discover a winch. He grabbed the thick, wooden handle and began to turn it, and the basket started to rise up toward us.

"Let me give you a hand," Adam said, but Greg shook his head.

"I got it."

Jessica and I looked down at the pool. "Maybe we should keep going along the path up here?" I said. "I don't see any cave."

"Yeah," Adam said, looking along the twisting trail, then down at the pool.

Greg kept turning the wince, the steady creak of wood on rope.

"Maybe it's underneath us?" Jessica said. "We'll be able to see it when we get down there."

"Doesn't seem likely," Adam said.

"Let's check it out," Greg said. "Before we move on."

"Seems like a waste of time."

"All the same."

When the basket finally got to the top, it turned out to be much bigger than it looked, and all four of us could squeeze in. It also had its own winch, so people inside the basket could move it up and down the rope. "Can it hold us?" I asked, nervously.

Greg tugged on the rope. Adam kind of squinted and looked at the basket. "Yeah," they said in unison. Like they were engineers and could tell. Men. I gave Jessica a nervous look, and without speaking we both decided to trust them and climbed into the basket. It swung a little, and we grabbed the sides, but the floor seemed solid enough. Adam climbed in. Then Greg. The rope creaked, and the wooden floor of the basket made a groaning sound. We all held our breath for a minute, but then Adam and Greg laughed. "Let's do this," Greg said.

The winch had two handles-- one on each side-- so this time each of the men grabbed a handle and started turning. I put a hand on Adam's back and one on the edge of the basket as we jerked out away from the bluff and then found ourselves moving slowly out into the open air above the pool. I glanced down and gasped, and Adam laughed. "We'll be fine, babe."

"Just don't go too fast!" I said.

"You mean like this?" Adam said, and he and Greg started turning the winch faster, causing the basket to sway and drop more rapidly downward, the rope groaning.

"Stop!" I said.

"God damnit!" Jessica added. "Cut it out!"

The men laughed but slowed down. "It's perfectly safe," Adam said.

"You don't know that."

My heart was racing a little, and I was taking deep breaths, trying to calm myself, fighting the urge to look down and see how far we would drop if the rope broke. I looked at Adam's arms as he turned the winch, saw the tendons and veins bulging in his forearms and biceps, felt the firm muscles along his back tense and relax, and I felt myself get a little turned on seeing how strong he was, watching all that muscle work.

Then, something strange happened. I pictured him named, those bulging arms working, but he was wearing a little white bra, and his breasts were bouncing as he turned the winch, and the thought kind of weirded me out; how gross was it that my husband had boobs? And it kind of ruined the mood for me, so when the basket finally got to the bottom, I felt a little annoyed, jumped out onto the sand and looked around for any sign of a cave.

"Damn," Jessica said, her hands on her hips as she looked at the blank cliff face across from us. "Nothing."

We all skimmed around and saw nothing. Not even a path out.

"Maybe it's underwater," Adam said, looking down into the crystal blue. "I see some shadows."

"I don't see anything," Greg said. "But I guess we could dive in and see. At least get a swim in." He put his fingers in the water. "That's weird."

"What?" Jessica said, leaning down, pulling her hair back.

"That water. It's.... super... COLD!" As he yelled COLD Greg flicked some it the water into Jessica's face, and she jumped back, falling on her butt.

"Asshole!" She said, but she was smiling and laughing.

"Let's take a swim and see what's up," Greg said, pulling off his shirt and revealing his hard, flat chest, which was just as manly as always, though we could now see his strangely slender rib cage that tapered rapidly down into an impossibly little waist. I think he'd kind of forgotten about the changes, because he caught us all looking at his waist and looked a little self-conscious, quickly trying to get the attention off him by looking at Adam and saying, "You coming?"

I saw the flush of embarrassment on Adam's. He shook his head. "Why don't you take this one?" He said. "I'll stay topside in case any snakes come along."

"Yeah," I said. "I'd feel better if one of you stayed with us."

"Pussy!" Greg said, diving into the water.

"You should go, too," Jessica said. "What if something's down there?"

"I'm ready on standby," Adam said. "I'll dive right in if he needs me."

Greg came back up. "Whew! The water is great! Come on in, Jess!"

"I think we should find the next clue first," she said.

"Come in and help me look!"

"Is it cold?"

"Just at first!"

Jessica finally relented. She was wearing a loose-fitting white blouse and a baggy pair of shorts, which she slipped out of to reveal she was wearing a bright pink bikini underneath. She had a lithe, toned body-- very pretty, and I admired and felt a little threatened as she stood on a rock, raised her arms over her head and then executed a perfect dive into the pond, coming up shrieking. "It's freezing!!!!"

"Hahaha!" Greg shouted, splashing her.

"Asshole!" She splashed him back, and then swam after him as he backstroked away from her.

"Great dive," I called, putting an arm around Adam and nuzzling against him.

The two of them giggled and splashed before diving down under the water. They came up three times, circling around the pool before finally climbing out of the pond. "Nothing," Greg said. He saw that Jessica was shivering as she slipped into her shorts and blouse, and he gave her his shirt as well. She smiled up at him gratefully. "You guys sure you don't want to grab a quick swim?" Greg said.

"I guess we're good," Adam said, plucking at his shirt self-consciously. "Probably should head back. It's starting to get dark."

"It doesn't make sense," I said as the four of us climbed into the basket. "Why have this here if it doesn't lead anywhere?"

"What do you mean?" Jessica said. "It leads here. To the pond."

"I mean in terms of the game."

"Maybe a dead end. Just to waste our time. Like in a maze."

"I just feel like these must be something here," I said as the men started to crank, and the basket rose slowly back toward the other side.

I looked back down into the pool, and then I noticed that the last rays of the sun were caught in the mist from the water fall and had now formed twin rainbows. "Look," I said. "The waterfall is so pretty."

"Rainbows!" Jessica said. "Like smiley faces!"

"Smiley faces," I said. "Veil! Veiled cave!"

"What?"

"The veiled cave! It's behind the waterfall!"

We all four looked at each other, and everyone started laughing. "Dur," Greg said.

Adam gave me a kiss on the cheek, and Jessica did, too, saying, "Look at Miss Smarty Pants!"

"You made me think of it when you compared the rainbows to smiles!" I said. "Plus, in, like, every jungle movie ever there is always a cave behind the waterfall."

"It seems so obvious now," Greg said.

"Right?" Adam answered.

"Watch it not even be there now," I said, nervous that my moment of triumph would turn out to be a false alarm.

I hopped out of the basket first and hurried along the beach to the waterfall. The water fell about four feet away from the cliff face, and as I hurried along the beach and onto the smooth, glassy volcanic rock that surrounded the base of the waterfall, and I shouted, "Cave!" But now I stopped and waited, staring nervously into the dark, gaping mouth of the cave.

"Go ahead," Adam said as he approached. "You figured it all out."

"Ummm, you first," I said, glancing up at him, smiling. "In case of snakes or something."

Adam gave me a pat on the rump and stepped ahead of me, followed closely by Greg, with Jessica and me behind. I found myself looking at Greg. From behind he looked so...Greg looked so... weird. He still had the same broad, muscular shoulders, but now his ribs tapered in drastically to his slender little waist -- he had a smaller waist than Jessica or I did now-- before his wide hips rounded out, soft and feminine looking in those shorts, which I now guessed he'd probably borrowed from Jessica, because no shorts made for a man would be cut with that much hip room. It had changed his walk slightly-- there was a just bit of a feminine roll to his walk now, which was probably inevitable with such wide hips, and his round, plump tuchy but swayed. His mid-section looked like a woman's body.

I thought Jessica saw me staring, so I picked up my eyes just as we rounded a corner and found an amazing cavern; there were holes in the mossy ceiling, so shafts of light streamed into the space, and masses of red and yellow flowers, palms and little trees had grown among trickling streams of water that danced down the walls and wound their way among the roots. Butterflies of blue, green and every color fluttered in and out of the light, hundreds of them, and even the guys stopped in awe of the beauty.

"Wow," Greg said, throwing his hip to the right and putting a hand on it, just like any girl might do.

"Yeah," Adam said, walking slowly into the space, looking around in a daze.

Jessica walked up to Greg, whispering something in his ear, and he hastily stood straight and took his hand off his hip.

I hid my smile and looked around in wonder at the beauty of it all.

"There are, like, six caves that lead out of here," Adam said from somewhere behind the plants and flowers. We all followed his voice, and sure enough the cave widened and formed a crescent shape, with six openings leading out, deeper into the mountain.

"So now what?" Greg said.

"So, now we follow the monarch," Jessica said. "But what does that mean?"

"Maybe there's a statue somewhere, or a drawing or something above one of the caves," Greg said, looking around.

"No," I said. "I got this one. Look." I pointed to a large butterfly that was sitting on a rock in a ray of light, right in the center of the cave, slowly flapping its wings. It had orange wings, with white dots all around the border of its wings.

"A butterfly?" Jessica said.

"A monarch butterfly," I answered, walking cautiously toward it.

As if it heard me, the butterfly rose from the stone and flew in three circles right outside the third cave. There was a torch in a rusty iron holder, and when Adam pulled it from the wall, it immediately sputtered to life. Jessica grabbed a second torch, which immediately blazed to life as well, and Greg reached out. "Give it here," he said.

"Why?" Jessica said.

"Cause we're going in front."

She surrendered her torch, and we shared an annoyed glance. Of course, the guys wanted to be the ones with the fire. We followed the butterfly into the tunnel, the walls around us now flickering with the red lights of the torches. The tunnel took a lot of twists and turns, and there were numerous side tunnels, so before long I doubted if any of us could find our way out again, and I started to get nervous, claustrophobic.

"We're lost," I whispered, hurrying up to stand close to Adam.

"No, we're not," Adam said, but I could hear the tension in his voice. "I've been keeping track of every turn."

"We could starve down here," Jessica said.

"We'd die of dehydration first," Greg said, and the men chuckled.

"We should stop. Go back," I said.

"Just stay calm," Adam said.

"I AM calm," I hissed. "Don't..."

Clack. Clack. Clack.

We all froze. There had been a strange sound up ahead, like bones being hit together, or maybe hollow stones or something.

Clack. Clack.

The butterfly had fluttered on ahead, vanishing into the darkness.

Adam started to walk forward, but I grabbed his arm. "No!" I said. "It might be dangerous!"

"We can't lose the butterfly!"

Greg walked forward as well, Jessica clinging to him as well.

The first thing we saw were what looked like 100 marbles, reflecting back the flickering torch light, and then it moved, and we saw its hairy legs, and its clacking mandibles: a giant spider, as big as a wolf, skittering around in the dark.

Jessica and I both screamed and pulled on our men, but they stood still. "Let go," Adam said. "Stay back."

I found myself in Jessica's arms, and we held each other and watched as Greg and Adam each went to an opposite side of the tunnel and moved toward the spider, holding the torches out in front of them like swords. "Git!" Greg said. "Git!"

As they moved forward, the light began to fill a cave where the spider seemed to live. Its webs covered the ceiling, and we could see stuff dangling in the sticky mass-- a hat, binoculars, a backpack. There was also a large, wooden chest, and behind that a door, but the door had three bolts on it, two of which were closed, and one open.

As Greg stepped forward, the spider jumped to the side, and I noticed that one of the bolts slid open. Then, when Adam thrust his torch at the spider, it jumped again, and a different bolt slammed shut, the ringing of steel echoing through the cave. "It's a puzzle," I said, and explained what I had seen.

"Look," Greg said, raising his torch. "Boxes."

The floor had been etched with boxes, almost like a tic tac toe board. It was pretty obvious from there, and Adam and Greg began to use their torches to get the spider to jump on different sequences of squares, causing the bolts to slide open and closed. Finally, we hit on the right combination, and the spider stopped, made a rattling sound and then powered down, even as the door swung open, the soft white light of the full moon pouring in along with a warm, salty tropical breeze.

Jessica and I cheered, ran forward and hugged the guys. "I am so glad that thing turned out to be some kind of robot," I said. "I HATE spiders!"

"And snakes!" Adam said, kissing me. Greg and Adam pulled the stuff out of the web-- Jess and I were too short, and then we all gathered around to open the chest. Inside, we found bags of food, a couple bottles of wine, and a key along with a scroll. "Let's get out of here," Adam said, and we all made our way out the door to find ourselves looking at a wooden cabin which stood in a small clearing in the jungle.

"Let's sleep here tonight," Greg said.

"Sounds like a plan," Adam said. "I want to get at this wine."

"But all our stuff?" Jessica said. "What about our clothes and stuff?"

"We'll have to try and find our way back above ground unless that butterfly comes back," Greg said. "I don't think I could make my way back through there in a million years."

"But, you know the way, right?" I said to Adam.

"No, not at all. I was totally lost back there," he said with a smile, heading toward the cabin.

I playfully punched him on the arm. "I knew it."

"It's late. We're all tired. Let's eat and get some sleep," Greg said, taking Jessica by the arm.

She was staring forlornly at the open door and resisted. "I just wish I had my stuff with me," she said.

"Let's worry about it tomorrow," Greg said. "It seems pretty much like they wanted us to get to this cabin."

"Okay," Jessica said, and then she gave him a slap on the ass.

"Hey, now!" He said, as Jessica slipped an arm around his tiny waist, and they walked up to the cabin to join us.

