"What the hell does she mean, she's concerned about some of the study results?"

"I don't know. You heard the same answering machine message that I did."

"She's losing it. That is the only explanation. She's got to be losing it." Felix paced as he seethed.

"Possible, but that would support her claim that the results need to be reviewed again," José smiled.

"But we've been over and over it. She is more cautious than my maiden aunt from Dubuque. The only irregularity we found in any of the animal or human testing was the pre-viral clusters still in her body and they're not a problem."

"Maybe they are."

"Oh no you don't, I'm not going to let you sucker me in this time. I know I am right and I can prove it. Here, look at the chem profiles."

"No sir, Dr. LaPierre is not in today."

"No I don't know when she'll be back."

"I'm sure she new about the meeting sir. I put it into her daily calendar myself."

"Yes sir, it was sudden, but she did leave a message telling us she needed to take some time off."

"No sir, we haven't notified the authorities."

"Yes sir, if you insist."

"Have a good..." Patrice DeJesus was speaking to a dead telephone. As usual, the most distasteful part of her job was speaking to Dr. LaPierre's boss. She had once heard Calvin Coolidge described as a walking pickle. She did not know much about presidential pickles, but she often wondered if Carlton Maldonado went through life with one stuffed into a very uncomfortable bodily crevice. With a resigned sigh, she dialed the police.

He had said, "Yes." Georgette had wanted to run over to him and hug him, but that would have sent the wrong message so she merely nodded and said "Thank you, Paul."

The next morning we began researching the changes. There were now two occurrences to start with and we discussed what had happened each time in minute detail. Maybe it was his lawyer's skill at reading people's emotions, but it was Paul who observed how angry I had been when I had changed.

"I have no clue how an emotional state could trigger a change of physical form, let alone control it's shape, but we've nothing else to go on so let's try it."

"Okay. What form do you want to try for Georgie-Girl?"

"I guess my old male one -- and don't call me Georgie-girl."

"Fine," he agreed, but with less enthusiasm than I had expected. "Just don't change into bimbo-Georgie. I do not think I could handle that. Oh, and would you prefer I called you Shirley?"

"Shirley? Now what the heck are you talking about?"

"How quickly they forget. It was a running gag in the movie "Airplane." Someone would ask Leslie Nielson if he really meant what he said, something like "Surely, you don't mean that." and he'd respond, ending his dialogue with 'and don't call me Shirley'."

I groaned. What else could I do?

"So now, if I need to 'Paula' joke out to calm you if you get too mad, I 'Tina' good way would be to call you 'Shirley.'"

I did not even bother to groan that time.

"What's the matter Georgie-Girl? No sense of humor?"

"That's not humor. That's a pun."

"And you're heavy and not my brother. Of course a pun is humor, possibly the highest form of humor."

"Are you crazy? How can a pun be the highest form of humor?"

"What? Where were you educated, a pig sty?"

"The same college as you, or have you forgotten?" I was getting annoyed now. He seemed to have gone off on a meaningless tangent rather than helping me study the change.

"I know that Georgie-Girl, but you must have slept through your classes. Don't you remember Professor Kensington's class in English Literature?"

"It was Professor Grisham and you took that class, not me. I took the class on Shakespeare."

"It was Kensington, Georgie-Girl, and I suppose now you're going to tell me that Shakespeare never used a pun in a single one of his stolen plays."

"What the hell is going on here? Have you lost your senses? Who the hell cares about puns? We need to get back to the business at hand."

"No, you need to admit you're wrong. Shakespeare actually wrote the first pun, something about a jester and a noose."

"Paul! Stop this instant!" I stood and all but shouted in his face, but then buckled over in pain.

Instantly Paul was by my side, helping me back to my seat on the couch. "Now focus Georgie-Girl, focus on who you want to be. Focus on George LaPierre. Do it, damn it."

I focused, but nothing happened. The pain was there, the tingling that seemed to foreshadow a change, but I was not changing.

"Damn it. Change you stupid slut." Paul slapped me.

I was shocked. Through the haze of pain, I tried to slap him back, but he just blocked the blow and laughed at me. He laughed at me like I was the stupid slut he had called me. I wanted to kill him, but then I felt the changes overwhelming me and realized what he had been doing.

It was better than the previous time in that the pain was more bearable and I did not lose consciousness or even need to close my eyes against the pain. This time I could see the changes. I was becoming the slut I had just envisioned.

Frantically, I tried to refocus on my male body, but it did not work. My hair again grew out, this time into a curly black mop that extended to just below my shoulder blades. My breasts grew again, causing pain from my now too tight bra. Most surprising, was my skin. It turned a light coffee color. I guess there are small pockets of prejudice in the best of us, but the thought that I had become a black person actually worried me.