We ate, drank, laughed and talked about the day. The wine was good-- really good-- and for cold food in plastic containers, it was pretty damn good as well. I started to feel horny, and I could see it in Adam's eyes that he was feeling the same, so we made some excuse about wanting to take a moonlight walk, wandered off and found a grassy little hill, where we kissed and held each other, then started to undress each other as well. Drunk, happy, I kind of forgot about Adam's change until he slipped out of his t-shirt, and I saw the tops of his breasts swelling out above the cloth I'd used to tie them down. I closed my eyes, ignoring the sight, and we kissed some more as he pushed my panties down off my hips and to my knees, slipping his hand between my legs. I clawed at his back, and felt the cloth come lose as Adam climbed on top of me and settled in between my legs. I looked up at him, but instead of seeing him looking down at me I saw his little breasts swaying, his nipples hard little pink erasers, pointing up at the moon. I groaned and closed my eyes, he started rocking, and despite myself I looked at him again, saw his breasts bouncing, and he had his eyes closed and was biting his lip, and I said, "No! No," as I pushed him off me.

"What?" He said, caught up in passion, not even seeming to be aware of the gross little titties bouncing on his chest.

"Those," I said, pulling my legs to my chest and looking away from him. "It's just... gross."

"Oh," he said. "Shit. Look, I know it's a little weird..." He said, coming over and putting his hands on my shoulders. I felt his hard nipples brushing against my back.

"Oh, no!" I said. "Would you please cover your tits!?"

"Fuck," he said, turning away. "Jesus."

I closed my eyes. "Look. I'm sorry. It's just... weird for me. That's all."

"No. Yeah. I get it. I just... okay. It was a bad idea."

"Maybe if we wrap them up? You keep your shirt on?"

"No. I'm not in the mood anymore," he said.

"Look, I'm sorry..."

"I know," he said, gathering up his clothes and walking away. He had his back to me, but I could see he had one arm over his breasts. "Don't worry about it."

Shit. I felt terrible, but it had just been such a turnoff to see my husband's boobs bouncing like that, to see his nipples all hard, like a horny girl. I waited for awhile, looking up at the moon, listening to the chirping of the cicadas. At the night, the jungle thrummed with the steady chirping of thousands and thousands of insects. It sounded like the breath of a great, sleeping dragon. When I felt like it had been long enough, I walked back to the cabin, climbed into bed with Adam. He was asleep, and with the blanket pulled up around his shoulders, I couldn't see his puppies. I looked at his face-- the square, cleft chin, dusted with red stubble, the strong cheek bones, bushy eyebrows. He was a handsome man, and I thought especially when he was asleep. I breathed in his masculine musk, gently touched his hair, and promised myself I would do something for him in the morning to make up for what had happened. I loved him, and he was as good a husband as a girl could ask for, and I did love that handsome face. I fell asleep looking at him, studying every crevice, every hair, the mole on his cheek, and I never imagined that I would never see that face again.

Chapter 3

I opened my eyes and saw a beautiful woman sleeping. She was stunning. I mean, so pretty it almost hurt to look at her. I was still half-dreaming in that fuzzy headed state between dreaming and wakeful, so I didn't panic or feel confused, I just admire that perfect face. She had pale skin-- perfect pale skin with an inner glow, and full, soft red lips below a perky upturned nose. Her eyes were closed, and I could see her thick, curly red lashes, her delicate, slender eyebrows. She had a small, round chin, a perfect, heart shaped face, and her eyes had that tiny hint of a slant, and she even had a pretty little mole on her cheek, the kind of beauty mark that made what could have been a too perfect face into something incredibly sexy. Such a pretty girl, she actually reminded me a little of... Adam?

I sat up, confused for a moment by the strange surroundings, and as I stared at the red-headed woman's face, it was all coming back to me... the failed lovemaking, the spider, Adam waking up with breasts, me going to sleep looking at his face, that mole on his cheek...

"Adam?" I said. "Adam?" What the hell? No. This couldn't be him. It had to be just some strange woman, maybe a plant, part of the game. I got out of bed, started toward the door, thinking I might get Greg and Jessica, maybe look for a weapon, but the girl opened her big, green eyes and looked at me.

"Taylor?" She said, but her voice sounded just like Adam, and it was so weird hearing his voice come from that pretty mouth I actually shrieked.

"Oh fuck!" I said, backing away.

"Adam? Is that you?"

"Yeah," he said. "What the hell is wrong?" He sat up and threw back his blanket, and I could see his breasts had gotten bigger, much bigger. They strained against his t-shirt, looking like two cantaloupes. He looked down, clearly aware of the new weight, and said, "Oh, shit. These tits." Then, he quickly pulled the blanket back over himself, hiding his tits. "Please don't freak out again," he said, his pretty face a mask of concern. "It can't..."

I was shaking my head from side to side, pointing.

"What?"

"I don't... I mean..." I gestured toward the mirror. "Look."

"What is it?"

"Just look."

Keeping the blanket over his chest, he stood up and walked over to the mirror, scratching his butt with his free hand. I was relieved to see that his backside hadn't changed like Greg's had; he didn't have a woman's ass. As soon as he saw his face, his pretty mouth dropped open and his eyes went wide. "What. The. Hell?" He put a hand to his cheek. "I can't... this isn't... Oh, shit." He turned away from the mirror, devastation in his eyes. "What's happening to me?"

Now, seeing that pretty face so lost and scared, I hurried over to give him a hug, and he accepted, burying his head on my shoulder and throwing his arms around my neck. I felt his firm, heavy breasts press against mine, but I fought back the urge to flinch and held him close instead, hugging him as tightly as I could. We held each other like that-- I don't know how long, and then I took his hand and led him to the bed, where we both sat down. I was looking at him-- his face was so pretty-- and now he was crying, and that made me start crying, too.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm so sorry."

"Why are you sorry?" I said, wiping his tears away.

"Because I'm... this now... "

"Oh, honey It's not your fault."

"But I'm a freak."

"No," I said. "No. I'm so sorry about last night."

"I don't blame you, and now?"

I don't know what came over me, but seeing those big green eyes of his so full of sadness and despair, I reached over, cupped his chin, and then leaned in and kissed him, right on that plush, soft mouth, and he kissed me back, our tongues met, and he put his finger tips on my cheek and started to caress me...

We broke off our kiss, each of us unnerved by strange new sensations. I put my palms to my cheeks and felt... stubble. Looking at Adam, I saw his cheeks were as smooth and soft as a peach, but I felt stubble on mine.

"Oh my God," Adam said. "Babe? I don't know how to tell you...."

I got up and went to the mirror.

"... but you need...."

"To shave," I finished, looking at the black stubble on my face.

Adam got up and came to me, putting his arms around my waist pressing his breasts into my back. "I guess we're both changing," he said.

I turned and looked him in the eyes, and we both got one last shock as we realized we were now the same height. "Am I getting taller?" I asked.

"Or am I getting shorter?"

We heard a door open, the floor creak, Jessica called, "guys? You up? Things are getting weird." Her voice sounded strained, panicked.

"Coming," I said, touching my scruffy cheeks, looking in the mirror. "I look gross," I said to Adam. "Is there something I can shave with?"

"My shaving stuff is back in the cave." Adam pulled his Tommy Bahama shirt on, but with his new, bigger breasts he could only button it up about halfway, and he clearly had a woman's silhouette.

"Shit."

There was a knock at the door. "Can I come in?"

"Not yet," I said, checking the dresser drawers, finding nothing but clothes. Adam was struggling to try and get more buttons buttoned, to his boobs.

The handle turned and the door started to open. I raced over and tried to shove it closed, but as I did, I caught a glimpse of Jessica and saw that she also had a scruffy face bristling with the start of a beard.

"Oh, shit!" We said in unison, though I think we were also both relieved.

------

The same changes had happened for Greg and Jessica. Greg now had a stunningly gorgeous face, his dark skin perfectly offset by his black hair, and his hips and bootie had filled out so that he could almost rival Beyonce, which meant he had more hips and ass than most women. Meanwhile, Jessica, like me, had an impressive morning beard forming on her face, and they also were virtually the same height. With the men now sporting such pretty faces and altered bodies, we now looked more like four women than a pair of couples, albeit two women who needed a shave, and for a time we were all paralyzed as we sat down and tried to answer one single question: what the hell was going on?

After about half an hour of kicking around theories, one thing became very clear: we had no idea what was going on. None of us. There simply wasn't enough information to draw any meaningful conclusions. My mind kept wandering as I found myself looking at Adam; I couldn't believe how pretty he was now. He could be a cover girl with that skin, those plush lips, those big, sparkling eyes. He had one of those faces that was so pretty it seemed impossible even when you saw it in a magazine, and to see it here now, right in front of my eyes, and to know that stunning woman's face belonged to my husband made me feel all kinds of weird feelings; jealousy, contempt, love, admiration, pity. And great was just as much of a knockout, though where Adam had porcelain skin and red hair, green eyes, Greg had the classic features of an Italian or maybe Spanish beauty, with olive skin and big, brown eyes. Both of them made me feel plain by comparison, and that made me mad even as I found myself wanting to kiss Adam's plump lips.

Conflicted is the word. I was very conflicted. But I couldn't be the only one, right?

Adam, Greg and Jess were going round and round, talking about how we might have come into contact with some experimental stuff, or that maybe it was something in the air on this island, and I was scratching my neck, scratching and scratching because the stubble was itchy as hell, and I finally said, "It doesn't matter."

The other three stopped and looked at me.

"Whatever is going on, why this is happening, we don't know. Even if we did, it wouldn't change anything."

"Well, it might..." Greg started.

"No. It wouldn't. Our only two choices are to keep playing the game. Get out of here sooner or else wait for them to come and find us."

Adam saw me scratching my neck and nodded. "It's itchy when it first starts to grow out," he said.

I looked at his, his smooth, hairless face and neck, and felt annoyed. Angry. But I bottled it up. "Did anyone check and see if there was stuff in the bathroom?"

"I didn't," Greg said.

I got up, went into the bathroom. There was a cabinet above the sink. I opened the door and shouted, "Hell, yes!" When Jessica poked her scruffy head into the bathroom, I held up a can of shaving cream and a pack of Bic razors. "We're saved!"

"We're shaved!" Jessica said, smiling with relief as she walked into the bathroom.

I sprayed some of the gel into my hand, worked it into foam and then rubbed it into my beard. As I ripped open the plastic bag and grabbed a razor, I saw that Greg and Adam were crowded together at the door, smiling.

"What? You need to shave, too?" I said.

"No," Adam said, shaking his pretty head. "I just... want to watch."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Jessica and I shared a glance that was equal parts confusion and amusement, shrugged and started to shave our beards while our smooth cheeked husband's watched, their cheeks blushing prettily.

Adam's nipples got hard. I could see them poking through the fabric of his shirt.

Remember how I said I was conflicted? Seeing my husband get turned on by watching me shave just made it that much worse. Not only because it was such a girly thing for him to do, but because I was also feeling a little turned on by being a dude. Or was it because at that moment I was THE dude in our relationship?

That thought scared me a little, too. I had never wanted to be a boy. I liked being a girl, and I always thought we were kinda better than guys in a lot of ways, even in a world where men still had all the advantages. But as I stood there shaving, my pretty husband watching, I felt smug, I felt-- superior in a different way-- and I felt myself getting a little lady boner all because of the fact that I was acting like a guy.

The second clue read as follows: Go north to find the dome. Square root root 81.

None of us knew what it meant, but we were pretty sure we could figure it out once we got to the location, and so we headed back into the jungle, moving along the narrow path we found to the north of the cabin. Greg and Adam were still in the lead; they still had their broad shoulders and muscled arms, but both of them looked strange with their now smaller heads perched on top of those manly shoulders. Meanwhile, Greg was wearing a pair of short green shorts that hugged his plump behind and fit perfectly at his slender little waist. His lower back had that little sway like a woman's, kind of arching in and then swelling backward into his firm, high, rounded ass. He wasn't bothering to hide his body anymore, and so walking behind him I again found my eyes sometimes drawn to his wiggling butt. The shorts were obviously women's shorts, the only ones he could probably find that would fit him, and the reality of that struck me because what were the odds there would randomly be a pair of shorts there that would fit a very curvy woman's hips, and hips and a waist pretty much exactly Greg's size? His waist was very slender. His hips very wide. Most women only dreamt of having measurements like that.

As if whoever prepared the island knew the shapes we would be assuming as we changed?

Adam and Greg had grabbed machetes from the storage room at cabin, of course, there were only two, and of course the boys had to have them. They were thrashing away at the jungle growth along the path as we walked, and the morning was hot, and the steamy, tropical air got hotter as the sun rose and we moved deeper into the thick, dripping green, where the air seemed thick and steamy. We were all soaked with sweat when we finally took a break, sitting down on some mossy rocks to drink water and munch on some trail mix.

Adam slipped out of his Tommy Bahama shirt and tossed it aside, raising his arms over his head and stretching. His t-shirt was drenched, and we could all see his breasts through the thin, damp cloth, his big, dark nipples thrust upward as he arched his back and sighed, then, with his hands on his head, he looked and saw us all staring at him. "What?" He said, looking at us, his breasts out there for the world to see. I found myself blushing, but at a loss for words that wouldn't seem humiliating or demeaning.

"You have a hell of a rack," Jess said, shaking her head.

"What?" Adam said again, a look of confusion on his sweet, innocent face. "Oh!" He dropped his arms, his big breasts bouncing. "God! Like you've never seen boobs before."

"Maybe you should put the over shirt back on," I said.

"It's too hot," Adam answered with a little pout, sitting down on a rock, his breasts bouncing.

I looked at Jess and saw something hard in her eyes as she was staring at my husband's tits, and I got up and angrily walked over to him, grabbing the shirt and handing it to him. "Cover up," I said, handing him the shirt.

He tossed the shirt away. "Just stop," he said.

"You're putting on a show, honey," I said through clenched teeth. "How would you feel if I were going around showing my boobs to everyone?"

He leaned back on the rock and shrugged, lifting his breasts again. "It's different. I'm not a woman," he said, arching one of his slender eyebrows and staring at me with those big, pretty eyes of his.

"Fine," I said, pulling my shirt off so I was just in my bra. I stretched my arms high above my head and shook my boobs. "Woo! That does feel good!"

The smirk was gone from Adam's face, and his eyes now smoldered. Damn, he was so hot when he was mad. "Maybe I'll just go topless," he said.

"Good," I said. "Maybe I will, too..."

"Just give it a rest," Greg said. "It is too hot for this shit right now."

My head was pounding, but Adam clearly was intent on being a little bitch about it, so I finally turned to Jess, pointed at her and said, "Keep your eyes off my husband's tits!"

"Keeps yours off Greg's ass!"

I stopped, embarrassed that she'd called me out, so I just sputtered, "Fine!"

"Good, then," Jess said.

The men just sat there, looking away bashfully, ashamed and confused.

I sheepishly pulled my soaking wet t-shirt back on, not wanting to wander through the jungle in just a bra. Adam left his Tommy Bahama over shirt hanging from a tree, giving me a look of defiance. I just nodded. I got it. What guy would want his wife telling him to hide his tits in front of their friends? Now he had to keep showing off his tits just to prove to everyone he was still his own man.

When we finally stepped out into the clearing where the dome stood, the sun was directly overhead, flashing off the glass panels of what looked like a giant greenhouse and flooding the whole clearing with light, causing all of us to shield our eyes, especially coming out of the shadowy depths of the jungle. We walked forward, and as we got closer, we could see the interior glass of the dome was encrusted with what looked like moss or some kind of mildew. The thin, metal framework that held the large, octagonal sheets of glass in place was rusted and discolored, giving the whole thing the look and feel of an abandoned research facility. Circling around, we came to the door, which was locked, but there was a numerical keypad next to it.

"Square root root 81," Adam repeated, looking at the keypad.

"It's obviously some sort of numerical sequence," I said, embarrassed to have stated something so obvious even before everyone else responded, "duh!"

"Try squaring 81, then finding the root of the root," Jessica said.

"That would be nine," Greg said, punching in the number. Nothing.

"What about the square root of the square root of 81?" Jessica said. Again, nothing.

I noticed Adam was plucking at his shirt, pulling it away from his breasts, and it occurred to me his nipples were probably getting sore from bouncing up and down all morning, rubbing against the fabric. I smirked. Served him right.

We messed around with different combinations, started getting nutty. "What if we subtract 81 from the current year, then find the square root of that?" We entered a bunch of random numbers. Everyone was getting frustrated, so finally we found some shade, ate lunch, drank some water. "We're going to circle the dome and see if there's another entrance," Greg said.

"Good deal," I said.

Adam and Greg stood, walked off.

'I'm sorry about staring at Greg's ass," I said after an awkward moment.

"Yeah. Me, too. I mean for staring at Adam's boobs."

"I know."

We both sat in silence for a few minutes. Then Jessica sighed. "Can I ask you something? It's a little weird."

I chuckled. "Sure."

"Are you finding it hard to, um, you know, take them seriously?"

"Because of those faces!"

"Yes!"

"God, I mean, am I some kind of secret sexist? He was talking this morning, totally serious, and all I kept thinking as I saw the words coming out of that sweet face was, 'how adorable.'"

"I know. I keep wanting to pat Greg on the hand and say, 'good boy,'"

"Or girl."

We giggled, snorted. "Okay," Jessica said. "I am glad I got that out. But let's never tell them about this conversation."

"Oh, no," I agreed. "No. I don't think they really know what they look like."

"Well, Greg looked in the mirror."

"Yeah, I know, but I mean I think when they talk, they think of themselves as they were, as guys who actually look like guys. Like in their minds they aren't conscious all the time of what they look like now."

Jessica thought about it. "I see. Yeah. Maybe. I hadn't thought about it. But you think they might, what, somehow act differently if they had internalized the fact they are now, like, super pretty?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I do."

Jessica shrugged. "It makes sense. Our identities are a negotiation with the environment."

"You're already getting a five o'clock shadow," I said reaching out and running my fingertips over Jessica's stubbly chin.

"Oh, gross," Jessica said, touching her cheeks. "I look like such a freak!"

"You actually look kinda handsome," I said.

"Handsome?"

"Yeah. Like a pretty boy type. The kind that would be in a boyband and all the teenage girls would scream over."

Jessica rolled her eyes. "Great." She stood and did a little dance. "Back Street's Back, alright!"

"Who was your boyband?"

"One Direction," Jessica said.

"Which boy did you like?"

"All of them!" Jessica said. "But... wait. Maybe......"

"What is it?"

"All of them," Jessica said, walking over to the keypad. She punched in a series of numbers. The door buzzed. Swung open. Jessica turned and smiled, did a little bow. "It was the square of 81, the root of 81, and the root of the root. All of them."

"I guess one advantage of turning into a boy is that you're better at math," I said.

"That's so sexist!" Jessica said. "Let's see what's inside."

"Should we wait for the guys?"

"Why? In case we need someone to win a pretty contest?"

We both laughed. The guys had left the machetes, so we grabbed them and stepped into the dome.

The seemed, impossibly, even more humid in here, and it was hotter. How could these plants possibly need hotter conditions than what was already outside? They didn't look any more exotic than the plants on the island, but they did look bigger in every way--taller, thicker, just more solid. They reminded me of something, just as the island itself had reminded me of various tropical adventure films I had seen, this reminded me of... what exactly? Maybe....

Suddenly, we heard a squawk, and we saw the fronds of the scrub palms that grew along the path jumping as something ran right toward us. "Shit!" Jess said, backing away, her machete in front of her.

"Omigod!" I said, my heart pounding.

Then a line of tiny, red and green dinosaurs came running onto the path. They looked almost like tiny little brontosaurs, and they rushed up to us, making squeaky little "cawing" sounds, their mouths wide open as if they were expecting food.

"Caw! Caw! Caw!" They circled around us, wagging their whole bodies like excited puppies. We kept our machetes ready, circling, watching them nervously, until I finally said, "Shoe! Shoe!"

"Rarw... rarwn..." they answered, dropping their heads and ceasing to wag their bodies.

"Shoe," Jess joined in. "Shoe!"

The mini-saurs skulked away, the last one glancing back hopefully, but I said, "sorry?" And it vanished into the brush.

"Omigod. That was insane," I said.

"Crazy. Are we in Jurassic Park or something?"

"It kind of seems that way. These seem like weird, old plants."

Jess started back down the path in the direction we'd been heading before our encounter, but I hesitated. "I don't know," I said. "What if there are bigger, like, real dinosaurs in here?"

"Come on!" Jess said. "This is a vacation island. They aren't going to put anything in here that could kill us."

"I guess not," I said, though I still felt uneasy.

"Jess? Taylor?" We heard the guys calling from outside the dome.

"In here!" Jess shouted.

The guys came in, looking around, surprised. "What the hell?"" Greg said. "You figured it out?"

"No," Jess said. "A magic gnome came along and opened the door for us."

"Shit," Greg said. "What the fuck."

Adam came up to me and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. "What was the answer?"

But before we could answer, a horn blasted, one of those old-fashioned horns like you would see at a prison camp in, like, a World War Two movie. We all kind of jumped, shocked at the sound, and then the door to the dome slammed shut, and we heard the metal bolts slammed closed. Adam ran back and tested the door- it was locked, and there was no keypad on the inside, but even as he turned the handle and pushed on the door, the horn made a crackling sound, and then we heard a voice: "Intruder alert! Intruder alert! Unauthorized persons have invaded Paradise. Bring them to me. Alive!"

"Oh shit," Greg said. "Give me that." He reached for the machete, Jess resisted for a second, but he gave her a look, and she handed it over. Adam held out his hand, and I sighed and gave him my, are you kidding? look.

"What?" He said. "I'm stronger than you."

I handed the blade over, and Greg and Adam got in front. We heard hissing coming from all around us, and pretty soon we saw them coming through the plants, down the paths, from all around us--lizard men who looked just like the Sleestak from Land of the Lost. They were carrying nets and spears, and they were all really tall--over six feet.

"Fuck," Greg said. "There are too many."

"Just let them take us," Jess said. "It's all part of the game. We're supposed to go with them."

The Sleestak were closing in, Greg raised his weapon and they all hissed, barring their fangs, and then they tossed their nets, and we were all entangled. "Do not struggle!" The lead Sleestak said, and it had a voice like a woman. "You will not be harmed."

"We surrender," I said. "Take us to your leader."

The lead Sleestak pulled a handheld communicator from her satchel and said, "The intruders have been cancelled. Four human females."

"Females?" Adam said.

"Just let it go," I said.

"We're not all females," Adam called as the Sleestak took the machete from him and they began to bind his hands behind his back.

"Bring them to me," a voice called back from the intercom.

"Come along, girls," the leader said. "Hurry."

"I'm not a girl," Adam murmured.

"Just let it go," I said. "It doesn't matter anyway."

"I guess," Adam said, annoyed.

But then, well, it kind of turned out that it did matter.

We were led to stairway and then down, down, down, past two landings and doors, until we finally came to the bottom of the stairs. The lights were all flickering, as if the power might go off at any moment, and the walls were slimy with green, mildewy growth. Once we got downstairs, we were ushered into a shower room that actually hurt my eyes it was so bright and clean and shiny. The Sleestak said, "remove your clothes and shower."

"Screw you," Adam said, stepping toward the Sleestak.

"You cannot be presented to the king crusted in filth!" The leader said, raising her spear.

"What kind of fucked up game is this?" Greg said, looking around for hidden cameras.

"Remove clothes! Shower!"

"You aren't going to kill me," Adam said. "So just cut the shit. We aren't getting naked in front of you!"

The leader of the Sleestak raised her spear and pointed past Adam, and he saw that the showers all had curtains. "Behind the curtain."

We all glanced at each other. We were pretty sweaty and disgusting. Maybe this was just for our comfort. It was a game, after all. "Okay?" I said. "I am pretty gross right now."

Adam plucked at his t-shirt, pulling it away from his boobs. "Fine," he said. "No peaking."

"Feminine modesty," the Sleestak said. "How adorable."

"I'm not..." Adam started, then turned away, heading toward the showers mumbling, "hmmph."

"Throw your clothes out when done," the Sleestak said. "Dry clothes will be provided."

I got into one of the shower stalls. There was a little vestibule area outside the shower stall itself, so I stood there and stripped out of my sweat soaked clothes, tossing them out the curtain. The shower automatically started to spray as I stepped toward the bathing area, and reaching out with my hand I felt the water, which was perfect. My hair was damp with sweat anyway, so I washed it with the shampoo, which smelled like hyacinth, and then washed my body with shampoo that had the same flowery, tropical smell. I smirked wondering if Adam and Greg were using the same stuff. Poor guy. I would have to be extra careful after this was over to try and build back his male ego. Of course, I didn't know the half of it.

When I finished showering, I stepped out to the vestibule area. There were no clothes there, and for a moment I felt a flash of fear and anger that it had all been a trick and we were going to be paraded around naked, but then a voice from the other side said, "I am going to reach in with a towel. I will not look."

"Okay."

A scaled lizard arm reached in holding a fluffy towel.

"When you are ready, let me know, and I will reach in with your clothes."

"Thanks," I said, thinking, this is more like it. The towel was like heaven. I'd never felt anything so soft. Once I had dried myself off, I tied the towel around my hair and said, "ready."

The Sleestak reached in holding a transparent plastic garment bag. I smiled. It held a super cute little blue dress with big, fancy flowers on it. The shoulder straps tied at the shoulders, almost like a bikini top, and the pleated skirt flared out in a fun, flirty, retro way. It was like something you'd see in a 1950s beach movie. So cute! I thought, looking it over as I pulled the plastic off, and then saw the pretty little bra and panties it came with as well.

"No way!" I heard Adam shout. "Get the fuck out of here!"

"Yeah. I am not wearing that!" Greg said.

We heard the squawking of one of the old-fashioned speakers. "Then you fail the test."

"What?" Adam said.

"What is it?" I said, sticking my head out past the curtain. The Sleestak were all standing still, impassive. Waiting.

"They want me to wear a dress," Adam said.

"Me, too," Greg said.

"We do not care whether you wear the dress or not," the voice. "The only question is whether you want to pass the test."

"Isn't there some other way?" Jess said.

"Yeah," I said. "Give us some other test?"

"Wear the dress. Pass the test," the voice said.

I dressed myself, and then stepped out of the shower, pulling the towel from my hair. "I'm wearing the dress, so I pass the test," I said to the Sleestak, though she didn't seem really to be in charge.

"All must wear the dress to pass the test," the voice said.

"Why can't..."

"ALL!"

"What the hell."

"I'm not putting this on," Adam said from inside the stall. "It's bullshit."

"Then you fail the test."

Jess came out of her stall now, and I saw she was wearing a dress that matched mine, and looking very cute even if she did have a five o'clock shadow. My own face was a little stubbly, but my facial hair was blonde and didn't show up as fast as her black beard. "Cut the shit," Jess said, stepping up to the lead Sleestak. "This isn't funny."

"Yeah. Enough is enough."