As the pain began to recede, I checked my watch. The entire transformation from noted transgendered Caucasian researcher to mulatto whore had taken about half an hour. As I stood and took off my tee shirt and now too small bra, I noted that the pain seemed to be less each time I changed. That is when Paul came back into the great room with a huge stack of pancakes oozing in maple syrup and butter. All other thoughts were going to have to wait until I had finished eating.

"Paul?" I popped the last bite of a pizza with the works into my mouth and sighed. I was sated, well at least for food I was sated.

"Yeah, Georgie-Girl?" Paul came out of the kitchen still carrying a dishtowel.

"I realize what you were doing before, trying to get me angry. It worked. Thank you."

"Good, now how about putting a bathrobe on or something?" he said as he turned back to the kitchen.

"Paul?" I stood and slid out of my jeans and panties.

"What?" He turned back and his eyes turned into huge saucers. "What the hell are you doing? Get dressed."

I walked towards him, making sure that my hips swayed noticeably as my left hand cupped and stroked my breast. "I'd like to thank you."

"You did," he growled. "Now get dressed damn it."

However, I was having none of that and I pulled him close to me. I had promised myself that I was going to discover my feminine side and I was damned if I was not going to do it right then and there.

Remember that hindsight we have discussed before. Here we go again. To say that my attitude at this point was dramatically different from what it had been an hour or so ago would be an understatement. My best guess is that I had inadvertently visualized myself as a whore and my vision of a whore was someone who had a phenomenally high libido. I will skip the biochemical discussion of estrogen, progesterone and about twenty other hormones and proteins flooding through my body, the result was that I was horny as hell, with minimal self-control and no shame. I knew what I wanted and I was going to get it.

When I grabbed him, Paul stepped back, bumping into the wall and I closed the space between us before he could dodge to the side and through the door. Again, grabbing him, I threw my arms around his shoulders and planted the biggest, wettest, sexiest kiss I could imagine on his mouth, and yes, we played tonsil hockey.

By the time I let him up for a breath, I could feel him rising to the occasion and I let one hand drop to his crotch. That is when the front door shook from someone pounding on it.

"Ignore it and they'll go away," I breathed huskily into his ear.

"Police. Open the door please."

Oh, shit.

Paul pulled away from me and quickly strode to the door. "Get dressed," he hissed back at me.

Ignoring him, I sauntered up behind him as he opened the door and began playing with his ear and kissing his neck. He opened the door just a crack. I guess the little dear wanted to preserve my honor. I giggled at the thought.

"Are you George LaPierre or Paul Goldblum?" There was a very large -- I think it's part of the job description -- state trooper outside the cabin.

"I'm Paul Goldblum. Can I help you officer?"

He saw me standing behind Paul and I smiled sexily at him. Two would be even better than one.

"And what's your name ma'am?"

"Why I'm whomever you want me to be officer," I cooed through half closed eyelids as I tried to look sultry and adjusted my position to let a bit more of my breast peek out from around Paul.

"She's my girl friend, Wanda," he poked me with the elbow still hidden behind the door. "Wanda Langkowski."

I tried not to laugh at his choice of names. His reference was to a character from one of our favorite comic books. The cop's expression made it clear that he didn't think I looked like any Langkowski he'd ever seen, but all he said was "Would you please step outside sir?"

"I guess so officer."

"Oh never mind." I was frustrated, but I wanted very badly to hear what he had to say. "Come inside officer. I'll get dressed." I made sure to give them both a nice show as I vamped my way to the bedroom to get dressed. Throwing on a bathrobe, I was quickly back in the great room and sitting next to Paul playing innocently with his hair.

"What can I do for you officer?"

"We're looking into the whereabouts of a Ms. Georgette LaPierre."

I'm not one of those people who get upset when people don't use proper honorifics like "doctor," but I was beginning to dislike this minion of the law, if for no other reason than he was interfering with my constitutional right to the pursuit of happiness.

"I've been out of touch with Dr. LaPierre for quite a while officer. Is something wrong?"

"We'd like to talk to her," he said with that solemn unaffected face made so popular by Joe Friday. "I understand you had a date with her about three days ago."

"Yes, we were to meet at the base NCO Club, but she never showed up. I figured she was involved in a research project that she couldn't leave unattended."

"Didn't she call you to explain that she'd be busy?"

"No. Dr. LaPierre is a wonderful woman, but when she gets an idea in her head she can be quite focused." Paul glared up at me, frowning as he gently pushed my hand away from the front of his shirt where it was slowly approaching his nipple.

"The gate records from the local military base show you left with a woman. Can you tell me who she was?"

"I'm sorry officer, I met her that night and haven't seen her since. She never gave me her name." I swatted him playfully as if I were jealous, which when I thought about it, I was, even if it was me he was talking about.

The officer sat thoughtfully watching me as I clung to Paul so I bent over a bit more to give him a better view of the merchandise. He promptly cleared his throat and stood up.