Jess shoved the Sleestak, and it stumbled backwards, but then righted itself and stood there, impassive. The others did so as well. I had thought they were biological creatures that had been created by our company, but they seemed more like robots now, and they had been shut down.

"Put on the dress or fail the test."

"Fuck you. Then just give us our clothes back, and we'll just wait for the end of the week," I called, looking at the speaker in the corner.

No answer.

"Give us back our clothes!"

"Your clothes have been burned," the Sleestak said.

"What? Bullshit, or then give the guys some different clothes," Jess said.

None of the Sleestak moved. The speaker didn't respond.

"Fuck!" Adam shouted from inside his stall.

I went over and stood outside the curtain. "Jess and I will go back to the cabin and get some clothes," I said. "You guys just wait here."

"There's nothing but girl clothes there anyway," Adam mumbled.

"Yeah, but at least you won't have to wear a dress."

"Let's just do it," Greg said.

"Fine."

"No," I said. "You don't have to do this."

"It's fine. Let's just get this over with."

I was so pissed I turned and slammed my hands against the chest of the nearest Sleestak, sending it crashing to the ground. "You fucking assholes!"

Jess grabbed me. "Hey," she said. "Hey. They aren't even alive."

I struggled, but found myself calming. It made me so made to see how they-- this island, game, our company-- was humiliating Adam. They gave him tits and a face like an angel, and now they were forcing him to put on a dress. He was a good person, a good man, and he didn't deserve to be treated like this. Adam is, or was, a very confident guy, by the way. In other circumstances I could see him putting on a dress and laughing about because he had no doubts about his manhood. But now? It was just one more totally bullshit move to fuck with him, and I was mad not just about it, but about the fact that there wasn't even anyone real to rage on.

Greg came out wearing the same blue dress as Jess and I, and his sweet, pretty cheeks were blushing, but he did a little twirl and said, "does this skirt make my butt look fat?"

We all laughed, relieved that he was goofing around about it, joking. He smelled the same as the girls-- tropical flowers.

There was a rustling sound from behind Adam's curtain. Then a sigh. I cringed. Now that Greg had made a joke about it, Adam would look really bad if he acted all mopey and embarrassed. I saw him grab the curtain and pull it back, and then we all gasped because he did not match the rest of us; Adam was wearing a strapless, floor length pink ball gown with a full skirt of diaphanous material that floated around his legs like a cloud of pink. The top of the dress was embedded with sparkling glitter, and he was holding the low-cut top with one hand to keep it from slipping down off his plump breasts.

"What the hell?" He said, looking at the rest of us in our matching blue dresses. "Why the hell do I have to wear this?"

"Because you have the biggest breasts," the Sleestak said, as if that made perfect sense.

"Fuck you," Adam said, stepping out of the stall. His skirt flared out wider than the stall, and the fabric rustled against the sides as he moved. "This thing won't stay up," he mumbled.

"Hold on," I said moving behind him. "Let me zip you up." I zipped up the zipper on the back, which came to about his mid back, and then the top tightened against his tits. "Good?" I said

"Better," he said. "But I still feel like I'm going to fall out of this any second."

"That's how it always feels," I said, giving him a pat on the shoulder.

"If it counts for anything, you do look hot as hell," Greg said  "Thanks," Adam said. "And that dress does make your ass look fat."

"You put on the dress. You pass the test," the voice said.

"Good. Let's get on with this." Adam said.

"Follow me to meet the king," the lead Sleestak said, and led us out of the shower, Greg and Jess in front, Adam and I behind. The dress covered his nipples and not much else, leaving most of his breasts exposed, and they bounced a little with every step. I knew it had to be hard for him, and I wanted to say something to Adam, tell him how brave he was or something, but part of me felt he probably would rather we just didn't talk about it at all, so we walked along his silence save for the sound of his skirt rustling as he walked. I noticed that Adam smelled different from the rest of us; he smelled like coconut butter and vanilla.

Eventually, we came to a set of double doors, and the Sleestak opened them and did a little bow for us to enter. Beyond was a hallway with a beige carpet and wooden walls; it looked like a 1950s office. All along the way there were offices with glass windows in the doors and sitting inside we saw skeletons in tattered suits and fedoras.

"Ooooh," Adam said. "Is this supposed to be scary?"

"I do not understand the question," Sleestak said.

"You're an idiot."

"This is about you, not me," Sleestak said.

Finally, we came to another set of double doors. Over the top of the doors there was a plaque which read, "Royal King."

"The maids of honor shall enter first," Sleestak said.

"Maids of honor?" Greg said.

I looked at Adam. He just rolled his big, pretty eyes.

"You three in front," Sleestak said. "Princess behind."

I looked at Adam. He just shook his head and shrugged, "I would say the one with the princess behind is Greg, actually."

"Har har. Screw you, princess," Greg said, laughing.

Greg, Jess and I formed a line, the doors were thrown open, and we marched into the office, Adam trailing behind us. The space was big-- crazy big-- so about 40 feet from us on a raised dais there stood a large, oaken desk flanked by floor lamps that flickered to life. Sitting behind the desk was another skeleton, covered in cobwebs, wearing a tattered grey suit. We stopped. "What are we supposed to..." I started to ask, but the Sleestak slammed the door shut. Once again, we were trapped.

"Another puzzle," Adam said, rushing past us toward the desk, his breasts jiggling with each step. I think he was eager to show he was still an aggressive guy, and not a princess after all. Greg followed quickly behind, his hips wiggling in his skirt, and I was forced to remember that Adam and I weren't the only ones suffering here.

"There must be some clues up here of some kind," Adam said. "There always are."

"Be careful," I said, immediately regretting it. I saw an angry scowl come over his sweet face, and instead of being careful, he pushed the skeleton, trying to get it out of the way so he could search the desk.

The skeleton sprung to life, moving with shocking speed, and it grabbed Adam by the wrist, slipped behind him and locked a second arm around his waist, twisting his arm behind his back. "Ow!" Adam shouted, his big blue green eyes wide with shock, his plump soft mouth open in an "O" exposing his perfect white teeth.

Greg jumped back, surprised, and the skeleton started dragging Adam back away from the desk, the bookshelf behind the desk swinging open: a secret door!

"I am Royal King, and the princess is mine!" King shouted. Adam was struggling, trying to fight as King dragged him through the door, and he grabbed at the door frame with one hand, his still muscular arm growing tight, but then I saw King reach up with one bony hand, grab Adam's breast and viciously twist his nipple. Shocked by the unexpected and unfamiliar pain, Adam immediately slapped at the skeletal violator and was dragged into the darkness as the door swung shut behind him.

Greg lunged for the door, his skirt swirling, but it closed to quickly, and he ended up just crashing against the door and then pounding on it, shouting, "Asshole!"

I felt sympathy pain in my own nipple-- poor Adam!-- and my heart was racing, my head pounding with anger. I rushed to the bookcase, which turned out to be a painted wall, and pounded, pushed, yelled angrily. "Damn it!" Greg finally said, exhausted, turning and slumping against the wall. I stopped as well, breathing hard, my chest heaving, and turned to see Jess going through the desk.

"You seem pretty calm given what just happened," I said.

"It's a game," said. "We just have to figure out the next move."

"This is more than a game," I said, pissed. "We have to start facing that."

"No. It is a game. We aren't in any real danger, and we have to remember that or else it will just be that much harder."

"No real danger? Jess, you're growing a beard. Your husband has an ass like Jennifer Lopez and one of the prettiest faces I have ever seen. No offense, Greg."

He just shrugged, sweat pouring down that pretty face.

"Well, yours has tits like Rachel Bloom," Jess spat back.

"Exactly. I know. That's what I am talking about. That is danger. Danger to our bodies. Our minds."

"But not physical danger..."

"Worse. It's worse."

"Nothing is worse than death."

"I don't know, maybe, and I don't know how it is for you, maybe your fine-looking like Ralph Macchio's little brother, but this shit if fucking with my head, and its fucking with my husband and our marriage, and I take that very seriously."

Jess clenched her fist. Stared at me. Glanced at Greg in his matching blue dress, his face a perfect embodiment of feminine beauty, and then she nodded. "No. Okay. I get it. You're right. This is very serious. But I still say we stay as calm as we can, and we work together to get out of this."

Greg smiled prettily at that and nodded. "Yes. Let's just solve this puzzle." He walked over and slipped his arms around Jess' waist, kissed her on the cheek.

"Agreed," I said. "Okay."

The desk turned out to be a distractor, of course. We searched through all the stuff, opened and closed the drawers, but then we noticed the bar and a little lounge area. We walked over and I started lifting the bottles one after another. Sure enough, as I lifted a bottle of Royal Crown, the door swung open.

"Is any of this hooch real?" Greg asked, twisting open a bottle of Canadian whiskey. He took a whiff and said, "oh, yeah!"

We all looked at each other. "Just to take the edge off," Jess said. "One drink."

"It is a game," Greg said, waving the bottle under my nose.

I laughed. "Don't tell Adam. He might get pissed we were drinking without him." Greg poured himself a couple fingers of the Canadian, while I poured myself some vodka and soda and Jess joined me. There was even ice in the cooler, as if this really was just some fun vacation exercise.

We drank, toasted, laughed, and then when we finished, each of us grabbed a bottle to take back to the cabin. I actually forgot Greg was a guy at one point, and said, "It's nice to have some girl time."

"You said it sister," Greg said, laughing. Jess slapped him on his ass.

Heads buzzing pleasantly, we went through the secret door, down yet another flight of stairs, and walked out onto a giant chess board.

The King stood across from us on a raised platform, and next to him, trapped in a giant birdcage, was Adam, but now he was wearing a red wig that simulated hair piled on top of his head in an elaborate up-do, and I saw he also wore chandelier earrings, bracelets flashing at his wrists. A tiara sparkled in his hair. He saw us. We made eye contact. Adam shrugged and rolled his eyes. It was becoming his go-to response to all of this ridiculousness.

"In order to rescue the princess, you must defeat me in a game of chess. "You have one hour," the King said.

"Wait. What if we don't? You can't just keep him here," I said.

"I will keep her here, and you can come and try again tomorrow."

"You can't keep my husband."

"Look," Jess said. "I was on the chess team all through high-school. I am, like, really good. Let's just beat this asshole and get out of here."

"I'm pretty good, too," Greg said. "I used to beat the guys in my frat all the time."

Hearing it come from that pretty face, I had to hide my smirk. "Fine," I said, wishing I had the machete still. I wanted to chop that stupid skeleton's head off-- even if he wasn't real.

"Let's do it," Jess said.

"You're move!" The skeleton said, and the timer above Adam's birdcage began to click down from 60 minutes even as the board lit up with shimmering holographic chess pieces. Ours were all female and looked like characters from mythology; the pawns looked like nymphs, the rooks were mermaids, and instead of a king and a queen we had two queens that called to mind Athena and Aphrodite.

Jess called out our first move, and one of the mermaids swam out in front of the pawns to a new position. The King advanced one of his pawns, which was shaped like a satyr. I looked and saw Adam clinging to the bars of his call with both hands, watching eagerly, his face a pretty mask of feminine worry. It looked like they had painted his fingernails pink.

Jess called out her second move, and Greg said, "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, babe. I got this," Jess said. I was expecting Greg to argue, but instead he just kind of clutched his hands together, and his face took on the same look of pretty worry that Adam's had.

They took turns, and then the King took one of our pawns. We heard an arcing sound, like a generator firing up, and then Adam screamed as his cage was momentarily electrified. "Fuck!" He said, lunging at the skeleton, his breasts bouncing. "You asshole!" He crashed against the cage, but he couldn't reach the skeleton King.

"What the hell?" I shouted.

"Each time you lose a piece, the princess gets shocked," the skeleton said, jaw clacking. "Hahahaha!"

"That's bullshit! You have to lose pieces in chess! It's part of the game!"

"The rules are the rules."

"Fuck," Jess said, turning to me. "We're going to lose some pieces. There's no way around it."

I felt myself more pissed off than I had ever been. I so wanted to go over there and smash that stupid skeleton into pieces. But what good would it do? He was just a stupid robot. "We're going to get you out of there!" I yelled at Adam.

"I know," he said.

"You're going to get shocked," Jess said. "I'll do my best to minimize it."

"Don't," Adam said. "Just win. I can take it."

Jess gave me a look. I nodded. "It's good for him," I said, quietly. "Let him prove he's still tough."

Greg gave me an annoyed look, but said nothing.

The game went on, Adam got shocked and shocked again. But now, he was ready for it, and he held back any shouts of pain or reactions of any kind. Each time he saw a piece was going to be taken, he just clenched his fists, closed his eyes, and stood stock still while the charge went through him. As soon as the shock ended, he opened his eyes and looked right at me, smiling.

I nodded. Proud of him.

The game went on, the clock ticked along. 40 minutes to go. 20 minutes to go. 10 minutes to go. "This computer is pretty good," Jess said. "Whoever programmed it did a damn good job."

"Maybe I can..." Greg started.

"I got it. I got it."

"Guys. Let's get this over with," Adam shouted. "I really don't want to spend a night trapped in a cage with Skeletor."

"I got it," Jess said, annoyed, trying to concentrate.

"If you..." Greg started.

"Everyone just shut up!" Jess said. "I need to picture the board in my head."

I signaled to Greg to hold up.

9 minutes.

Jess made a move. Greg hissed. "Babe..."

"I know what I am doing," Jess said.

The King took our queen, started laughing.

Adam stood, took the shock, but as soon as it ended, he grabbed the bars of his cell again and said, "Guys? Come on! Don't leave me in here!" His big eyes were full of fear now, and my heart went out to him.

"Babe..."

"He fell right into my trap!" Jess whispered, then called out her move.

Suddenly, Jess was taking piece after piece, the King started shouting and yelling angrily. But time kept ticking, ticking. Greg and I stood behind Jess, holding hands, quiet and still as could be, but she was standing tall, confident, her hands on her hips, calling out her moves until finally the clock dropped below one minute, seconds ticking away.

"Come on," Adam called. "Please! Get me out of here!"

Jess nodded, smiling, the clock ticking down... 10 seconds, 9... 8....

She called out her move and said, Check Mate.

Our piece moved. The clock ran out, there was a loud buzzing, and then the room was still. I thought I saw a flicker of doubt in Jess' face, like for a minute she thought she'd made a mistake, but then there was a buzzing, and the door to Adam's cage swung open, and he shouted, "Thank God!" and grabbing the skirt of his dress, he ran out of the cage and down the steps. I ran to meet him, giving him a hug, and then he ran over to Jess and hugged her, giving her a kiss on the cheek and saying, "thanks for getting me out of that thing."

"I'm sorry you got shocked so much," she said, touching his smooth cheek.

"It's okay," Adam said, smiling brightly, his breasts pressing against her body. "You did great."

I felt a pang of jealousy and-- shame. How had I let Jess be the one who rescued my husband? I went over and grabbed Adam, pulling him away from Jess. "Are you okay?" I said. "I was so worried."

"I'm fine," Adam said, glancing back at Jess.

I touched one of the chandelier earrings dangling from his ears, at the same time noticing that he was also wearing make-up; not that he needed it with that perfect face. But the mascara, eye shadow, lipstick and blush just enhanced the feminine perfection of his features, and it also made him see all the less masculine. "They pierced your ears?" I said.

"What? Oh." He reached up and touched one of the earrings. "Yeah."

"You poor thing," I said. "The shit you've been through." I had taken on a motherly tone, one that I knew he hated, and I saw the annoyance in his eyes, and it made me glad because I wanted to make him pay for the flirty kiss with Jess.

Rather than rise to the bait, though, Adam's eyes went wide, and he grinned and said, "Is that booze?"

The King had powered down and was now just standing next to the bird cage. Adam had seen what looked like an elevator up there, so we went up and sure enough there was one, but we all stopped to take turns spitting on the king. If we'd had any weapons, we would have smashed him to pieces. In the elevator, we found another skeleton dressed like a bellhop, and clutched in his hands was a leather satchel, which we opened to find a clue to the next challenge, so we took that and drank our way back along the path to our cabin. By the time we arrived, we were all a little tipsy, and Adam immediately said, "I can't wait to get out of this stupid dress."

"Do you need some help, sweetie?" I said in my condescending, mommy voice. I was still angry at him.

He shot me a furious look, once again just managing to look even prettier, his tiara sparkling in his hair. Then he said, "I think I can manage" and lifting his skirt, he went into the bedroom and slammed the door. Jess, Greg and I plopped down on the couch and drank, relieved and exhausted from the day, but after a minute Adam poked his head out the bedroom door and said, "maybe I can use that help after all."

"Of course," I said, giggling.

"Don't be an asshole," he said.

"Of course not," I said. Then added, "Princess."

"Forget it," Adam said, trying to close the door, but I pushed my way into the room.

"I'm just messing with you," I said.

"Well, give it a rest," Adam said. "It's fucked up that you would emasculate me like that in front of our friends."

I looked at him standing there in his pink dress, with his full, firm breasts, but I decided not to push it. I had been a little bit of an asshole. Okay. A lot of an asshole. "I'm sorry," I said.

"Accepted. Now, can you please unzip me?"

I unzipped my husband's dress and helped him out of it. He covered his breasts and went over to the dresser, pulling out another t-shirt.

"Okay," I said. "And this is not me trying to give you shit, but you probably should wear a bra."

"Forget it," he said.

"Well, then you're just going to have to deal with raw nipples and backaches."

"Fine," he said. "I've had enough of wearing women's clothes for one day." He slipped into the t- shirt, which stretched tight across his boobs, then slipped on a pair of cargo shorts which didn't seem too feminine other than being cut shorter than most men would wear. He took the chandelier earrings off, but when he tried to take off the wig it seemed stuck on somehow. "I can't get this wig off," he said.

I tried, too, but it seemed like they had weaved it into his hair somehow. I couldn't make it budge, and much to our collective embarrassment we couldn't get the tiara out either. The bracelets on his wrist were also too small to slide over his hand. They'd been clasped on and then sealed somehow. "Let me see if I can find something to get that wig off," I said.

"You guys coming out to eat?" Jess called. "We're starving."

"Go ahead," I said.

"You know what? Forget it," Adam said, heading for the door. "I'm hungry and my buzz is wearing off. Fuck it."

"Okay," I said, surprised.

Back out in the living room, we found Jess and Greg a couple of drinks ahead of us. Greg had slipped out of his dress and into an outfit similar to Adam's, while Jess and I were still in our blue dresses. Food had been delivered while we were gone, and we dug in, drinking and forgetting about our troubles. For a while we sat around talking about old times, sharing stories, just a group of friends hanging out, not paying attention at all to the changes in us, what had happened. "Anyone up for a walk?" Greg said at one point.

"I'm wiped out," Jess said. "I may go to sleep."

"Me, too."

"I'll go," Adam said, standing.

"Cool. You guys sure?"

Both Jess and I nodded our assent, and the boys went out into the breezy night while Jess and I sat on the couch in a drunken stupor. "What the fuck is going on?" I said.

Jess shook her head, her eyes glassy, drooping. "I'm too tired to even think about it," she said, laying on her side.

I sat there listening to the throbbing of the jungle, my head swimming with booze. I looked at Jess, her five o'clock shadow had gotten pretty thick by now, and I chuckled thinking about how much she did look like Ralph Macchio. She would actually be a cute guy, I thought, and I wondered what it would be like to kiss her.

Wait. What? Was I thinking about kissing Jessica? Because she reminded me of a dude? Was I turning gay?

I stood. The thought scared me, and I didn't trust myself alone there in the cabin with her, so I decided to go find the boys, hang with them for a while. I went out into the night, started looking around, found them sitting on the ground, legs tucked under them, staring into each other's eyes. Their backs were to me, and they were whispering softly. The scene struck me as.... odd...and seeing them looking at each other so intently, with such focus, their faces so close together, each of them smiling prettily, and I again found myself getting a little turned on, so I just watched, and then Greg reached out and put a hand to Adam's cheek, and they came together for a kiss, Adam's tiara twinkling in the moonlight.

I backed away, confused by what I was seeing, feeling, and I went back to the cabin, grabbed what was left of the vodka, and went to my room. I took a drink and started crying, because I was afraid now. Afraid of what was happening to me. To us. And I wanted to kiss Jessica more than ever.

Chapter 4

Adam woke up before me. I felt the bed shift, heard him moving around the room. He went off, I guessed for a shower, then came back smelling of coconut. I pretended I was asleep. I didn't want to face him. Didn't know what I would even say to him at this point. The dresser drawers opened and closed. Finally, I head a woman whisper, "You awake?"

I turned and looked at him. Her? "Oh my lord," I said looking at Adam, hearing my own voice sounding deeper, more resonant. Like a guy's.

"I know," he said, still with that woman's voice. It was a clear, pretty alto, not too high but clearly the voice of a woman, and one that matched his face. He had one slender, girlish arm across his now even larger breasts-- the cantaloupes had blossomed into volleyballs-- and his now had a narrow waist and rounded hips. They weren't as wide as Greg's, but they were definitely a woman's hips now. And just as his arms had taken on the slender, lithe shape of a girl, he now had the rounded, soft legs of a girl as well. The long red hair now cascaded down over his slender, milky white shoulders.

"Shit," I said, sitting up, and immediately noticing my own lack, I looked down to see a hard, flat, hair chest. "Shit," I repeated touching my chest with big, gnarled hands, and I looked at my arms to bulging biceps. "Oh, fuck." Adam's slender, pretty little figure no longer concerned me at all as I jumped up, hurried to the mirror and looked at... a guy. A quick check and I found that I was still a woman between my legs, but that was the only part of me I could see that still looked female. "Oh my god."

Adam came up and stood next to me in the mirror, small and white and soft, his pretty face scared and confused. He was at least a foot shorter than me now, and my head whirled to think that what I was seeing was... us. I turned and put my hands on Adam's soft little shoulders. He tilted his pretty face up to look at me, and his eyes went wide, and he said, "You're so.... tall!"

"Yeah," I said. “I’m so a lot of things now.” I was confused looking into my husband's pretty face, and I turned away, trying to hide my feelings, feelings I didn't even understand. "I'm freaking out."

"Me, too," Adam said.

"Listen, I don't mean to be... whatever, but I need some space. Can I get a minute?"

"Okay," Adam said. "Yeah, but, can you maybe..."

"What?" I said, looking back at him.

He was standing with one hip out, one little arm across his huge breasts, and in his other little hand he held a pale green lace bra. "Can you help me put this bra on?"

I covered my eyes. Shook my head. "Can Greg do it? Or Jess?"

"It's kind of embarrassing," he said.

"I'm just really confused right now."

"Fine," he said, annoyed. "I'll figure it out. Thanks!" He left, slamming the door.

"Shit," I said, putting my head in my hands. "Fuck. What the hell are we supposed to do now?" I got up and looked in the mirror again, at myself, at what looked like a man looking back at me. Shit. My neck was all itchy again, and seeing all that hair on my chest-- my flat chest-- was gross. Looking in the dresser, I grabbed a t-shirt and a pair of the ever-present cargo shorts. The shorts were girl's shorts, but they were my size, and they were baggy on me while the shirt was a little tight, and it clung to my now muscular shoulders and chest. I opened the bedroom door and saw a dude sitting at the table, eating. I knew it had to be Jess.

"How're they hanging?" Jess said in her deeper, dudely voice.

"Good God," I said. "You really do look exactly like Ralph Macchio --now."

"You look kinda like Chris Pratt," she said.

I sat down. "I feel totally gross."

"Me, too."

"Greg?"

"Just like Adam."

"He has boobs now?"

"Yeah. They're in there helping each other put on their bras."

"This is so fucked up."

"Yeah."

"What the hell is really going on here? I think the company set this up. Sent us out here as part of some kind of weird experiment or something."

"I'm thinking the same thing. There's no way this is an accident, especially with all the mind- fuckery they put Adam through yesterday."

"Right. That was all just weird shit to see how he would react, how we would react. And now they're turning us into dudes."

"I think, and I know this is the opposite of what I've been saying, but I think we should just stop playing. I don't want to walk into any more of this bullshit and give them the chance to fuck with our minds anymore."

"So, we just hang here?"

"Yeah. Until the week ends."

"But what if that was all bullshit? What if we are just stuck out here indefinitely? Like the experiment goes on and on."

"Then we still don't play the game. We just hang here and wait."

"God," Jessica said, rubbing her face. "Do think I'm going to grow a penis?"

"I don't want to even think about it," I said. "So gross to have one of those bouncing around in my pants."

"And a stupid ball sack."

"Am I going to start liking stupid things like fantasy football?" I said, chuckling.

"Oh, you won't believe how good my fantasy football team did this weekend!" Jess said, doing her 'dude' imitation. "Der. Der. Der."

"Hey," Greg said, coming out of the bedroom. His voice was higher than Adam's, more girlish. "Are you making fun of me?" Adam came out behind him. They both looked so strange, so small and pretty, with little arms and narrow waists, rounded hips. Greg's breasts weren't as big, they looked like cantaloupes now, but while Adam had much bigger breasts, Greg had the wider, more womanly hips. Greg still had his short hair, while Adam's long red hair that went down past his shoulders, gave him an even more feminine look, and they actually wore nearly matching outfits of tight little t-shirts, and short, short khakis.

I resisted the urge to comment on their looks, though they both took my breath away. Adam was looking me over, his big eyes wide with fascination, but he, too, resisted the urge to comment. None of us really wanted to talk about how much different we looked now, how wrong we looked now.

"So," Adam said sitting next to me. "You guys were saying we should stop playing the game?"

We nodded, and Greg and Adam looked at us expectantly, so I finally said, "what do you think?"

"I agree," Adam said, adjusting a bra strap and squirming uncomfortably. "I don't see any point in playing any more of their games."

"Yeah," Greg said, and I couldn't get over how high pitched his voice was now. "This whole thing is just a cluster fuck."

"So, what do we do instead?" I asked.

"Eat," Adam said.

"Go back to the dome and get more booze," Jess said. "Get wasted."

"But wouldn't that put us back into the game?" Adam said.

"I don't think so. We already passed that point. According to the map, we're supposed to move on now to the radio tower."

"That's where we can call for help," Adam said.

"Supposedly," I said. "But everything we were told about this trip was all bullshit. It's just some kind of fucked up experiment."

"Let's get some booze. Get drunk!"

"Hell," Greg said. "I'm in."

"Me, too," I said.

"Well, okay," Adam said. "But let's just be careful."

"Don't worry," I said. "We won't let them turn you into a princess again."

"Oh, come on, don't..." just then we all grabbed our sides as a wave of cramps hit us.

"What's happening?" Greg said.

But Jess and I knew. We looked at each other. Looked at the boys. And then I said, "Um, it looks like we're all having our periods."

The boys didn't want to believe us until the crimson flow soiled their panties. Then, shocked and humiliated, they listened as we explained how they could use the maxi-pads. I used a tampon. We all took Midol.