"Here's my card. If you hear from Dr. LaPierre have her call me as soon as possible." With that, he gave us both a noncommittal nod and left.

I almost laughed aloud when I noticed him walking a bit stiffly. While I resisted laughing, I could not resist a parting shot so I called out after him as innocently as I could, "Oh officer, does that leg wound hurt?"

He just glared at me as he left, which gave me the opportunity to return to my previous research topic. Unfortunately, Paul had other ideas. I knew he was interested, I could see the bulge, but instead of letting me complete my research project, he grabbed me by the shoulders and quick marched me into the bedroom.

"Go to bed. Take a cold shower if you need to. We'll continue this in the morning." He shoved me through the door and started closing it. "And don't even think of sneaking out here during the night."

Of course I did sneak out of my bedroom, about fifteen minutes later, but he had locked the door to his bedroom. Spoil sport.

The week was nearly up and I was back in my standard issue female body. Paul and I were reviewing the findings to date as we savored the last of our morning coffee.

"Okay, we've established that the process is painful, but becoming less so with practice. It seems that I can change into just about any female shape within about thirty minutes. The transformation is triggered by anger or, more accurately, the increase in Epinephrine in the blood stream to some as yet undetermined level and the outcome is the result of focused visualization on my part. The body bathes the brain in hormones and protein complexes that can significantly effect the thought process and emotions."

Paul nodded and sipped patiently at his coffee while he waited for me to finish. He knew I would never be able to move on until I had clarified the issue for myself. "So is it my turn now?"

"I think so. As far as I can tell, I've completely summarized the status of the research to date."

"Good." Paul pulled a legal size canary notepad from the kitchen counter and began leafing through it. "Then it's time to discuss some basic issues like how to explain your disappearance, how to stop the human testing project, how, if at all, you are going to use your new ability and last but not least, how do we proceed with our personal relationship. I still think you should have called that police officer. It would have simplified things tremendously."

"You're almost certainly correct," I sighed, "but this research would never have gotten done if I had."

"Well, it's water over the bridge, but we need to explain where you were in a way that either can be verified or at least settles any possible questions of impropriety or espionage."

"Why not just tell the truth?"

"We could, but then I need to have a justification for lying to an officer of the law, that is unless you're planning to support me in the manner to which I've grown accustomed," he grinned slyly.

"Why sure honey-chile, come sit on Momma's lap."

"Right," he laughed. "But seriously, we could say we were having an intense interpersonal experience together and didn't want anyone to know it. People would interpret that to mean 'torrid affair' but I can live with that if you can."

"I suspect I would find it even more acceptable if it were true," I answered wistfully. It had not taken long for me to make up my mind about our personal relationship, now I was eagerly waiting for Paul decide I was serious and follow suit.

"To do that we need to be able to explain my night of wild abandon with the fiery Wanda. We could say it was you in heavy makeup. Of course, it would help if the cop is blind."

"I doubt he's blind, but anything else would start getting complicated. I seem to recall you telling me to keep things simple when dealing with the legal system."

"A disciple," his charming boyish grin was back. "I have a disciple. An excellent point and it is even true. If we stick together on that, it will be his word against ours and he probably will not care too much as long as you turn up and no one finds any other irregularities.

"Next we need to decide how to stop the human testing project. That one is probably more in your ballpark. Any ideas?"

"Well, there are a variety of options, but none of them are optimal. Simplest would be for me to reveal what the treatment has done to me to the rest of the team and ask for their support."

"And become a lab rat. It is your choice, but I would certainly recommend against it. Of course, one variation of that would be to go public. No, filth like the National Enquirer^® would be the only ones likely to cover something so patently outrageous. Can you imagine a paper like the New York Times^® headline? 'Researcher discovers Regenderification Process'. Even if they published the article, no one would understand it enough to read it."

"I could just resign," I mused aloud. "No, that would just delay things a bit and I wouldn't be there to prevent the human testing after the short period of time it would take for the research team to come up to speed on the few pieces I've held back."

"How about an anonymous letter to the FDA with copies to a few well-placed muckraking news people?"

"Tempting, and a good idea on the surface, but there are less than fifty people in the entire world who know anything about the project and maybe five who could provide sufficient technical information to make a credible presentation to the FDA et. al. Even if I were to pretend to be outraged by the disclosures, I would be top of the list as informer and would never work in the field again.

"Lets set this aside for now. It doesn't seem to be going well," I sighed in frustration. "What was the last issue again?"

"You mean 'what to do with your new ability' or 'how to proceed with our changed relationship'?"

I could not resist. He'd made it clear that he would not act until he was certain it was right for both of us, and had reaffirmed that position after we realized that different forms affected my personality differently. Even if he was not going to take advantage of me -- the little dear -- I knew that, if I had to go down, I was going to go down swinging. I gave him a saucy smile and went for it.