I was in the bedroom with Adam as, pad firmly in his panties, he put on a new pair of shorts, and immediately sat down on the bed and started crying. I was, to be honest, grossed out by the fact that my husband was menstruating, but he was crying, and I felt like I should be there for him, so I put an arm around him and kissed him on the head. He threw his arms around me and buried his face in my chest.

"It's going to be okay," I said.

"I'm turning into a woman," Adam said through his sniffles.

"I know," I answered.

"I have ovaries, a uterus," Adam said. My insides are changing, my outsides. I don't look like myself. I don't sound like myself. And now..."

"The monthly visitor."

"It's disgusting," Adam said. "I'm disgusting."

He started to get up, to pull away from me, but I grabbed his slender little wrist and pulled him back to me. "Let go," he said in a small, frustrated little voice, but I pulled him to me and lied, because actually I did find him disgusting, "You're not disgusting. You're my husband, and you always will be. I promised to love you for better or for worse."

"So, this is worse?" He said, looking down at his body, at his breasts.

"I don't know what to say," I said. "I'm struggling myself. I look like a guy, Adam. Aren't you a little, I don't know...." I searched for a word, something that wouldn't offend him or set him crying again... "conflicted?"

"Yeah," he admitted, looking away, wiping his tears from his cheeks. "Yeah. I am."

"We just have to keep going. Keep making it one day at a time."

"Or one hour at a time."

"Let's go. Get some booze. It'll help keep our minds off this stuff, and we can get hammered tonight."

"I don' t know," Adam said, tugging at his tight little shorts, trying to pull them down to cover more of his shapely, sex thighs. "Should we? I mean, since we're, um, in this, um, state?"

"You mean because we're having our periods?"

Adam nodded, blushing.

"You can't stop living because you're on the rag," Jess said.

"You know what? We'll go," I said. "Stay here. Take it easy."

"Well, I don't want you to think..."

"It's fine. It's fine." I felt like I wanted a little time away from Adam anyway, time to think or just some space. So, Jess and I headed out and left the boys sitting at home, chatting.

Chapter 5

We didn't talk much as we made our way back along the path and to the dome. I didn't feel like, and neither did Jess, it seemed. We just tramped along, getting sweaty. It felt good to get some space from Adam, to have time just for my own thoughts. As I walked, I imagined what it would be like to have a package bouncing around between my legs, and I thought it would be gross and annoying, and I hoped if I did get a wiener, it wouldn't be too big. I guess guys just kind of got used to it and didn't think about it all the time.

When we got to the dome, the machetes had been left by the door. The show had been shut down. The plants were still there and the little dinosaurs, but there was no alarm or announcement, and we didn't see any lizard people. Instead, we just made our way down to the office area. "What say we hang here for a while?" Jess said, looking over the bottles of hooch.

"Sounds good to me." I looked over what was there, found some gin, some tonic water. "I hear this is good to stave off malaria."

Jess grunted. Grabbed a bottle of dark rum, found some ginger ale. "Dark and stormy for me. I feel like a pirate. Yar!"

I chuckled. Jess hadn't bothered to shave and now had a pretty impressive growth of dark hair all along her jaw line and around her mouth. "You look like a pirate," I said, my eyes dropping to her broad shoulders, and flat, muscular chest. When I looked back up our eyes met, and Jess stared at me. I felt nervous tingles, looked away, cleared my throat. Sat down, my eyes drifting around the room.

Jess sat down, too, and we just sat and drank in silence. "It's hard for me to think of.... Her... as Greg. As my husband," Jess said out loud, but almost as if she were talking to herself. "I know that he's in there, but when I look at him now in that little body, with that face? When I talk to him, or her, it's like I'm --I don't know--talking to some old college girlfriend or something. There's nothing left of the man I fell in love with. Is that- do you feel the same way?"

I nodded, thinking it over. "What you just said? Yes. But, I go back and forth on it. Like yesterday when all that stuff happened, I was really pissed because they were doing that to my man, and I hated seeing it. Hated it. But then, this morning, it was like you said at time. Like this was just some girl I got stuck bunking with at summer camp and not my husband at all."

"They aren't our husbands anymore," Jess said. "They aren't even men."

"Well, I think..."

"They're having their periods, Taylor. They aren't men. I think my marriage is over."

"Maybe this isn't permanent," I said. "Maybe we'll all get turned back to normal."

"I don't know. I held my husband's hand today and explained how to use a maxi-pad while he cried like a little girl. I don't know that I can ever forget that. I don't know he can ever forget that."

"Adam asked me to help him with his bra, and it just made me so mad. My man isn't supposed to be asking for help getting out of his dress, putting on his bra. I know he hates it as much as I do or probably more, but like you said there's nothing left of the man I married. Nothing on the outside, anyway."

"Isn't that what really matters?" Jess said. "I married tall, ripped, handsome. I married a guy who looked like.... You."

We were looking into each other's eyes, had been for longer than I realized. My head full of booze, I thought about Greg and Adam kissing, figured maybe that made it okay, and like Jess said, they weren't really our husbands anymore anyway, sitting curled up on the couch in their bras and panties. Jess and I moved together, touched each other's faces, and we kissed. I felt her bristly beard, both with my fingertips and against my own face, tasted her, found her tongue, and then I slipped my hand under her shirt and along the ridges of her rock hard abs while she put her hand against my flat, hard chest, and we both kissed, again, and more passionately, and it felt so good to be in the arms of a man that I forgot what I'd become, and I felt like a girl again as Jess pushed me onto my back, climbed on top of me and smiled down with her handsome face before diving in for another kiss.

We both pulled back before it got anywhere beyond high-school level heavy petting, pulling our shirts back on, slamming back our drinks. We both laughed, our deep, masculine laughter echoing around the room. "Okay. That was fun, but..."

"Let's never say anything to our... the boys about this."

"No. And we should probably never talk about it either."

"For sure," Jess said. "Guys do not talk about this kind of thing."

"You said it, bro," I said, putting on a surfer dude accent.

'Yeah, bro."

"Let's eat some beef sticks."

"J-ight!"

"Oh my god. We are the worst dudes ever." I grabbed some bottles and stuck them in the leather satchel. "Well, let's grab as much hooch as we can carry and haul it back to the cabin."

"Sounds like a plan."

We loaded up, and looking at Jess' hard, dudely ass, I couldn't resist the urge to give it a slap.

"What was that for?" Jess said.

"For being such a dude, dude."

"Are we turning into gay women, or straight men?"

'Kinda both."

Jess giggled.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing. Okay. I just pictured Adam and Greg kissing. For some reason, I think it would be kind of hot."

"Yeah," I said, deciding to stick with my plan to keep what I had seen a secret. "Well, straight guys are always into lesbian porn."

"Assholes," Jess said.

"Pricks." I didn't bother to mention that she's just imagined her hot little husband making out with mine. She was just as confused and conflicted as I was, and besides I was too busy looking at her ass and thinking about what a stud she was turning into to worry too much about it.

When we got back to the cabin and unloaded all the booze the boys squealed with excitement. In their old voices it probably would have just sounded like cheers, but now with their new pitches they sounded like a couple of teenage girls at a Justin Bieber concert. They drank. We drank. Someone suggested we go find a beach, so we loaded up food and liquor and picked our way through the jungle, down toward where we figured the island must end, and a twisty narrow trail led us to some old, stone stairs cut into the volcanic rock of the island that led us down to a narrow, black sand beach on a cove, where the crystal waters lapped gently.

"This is awesome," Jess said, setting down the satchel full of booze.

I had carried a cooler with the food, which I also plopped down, sighing with relief. I was certainly bigger and stronger than I'd been, but carrying the cooler all the way down the stairs had left my thick, muscular arms aching. I did feel like a badass, though, and flexed my arm, looking back at Greg and Adam, who had carried towels over their slender shoulders, not even trying to argue when Jess and I had grabbed the heavy stuff.

We were all tipsy, and I don't think Adam had even figured out how to walk with his big breasts and rounded hips, so it was almost funny watching him kind of wobbling along, his breasts bouncing in that tight t-shirt despite the fact that he was wearing a bra now.

"The water looks amazing!" Jess said, pulling off her shirt, revealing her rock-hard abs. "Last one in get motor boated!"

I ripped my shirt off and raced toward the water, trying to catch up with Jess. Glancing back, I saw Adam and Greg, their knees together, eyes wide as they glanced at each other nervously. Jess ran into the bay, water crashing all around her legs, and then she dove into the crystal water, vanishing. I dove in as well, and when we finally came back up, shaking the water from our hair, we saw Greg and Adam huddled together near the water. Adam had his hand on Greg's back, and they were both blushing.

"Come on!" Jess said. "The water is super warm!"

"We don't have bathing suits," Adam said, hooking his hair behind his ear.

"Who cares?" I called back. "Neither do we."

Adam looked at Greg, and they looked back at us shaking their heads. "It's okay. We're just going to get drunk."

I looked at Jess, the water dripping down her face, glistening in her chest hair. "They're ashamed of their bodies."

"I know," she said. "Plus, they have to use those pads. I guess I kind of get it."

We watched the boys walk back and find a spot in the shade, sitting down together, their knees together. Then, I said, "Oh, well," and splashed Jess. "You're it!"

She dove at me, but I backstroked clear, laughing, and she started swimming toward me, both of us laughing. We splashed and swam around, wrestled in the water. She was so muscular, and I was curious to see which of us was stronger, so we grappled and kept throwing each other down into the water, and it seemed like we were about equal. Finally, exhausted and feeling our buzzes fading, we tromped out of the water and made our way back to the beach. Jess immediately flicked water on Greg who squealed, "Hey!"

"Don't even think about it," Adam said, and then I flicked him anyway, but he just laughed.

We plopped down on the sand, poured some booze into plastic cups, drank. "What have you two been chatting about?" Jess said.

"Nothing much," Greg said in his pretty little voice.

"Nothing much," Jess said, grinning wickedly. "That pretty much describes what's in that little head of yours."

"Hey!" Greg said.

'I'm just busting on you a little," Jess said, slamming back the rest of her drink, grabbing the bottle.

We drank for a little while, enjoyed the breeze. Then, Adam said, "This doesn't seem real. I feel like I'm in some kind of nightmare."

Everyone kind of sighed. We'd been trying to ignore it. The weather, the beach, everything was perfect, but we weren't us anymore.

"Why did they do this to us?" Adam said. "That's what I want to know."

"I'd like to know how they did it to us," I said.

"What did we do to deserve this?" Adam continued, the tension in his voice making it rise, get smaller. "I was working so hard for them. Doing a great job."

"I think we were chosen for this from the beginning," I said.

"What do you mean?"

"Think about how hard they recruited us. How eagerly they upped their offers. They were willing to do anything to get us to come out to Wyoming."

"Where no one knew us," Greg said softly. "Where no one would notice we were missing."

"Shit," Jess said. "All our parents are dead, right?"

"Mine and Adam's are," I said. Jess and I had talked about it.

"And we're all only children," Jess said. "We were the perfect lab rats."

"But what about our old friends?" Adam said. "We knew people in Chicago. They'll probably notice. Eventually. Right? When we don't answer emails or phone calls. Don't post anything on social media."

"How often when people move do they say they're going to stay in touch?" Jess said.

"And then you never hear from them again?" I finished the thought.

Adam took a drink. "So, we're dead," he said, tears pooling in his eyes. "They've killed us, and we'll never get our old lives back."

"No," I said, though I had that feeling again, the one I'd experienced before, that this pretty woman wasn't Adam, she was just some girl I knew, and when I patted her on the knee, I understand exactly what she meant, and then I heard the girl who used to be Greg sniffle, her own eyes welling up with tears, and I felt myself starting to cry as well, but then Jess scooped Greg up in her arms and shouted, "time for a swim!"

Greg shrieked, and I scooped up Adam, cradling in my arms. He squirmed in surprise, but I held him tight as I ran toward the water. "No!" He screamed in his high-pitched little voice. 'Put me down! Put me down!"

I was now knee deep in the water, so I said, "If you say so!" And I tossed Greg out into the deeper water, feeling a thrill of strength and power at how light he was, how easily I could throw him through the air like a pretty little toy.

Adam came out the water, his shirt clinging to his breasts, and I could plainly see his little lime green bra through the soaked fabric, his big, fleshy nipples. He was laughing but making an angry face, looking cuter than ever. "You jerk!" He said, splashing water at me, his breasts bouncing.

Greg was shrieking, too, chasing Jess, and we all started splashing around, shouting and laughing, and I was glad Jess had broken the tension. Now that they were all wet anyway, and drunk, the guys stripped off their t-shirts and shorts, swimming around in just their bras and panties, and we all swam and laughed until we were tired, then drank some more and lay on the sand, our clothes hanging from branches, swaying in the tropical breeze. Greg, drowsy, put his head on Adam's belly and curled into a ball, and Adam fitted his soft little body into Greg's, and they fell asleep like two cuddling cats. I gave Jess a smile, and she raised an eyebrow. Sure that our husbands were asleep, we kissed there on the beach, our bodies still wet and salty, and then we lay down, side by side, and fell asleep as well.

Jess woke me, and I opened my eyes to see the sun setting, lighting the water blood red. I was glad the boys hadn't seen us cuddling- it seemed more okay for them to do it to me for some reason--but we woke them, and they sat up, their pretty mouths dropping open. "It's so pretty," Adam whispered, pulling himself away from Greg and taking my hand. Adam leaned against me, and I felt his soft, firm breast pressing into my arm, and it was uncomfortable for me, but I just looked at him and smiled, giving his little hand a squeeze, hoping he couldn't sense how much I would rather have a man at my side; I mean a real man, and not what he'd become. Do I need to keep apologizing for how I felt? Adam was or had been my husband, and I like to think I never stopped caring for him, but the woman he'd become, the pretty little girl in her lace bra and panties--that wasn't the man I had loved, she wasn't a man, and I didn't want her all soft and small and pretty holding me hand, pressing her breasts against me.

Meanwhile, Greg and Jess had moved away down the beach, and they had their arms around each other and seemed to whispering quietly, and I felt an angry twinge of jealousy toward Greg, seeing him to small and soft and Jess' big, strong around his little waist. I wanted to be the one there in Jess' manly arms, but I just sighed and kissed Adam on the head and tried to focus on the sunset and how pretty it was and be glad that at least Jess and I were getting to share this moment even if not exactly as intimately as I would like.

Booze and sun take a toll, and we all slept through the morning. I got up a few times to drink some water, pee. Adam had the covers over his head; all I could see was his curly red hair tumbling out over the side of the bed. I'm sure he must have gotten up a time or two, but I never felt him move. I would sink right back into a deep, dreamless sleep as soon as I came back from a bathroom run. Eventually, I rolled over and the bed was empty. I looked over to see the tussled covers and a single, long, red hair on his pillow. Rubbing my eyes, I heard muffled voices in the other room.

I got up and stumbled out into the living room wearing just a pair of shorts, and Adam and Greg were sitting on the couch, their legs tucked under them, looking into each other's eyes, chatting quietly. As I entered, they glanced at me, and I thought for a second Adam seemed annoyed, but then his face opened up into the brightest smile and he said, "hello, there, sleepy head."

"Hey," I said, plopping down on the couch across from them. "What are you two gabbing about?"

They looked uncomfortable. "Not much," Adam said.

"Come on. What?"

"What it's like being on the rag," Greg finally said.

"Oh." I nodded. "I'm thirsty."

I got up and got some more water. Ate a slice of orange. It stayed down, and my stomach seemed pretty settled, so I ate some more. The boys had stopped talking. Adam was twirling his hair around his little finger. "I'm gonna go outside and - I don't know. Look around or something."

"Okay," Adam said sweetly.

I found a shady spot at the base of a palm tree. Closed my eyes. I was in that shitty space where my mind had grown alert and wanted to do something, but my body didn't have the energy. My mind started to drift back over the past; the Cubs game where Adam had asked me to marry him. Our first dance at the reception. Our first kiss. I had known from that very first kiss that he was the one, the one I would marry, and I had married him, and we'd been happy. So happy. And I found myself crying now as I sat under the palm tree because I knew it was over, and I didn't think I would ever feel that happy again.

"Taylor?" I heard Jess call, her voice still murky from sleep.

"Over here," I said, wiping my cheeks, feeling my morning stubble.

Jess came stumbling around to find me; she actually had a short beard at this point. "What's up?"

"I was just thinking."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

We sat in silence for a while, then Jess said, "Hangovers suck."

We walked back down to the beach. Swam. Lay out on the sand in the sun as it sunk down toward the horizon. Just as the sunset was starting to get good, the sky lighting up in purple and gold, I heard the boys' soft voices approaching, and then we saw them coming out onto the beach. Adam was wearing a teal bikini top and a matching wrap around his hips. Greg had on a hot pink top and a tropical wrap. "There you are!" Adam said, and I noticed for the first time that his voice had gotten higher still.

"We were kinda worried!" Greg said.

They were both smiling.

"Worried about us?" I said, flexing my arm.

Adam's eyes narrowed. "God!"

"Check out the sunset," I said, wanting to change the subject.

Adam snuggled under my arm, and I put it around his soft little shoulders. He smelled like coconut, and his long hair was blowing in the breeze. I resisted the urge to glance over at Jess, and instead I pulled Adam close and kissed him on his soft, smooth cheek. I remembered our wedding again, our vows. I had vowed to stick with him in good times and bad, and though I never imagined that might mean I would have to find a way to love him as a woman, I felt I owed it to him. He was so small and vulnerable now, and what would it say about me if I abandoned him when he needed me most?

"I love you," I said.

"I love you, too," he said. "I love you so much."

I put my hands on his shoulders and turned him to face me, feeling the straps of his bikini top against my palms. He tilted his face back and looked me in the eyes, and we met each other in a kiss. I felt his breasts press against my chest, his full, generous lips against mine, felt his thick, silky hair blowing against me in the breeze, and most of all I drank in the moist, earthy smell of a woman, and it was all wrong, but I just kissed her anyway, my hot little husband, and I felt my hands slip down her smooth back, grasp her full, soft ass, and squeeze as we kissed, and she made a little sighing noise, and threw her slender little arms around my neck, and her bare thigh rubbed against mine, and we kissed and held each other as the waves lapped gently on the shore and the sun set into darkness.

I woke up with the sun the next day. The sun and my first ever experience of morning wood as guys call it. Yup. The big change had occurred, and I was slightly fascinated and totally grossed out to wake up and see that tent pole sticking up under the sheet. I had a penis, and my instant reaction as I looked down at it sticking up so proudly and pointlessly into the air, my first reaction was to start laughing.

"What is it?" Adam said, pulling his hair out of his eyes.

"Oh shit," I said, blushing and putting my pillow over my boner. "Sorry about waking you up."

"It's okay," Adam said, propping himself up on one elbow. "I was half awake anyway. What is it?" He said, looking at the pillow over my groin. "Did you have an accident?"

"An accident?" I realized he was asking if I'd had a leak from my period, but I shook my head, still laughing. "Kinda," I said. Then, feeling weird and playful, I pulled the pillow back.

Adam's eyes went wide and his mouth fell open. Then he fell on his back and threw his little white arms over his eyes. "Oh my god," he said. "I think I've been struck blind."

"You asked."

"My wife has a boner," Adam said.

"Title of your biography."

We both laughed, but then I looked at Adam wondering if this meant he now had a... you know.

The same thought seemed to occur to him at that very moment because he stopped laughing and whispered, "shit."

"What is it?" I said.

"I'm going to go the bathroom and... check something."

He started to roll out of bed, but I grabbed his arm and said, "wait. Adam. If we're going to do this, us, like this, let's be in it together."

He nodded, his cheek blushing. "Okay," he said, softly.

Adam knelt on the bed, the sheets around his legs, and I took one of his hands while he put the other on his belly and let it slide down, down and then his eyes went wide and he said, "Oh!"

"Does that mean?"

Adam nodded, tears flooding his eyes. "I'm definitely a girl now."

I was crying, too, and I kissed him and held him--chest to chest--because it would be way too weird and disturbing for both of us my boner made any contact with his body. But I did feel it kind of twitch as I felt his warm little body against mine, and I had to stifle another laugh.

We got dressed, backs to each other. Everything felt awkward and strange, almost like when we'd first started dating. My penis was definitely making things weird between us, especially since he had a place for to put it. I didn't even want to think about it, so we just went out and started to get some breakfast. The refrigerator and cabinets still had plenty of food in them, and we both opted for cereal. We ate. I made some coffee. Looked at Jess and Greg's door. "I wonder if they changed, too?" Adam whispered.

"I wonder how they'll react when they find out?"

But just then, as if on cue, their door swung open. Jess came out, holding hands with Greg, which seemed odd. Jess' was sweaty, her cheeks flush. Greg's cheeks, ears and even the tip of his nose, were pink, as were his breasts, which were beaded with sweat. I didn't want to believe what I was seeing, but unless I was incredibly mistaken, those two had just had sex.

"Good morning, you two," I said, looking at Jess, who smiled sheepishly.

"Morning," she said, gruffly. "I'm starving."

Greg didn't say anything. He just met eyes with Adam and then seemed to blush even more deeply as he slipped into his chair, a tight little smile on his lips.

I gave Adam and look, and we both kind of shrug smiled, and then decided to let it go, but things now seemed even weirder between the two of us-- and the four of us. We engaged in some small talk-- sure is hot. Wonder how the water is today? Did you hear something on the roof last night?

But then, Jess kind of slammed her fists on the table and said, "I'm going to the radio tower!"

"Whoa! Where did that come from?"

"I'm bored sitting around on the beach. I'm going to go to the tower and see what's what. I don't care if anyone comes with me or not."

"I'll come with you," Greg said in a small voice, taking Jess' hand.

Adam looked at me. We exchanged another shrug-smile. "I don't have anything better to do."

"Let's do it," I said.

Chapter 6

Jess and I grabbed the machetes. The boys didn't even question us about it, but they just seemed to accept that we were the guys now. We slung backpacks with food and water over our backs. The boys wanted to contribute, too, so they each had a backpack with lighter supplies as well. Jess and I took the lead, and Adam and Greg followed behind as we followed the map and made our way toward the radio tower and what we believed was the final test. The first challenge came about an hour into the hike, when we came to a point where the path dead ended into a cliff. It wasn't too high, maybe 10 feet, but there seemed to be no way around it. There was just a rope and what looked like a couple of footholds. I grabbed the rope and pulled myself up to the top of the surprised at how easy it was. "Piece of cake."

"You next," Jess said, handing Adam the rope.

He planted his feet against the wall and started pulling, making a small, pretty grunt, but his slender little arms had no strength. "Let me get better footing," he said, dropping back down to the ground, brushing the hair out of his eyes.

"Maybe I should..."

"I can do it!" He squeaked, then grabbed the rope with his little arms and put one foot against one of the supports. Using his legs, he managed to pull himself up a little, but then he got stuck as he couldn't reach the next foothold. I was on top of the wall, looking down, getting a perfect view of those amazing tits of his down the top of his shirt, and I felt myself getting turned on and shook my head.

"Let us..."

"I can just..." But then his grip gave out and he fell down, landing on his butt, looking up at me through the red hair that had fallen in his face. I could see how embarrassed he was, but he needed to face the fact that he didn't have the upper body strength to climb the wall.

"Tie the rope around his waist, and I'll help pull him up."

I could see Adam was frustrated, but he didn't argue. Instead, he stood up, brushed off his pants and held up his arms while Jess tied the rope around his waist, and then Adam planted his feet against the wall, holding the rope with both hands, and I pulled and he easily rose up the cliff side and then I grabbed his hand and pulled him into a hug. He gave my bicep a grateful little squeeze.

I pulled Greg up next, forgoing the hug, and then Jess climbed up on her own. Watching Greg, I saw him get a kind of cloudy look in his eyes as Jess used her muscle roped arms and powerful chest to pull herself up, and as soon as she got to the top, he tilted his head back and accepted a kiss, squeezing her biceps much like Adam had squeezed mine.

We continued on our way, and it was obvious to me that the trip had been designed as a kind of mind game, as we kept coming across different points where Jess while the men stood prettily and watched. We came to a point where we had to move some large boulders out of the way, for example. Then we had to lift and lay some heavy logs across a ravine. It was all sending the message to us over and over again; Jess and I were the big strong men now, and Adam and Greg were small, weak little women.

Finally, we found a place to stop for lunch. Jess and I pulled off our sweat sopped shirts and hung them on tree branches to dry. Adam's shirt was also soaked, clinging to his breasts, his flower patterned bra showing through the fabric, but he seemed to have gotten over his whole-- I'll show you I'm still a man by showing everyone my tits-- phase, and he didn't react at all except for what looked like a little smile of pleasure, though I wasn't sure. I was finding it harder to read his pretty, woman's face. He'd been less inscrutable as a man. Or, had I lost some of my awareness when I got balls?

Once we'd all eaten and rested, I said, "Jess. Why don't we scout up ahead and see what's what?"

"Will you be okay?" Jess said, turning to Greg.

"Yeah," he said. "Go ahead." They exchanged a quick kiss, so I decided I had better go over and give Adam a kiss as well.

As soon as we were far enough away from the boys, I was pretty sure they couldn't hear us, I said, "Jess. So, did you and Greg... do it?"

"Uh, yeah," Jess said.

"What the hell? What did you do?"

"We fucked," Jess said.

"Yeah, but, like, what kind of fucking?"

"I mean I was all inside him and delivered my payload."

"And he was okay with that?"

"He did it."

"What do you mean?"

"You want all the details? Pervert?"

"I do."

"Come on. Sit down here." We sat on a dead tree that had fallen over. "So. Greg wakes me up. He's shaking my shoulder. I was sleeping on my side. Greg had taken all the sheets, so I was just wearing a pair of shorts. I was, like, 'what?' But I had snapped right awake, and I was feeling something strange happening. I role over, and I have this huge boner practically ripping a hole in my shorts.'

"I kinda reached down and pushed on it, because it didn't really register, or my mind wasn't able to compute because it still thinks I'm a girl and girls don't usually have boners, but it wouldn't go down, and I was actually feeling, like really ashamed, and then Greg says, in this like kind of raspy voice, 'It's okay. I changed, too.'

"I looked at him. I was like, 'you mean?' He says, 'Yeah.' And I notice he's looking at my boner, and his eyes are kind of fuzzy, and he's breathing hard, and his breasts are kind of heaving, and I was, like, what? and then Greg says, 'I want to see it.' He pulls my shorts down, and the thing is like 'boing!' and then Greg actually grabs it and squeezes, and I almost told him-- no, this is too weird-- but then he climbs on top of me, straddling me, and he leans down and kisses me, than reaches back and unclasps his bra, letting his breasts sway free, and his nipples are super hard, and without even thinking I reach up and grab his boobs, and they feel sooooo good, and then he giggles and we kiss and he claws me like a crazy sex kitten and we kiss some more and I am like going crazy because there is this pressure building and then Greg reaches down and kind of slips me inside him, and then he starts riding me, and riding me and I grabbed his soft hips and I'm slamming up into him and then like I just blew up and he had his eyes closed and was biting his lip and then he just threw his head back and made this like little crying sound and...

"It was so weird. I totally banged my husband, and he loved it. So, I guess we both turned gay or something."

"Well, I don't know if I would say you turned gay, maybe you became pan sexual?

Jess stared at me and said, "Yeah. I don't care what you call it. I meant that last part as a joke."

"Oh." And then I laughed, shifting positions awkwardly.

"My story gave you a boner, didn't it?"

"Yeah," I said.

"They say it helps to think about baseball."

We walked back and found the boys sitting together, talking. I have a feeling they were talking about the same thing, and I got excited thinking about that because Adam was blushing and his eyes were wet, like he'd gotten really turned on by it, and I felt like I was seeing him for the first time as he was now, and I felt a very strong desire to make love to him, to see what it was like to be the man.

When we started to get back on the road, Adam said he wanted to lead for a while, and he grabbed the machete. I didn't really care, so I slipped into my slightly more dry shirt and followed behind with Greg, enjoying the view of my husband's sexy little bottom swaying from side to side as he walked. He had a thigh gap-- which actually made me a little angry because I had struggled for years to get one, but my thighs had always been too chubby-- and his long, lean legs were also really turning me on now. I tried to be a little discreet about it, as I didn't want Greg to see me drooling over my husband so openly, especially since he was a she now, too, and I thought it might seem sleazy somehow.

We could get glimpses of the tower now. It was on top of a hill, and the path started to wind around and up the hill, and so we climbed and climbed until we finally reached the radio tower. It was basically an open-air hut set on top of a large, metal erector set looking tower, with an antenna that reached up high into the sky. There was a lift, a simple platform with a pulley system, and so Jess and I grabbed the ropes and began to tug on them, pulling the platform up the length of the tower until we reached the top. Adam and Greg hopped off the platform while Jess and I locked the brake in place, but then I heard Adam scream.

I had my back to him. I'd been locking the brake into place along with Jess, and when I spun around, I saw that a snake-- it looked like a giant python, had wrapped itself around Adam's waist and was now coiling around him. Greg was slapping at it, and I immediately felt my old terror of snakes come fully over me, but then I surprised myself as without really even thinking I charged into the hut, pushed Greg out of the way, grabbed the snake around the head and started to wrestle it. The same thrashed, and Adam screamed again "It's squeezing harder! I can't... I can't breathe!"

I looked back to see Jess straining with the pulley, trying to keep the lift from dropping back down to the ground- we hadn't gotten the brake locked. "Help," she called to Greg. "Get over here."

Greg had fallen on the ground. He was looking back and forth between me and Jess, one hand on his cheek, his eyes wide.

I lost my grip on the snake and it coiled around Adam again, now encircling his ribs right up under his breasts, and he was waving his hands around, his face a mask of terror as he screamed again, this time just an agonized scream of pain, and I ducked to avoid getting slashed by the machete even as I suddenly felt the snake's tail coil around my ankle and start yanking at me, trying to pull me off my feet. The feel of its cool, slick scales against my ankle was so gross, but I focused on Adam, looking him right in the eyes, and saying, "give me the machete."

"What?" He said, his eyes wild with terror. "Ow!"

"Give me the knife! The machete!"

Adam seemed to suddenly realize that he was still clutching the machete in his little hand, and he swung it awkwardly at the snake, but it just kind of slipped off the snake's scales.

"Give it to me!"

"I can do it!" Adam said, swinging it again, and this time he managed to hit the snake more square on, but again the blade just bounced harmlessly off the snake's body. The snake yanked at my foot, and yanked again. I almost fell, and now it had wrapped itself around Adam a third time, and it was crushing his breasts, and then the snake started to wrap itself around his slender little neck, and it licked him on the neck, and he screamed and almost dropped the machete.

"Give it to me," I said, looking Adam right in the eyes. His long red hair had fallen across his eyes, and it was like he was looking at me through a tattered veil, but he finally reached out and handed the machete to me.

I wrapped one arm around the snake, about a foot below its head, yanked it away from Adam and then swung the blade against it with all my might, slicing the head right off and sending it bouncing across the floor. The snake's body let go of Adam and started writhing about spastically, so I kept hold of it, dragged it across the platform and hurled it out the open window to go crashing down to the jungle below.

Adam threw his arms around me. We held each other so tight, and he was crying and we kissed, and then Greg and Jess, having gotten the brake secured, ran up, and Jess was shaking her head and said, "bad ass."

"Are you guys okay?" Greg said.

"I think I'm okay?" Adam said, looking up at me. His pretty face was bright with feminine admiration, and I felt a surge of what I think was manly pride.

I brushed the hair from his face and put my hand on his cheek. "I'm fine," I said, now enjoying the feeling of his soft body against mine.

"Shit," Jess said, kicking the snake head away. "That was a real snake. Are they trying to kill us now?"

"Maybe it wasn't part of the game," Greg said, stepping gingerly over the trail of snake blood on the floor.

"Maybe," Jess said.

I kept my arm around Adam's waist, and the four of us went to look at the radio. It was an old- fashioned radio set up, with a big, clunky, stainless-steel microphone which, like much of what we'd seen, called to mind a something from the 1950s. I flipped the switch, but nothing happened. It seemed dead.

"Look!" Adam said. He'd followed the power chord to a small, hand cranked generator.

"Let's get this going," Jess said, putting a hand on Adam's hip as if to move him aside, but Adam slapped it away.

"I'm not helpless!" Adam cranked the generator. The radio lit up, and we heard crackling and electronic wave sounds coming from the speaker.

Greg picked up the microphone. It was so heavy he had to use both hands, and we could still see him strain, so he set it back down on the desk, leaned down and pushed the button to speak. "Hello?" He said. "Hello? Is there anyone out there?"

Static and waves. "Is there anyone out there?" Greg repeated. "Let's try a different frequency?" He said.

"But which one?" Jess said.

Adam stopped cranking. "There must be a clue somewhere," he said. "Look around."

We looked under the radio, under and around the generator. We looked along the walls. "Nothing," I said. "Maybe we just have to guess?"

"It's a game. We never just have to guess," Jess said.

"Wait," Adam said. "The map. Look at the map. There was something on it."

We looked at the map, and there was a message that had previously made no sense. "Subtract the girl's names. Hex them."

"Are we the girls or are you the girls?" Greg said.

"You're the girls," Jess said, staring at his breasts. "Obviously."

"Well, we weren't when we found the map."

"I think Jess is right," Adam said. "Cause our names only have four letters."

"So, what about subtract the girl's names?" Greg said. "And hex?"

"Turn them into numbers," I said. "Then subtract them."

"What does that even mean?" Jess said.

"I think we're supposed to convert them into numbers using the HEX system."

"What into the what?" Adam said.

"Hold on. Let's try it." I sat down, working it out in my head, glad for those math classes I'd taken along my way to getting my science degree. I decided to assign a decimal number to each letter in their names. Adam= 1, 4, 1, 13 while Greg= 7, 18, 5, 7. I tried different combinations. Came up with different frequencies. Nothing.

"Yeah. That was a good try," Jess said. "But way too complicated."

"Or maybe they did mean our names?" I said.

"Maybe."

Jess, Greg and Adam started to dial the radio to different frequencies, starting at the bottom of the dial. I sat and thought, because I was sure I was on the right track. At one point they seemed to hear something on the radio, something deep in the static, and they called and called, but got no response. I happened to look up just in time to see Adam cross his arms under his breasts and stomp his little foot in frustration, blowing at his bangs at the same time, and I thought, "good lord he really does seem like a princess" and then it hit me. I redid my calculations, jumped up triumphantly and said, "move aside! I know the exact frequency!"

"Okay," Jess said. "We've heard that before."

But I turned the dial, turned it right in an fine-tuned it onto the precise frequency I had calculated, and as soon as I got it right on the number, I left it there and after several seconds all the static cleared away as we got a signal as clear as could be and heard a voice saying.... "tuned to this frequency" .... beep....beep "You have solved the puzzle if you are tuned to this frequency.... beep beep..."

Everyone cheered and I pumped my fist.

"What was the answer?"

"Well, it was to subtract the girl's names. But first, I subtracted Adam from Greg."

"And it was Greg from Adam?"

"No! I had tried that, too."

"So, what was it?" Adam said.

I slipped my arm around his waist and pulled him to me. "I had to subtract Greg, from Princess."

"You're lying," he said, playfully slapping at me.

"No," I said. "I'm not. Your highness. Do you want to do the honors?"

Adam hooked his hair behind his ear, leaned down and pressed the talk button. "Hello?"

We heard a clicking, like a series of switches being activated, and then a cool, calm woman's voice came over the speaker. "Please hold," she said. "The Founder will be with you in a minute."

We all grabbed some water, but waited around the radio. Finally, we heard a burst of static, and then a gravelly voice came through, like a very old man. "When you return to your cabin," the voice said. "You will find an explanation and an offer."

I grabbed the microphone and said, "Wait! We have some questions."

There was a burst of static, but then the woman's voice came onto the microphone instead, and she said, "Please return to your cabin and examine the documents you find there. Good day."

And the radio went to static.

"Asshole," I said.

"What the hell?" Jess said.

"This is such bullshit," Greg said.

"We all looked at Adam, who was twisting his hair around his fingers, looking thoughtful. "Mother fucker?" He said. "That's all I can come up with."

Chapter 7

The walk back to the cabin was not fun. We were all pissed The Founder had said so little, had treated us with such little regard. I mean, I can't say it was a total surprise. He'd lured us out to this island and given us all sex-changes against our will, so were we really expecting he was suddenly going to start treating us with human decency now? Every one of us was in a shitty mood, but we did at least have some hope that once we got back to the cabin, we would get some answers.

When we returned to the cabin, we saw that things had been tidied up, and there was a DVD queued up in the DVD player. The flat screen television was on, and we could see the paused image of an old man in a wheelchair. Jess grabbed the remote and pushed play. We sat down to watch. Adam sat next to me, and I put my arm around him.

"I am The Founder," the old man said. His head was shaking. "And I am dying." He paused, staring at the screen. "All of the work we have been doing has been aimed at sustaining life, and as you yourselves have experienced, we have found a way to completely rebuild a body. However, the legal process of testing a new drug or procedure takes many years, and if I waited until we had gone through all the trials and procedures necessary, I would have died waiting..."

"God damn it!" Jess said. "We are his guinea pigs!"

"Listen!" Adam said.

"And so, we found you. The four of you. And we tested it on you. You are all now young, beautiful and in perfect health. The procedure worked! And you have saved my life. However, we need you to remain in your current bodies."

"Why?" Adam said.

"Just change us back!" Greg said.

"We do not yet know the long-term effects. We do not know if you might suddenly develop tumors or suffer other health problems. The lives of millions depend on that knowledge, and so you must live in your new, beautiful bodies. That choice has been made for you. You may choose to live out your lives here on this tropical paradise where all of your needs are catered to, or you may choose to return to the world with new identities. To accept the first offer, you need do nothing. Simply live out your lives. Details of the second offer are located in envelopes on the kitchen table."

With that, the video ended.

We chose to do none of the above. Whatever the four of us were, we weren't pushovers. We'd been lied to, had our lives and identities stolen, turned into lab rats by a rich asshole who saw us as nothing more than animals to be used and forgotten. We decided we would bide our time, pretend we'd chosen to just stay on the island, but in fact our plan was to escape on our own, get back to the world and then get our revenge.

And so, for a time we played tourist. Adam and Greg would get up in the morning and squeeze into their bikinis, and then we would all go down at hang out on the beach, swimming, drinking and having fun. The Sleestak came by every day to clean the cabin and bring a fresh supply of food and booze, and when Jess asked for it on impulse, they even started to supply us with some very high grade weed. I fell in love with the woman Adam had become. She was so sweet and loving, and she had a killer body which, since she mostly just wore bikinis all the time, was always right there for me to drink in and enjoy. At night we watched movies or mainlined television series, just like people do on the mainland.

Meanwhile, we were gathering parts, building a raft and also a radio, looking around the island for a place where we could communicate with the rest of the world. The Sleestak had to be operating out of someplace, and it seemed like someone would have to eventually bring more supplies.

But then Greg got pregnant. And that changed everything. She wasn't comfortable with the idea of just having her baby on the island primitive style, and as a trained health care professional I wasn't either. So, we finally signed the documents, and agreed to return to the real world in our new identities, with our new sexes and lives. The Founder had assigned our new names. Adam is now Anastasia. I am Cameron. Greg is Jeanette. and Jess is Jeremiah, which he hates more than anything.

Well, more than anything other than The Founder.

We are all being very well compensated for our ongoing work as test subjects. I mean, we have more money than any of us ever expected to see in our lifetimes, with more coming in every quarter.

Anastasia is turning out to be a good little wife, and I have gotten used to being not only a man, but her man.

So, that's my story so far. That's what happened to us. And the thing is, even though we've found happiness, and money, and life is actually pretty good, I can't seem to let go of my anger. MY resentment. Jeanette had her baby, and of course Anastasia and I were there-- we're her godparents, and we do take it seriously. But I always wanted to have a baby. I am supposed to have a baby. I'm supposed to be a woman. And The Founder took that from me. And that's why I am telling you this story now. Because I want to know-- I need to know.

Will you help me kill The Founder?