A Lady in Waiting

Heavy emphasis on mind control, forcefem, cracking an egg wide open and railing her while calling her a pretty princess. I have a kink or two, I hope you all understand! This is all really soft but there's implied/obvious mental changes so if you're not into that, heads up. Some dysphoria and trans feels too but only to precipitate a cutie becoming their true selves.

Hope y'all dig it. It was a blast to write, once I got in The Zone.

**********************************

The clock said 3:00, but Lucas had no idea if that meant AM or PM. He was adrift from the normal day/night cycle, unmoored from his circadian rhythm. Morning, evening, it didn't really matter. He shambled out of a nest of pillows and blankets to slide into his well-worn office chair, clip the state-of-the-art headset on over his eyes and ears, and spend his waking hours pretending he was somewhere else.

Very few people knew more about MMOs than Lucas. His streaming channel and tutorial series brought him a modest income, enough to keep his small apartment's kitchen stocked and the power on. That his livelihood was tied to living in these exciting alternate worlds didn't escape his notice. It was what ate at the back of his mind, along with a dozen other lingering mental splinters he only picked at in moments of quiet reflection. Something he tried to avoid at all cost.

He scrolled through his character list of his latest obsession, admiring the outfits he'd picked out for each one. There were nine characters, all max level, all different classes, and all various shapes, sizes, and flavours of feminine. It was a long standing in-joke among his fans that he always played female characters. It wasn't that he was trans or anything of course, he'd underline in his streams repeatedly for those asking and to people who weren't, it's that he liked the way they had more costuming options. As often as not, he wasn't lying either. So many fun outfits to design with all the myriad dungeons and crafting mechanics available, it was almost a game in and of itself!

He wished life was like that, in a way. The ability to completely change your appearance to something else would be so much fun but...it just didn't work like that. The mirrors that came with his apartment had long been covered up. Sometimes he thought of himself like a vampire, lacking a reflection. If only that were true.

A trio of knocks shook him from his reverie. He yanked off the headset in a hurry, stumbling over a stack of cardboard on his way to the door. Peering out the peephole, he saw nobody. Maybe a kid playing a prank, he reasoned, but decided to unlock the door and look out anyways. There, at the foot of his door, was a package.

As a mildly popular streamer, this wasn't unprecedented. Sometimes he got a hat or a shirt or something from a dev or a marketing team, hoping for some positive coverage. Most of the time he ignored them.

"If I am going to sell my soul," he muttered aloud, "it's not gonna be for a funko pop."

This one didn't have any gaudy branding or garish logos. It was bland brown shipping paper, the kind his Grandma used to use to ship knitted scarves to him when he was a kid. He bent down to pick it up, but his initial effort left him straining. This wasn't some shirt or a hunk of plastic in bubble wrap. With a grunt of effort he managed to lift it, crab-walking back into his apartment and dropping the heavy box onto the floor.

"The hell did they send me, gold bars?" he quipped, then made a mental note to add a line like that to his script somewhere. He could punch it up later. The wording had the right cadence but the punchline didn't quite pop. The realization that he was workshopping his mail to himself hit him, and Lucas closed his eyes. He really did have Terminal Streamer Brain.

The box had stamps from all over the world on it. Either someone had fucked up and sent it around to the wrong direction a couple times, or someone had went to a lot of effort to hide its original sending address. Well, at least it wasn't ticking.

A quick swipe with a boxcutter through the paper and another through the packing tape and he had the top open. A puff of packing peanuts spilled out onto the floor, others clinging to his fingers that he flicked off to pick up later. The first item he found was a black and white booklet.

'Congratulations, and welcome to the exciting world of Castles and Conquest VR!' its title page proclaimed. Now THAT was interesting! CaC was one of those projects most people considered vapourware: projects in perpetual development that would never be released. He'd made a couple listicles proclaiming as such for his channel, but there were always whispers that it was something more. He tore into the rest of the packaging, clearing it out to reveal a VR setup unlike anything he'd ever seen before!

It was pink, first of all, but a cool neon pink like some kinda cyberpunk sign. It was also much smaller than it should have been. Most VR rigs were dressed up combination ear phones and visor. This was little more than a headband. Little reflective nodes that looked kinda like gemstones were scattered throughout a weaving, branching silver design. If it didn't weigh so much, he would have thought that it was some dollar store tiara.

He took a moment to pinch himself. This had to be a setup. Ever since VR exploded, there have been dozens of new systems that had promised the world, only to reveal it had been a scam or a stealth crypto miner or something else nefarious. Despite its weight, it could be little more than one of those janky nondescript VR sets in the game dev commercials. He wasn't so entirely guileless, but the allure of being given an entire rig to test was pretty remarkable.

He read on: "You've been selected for the exclusive testing program of both this exciting new gaming experience and its revolutionary proprietary VR system. The Tactile, Image, and Audio Resonation Apparatus is no mere display device! It had the capability to project the game directly into your mind!"

Alarm bells went off again. Direct mind interaction stuff was supposed to be only in the prototype stage, right? How had they gotten access to it and put it in a video game, and why was it on his doorstep for free? It was a lot to handle. But, with a growing feral grin, he thought of how much his channel would blow up if he had the very first review of this. The sponsorships he could get...the bits! It might be enough to let him move to some place bigger, with a water heater that didn't occasionally wake him up with the sound of the world ending or the sounds of loud arguments on the other side of his thin walls. Whatever stroke of luck or fate that had got him this chance, he was going to exploit it.

The rest of the box's contents were cables, a set of adapters, a whole SSD, and an AC Adapter so large it looked like it belonged on a Soviet submarine. Whatever game this was, it had some serious power requirements. While the process ran, he set up everything he'd need and skimmed the instructional booklet. Along with some typical VR concerns like smacking your hand into a wall or falling over, there were a lot of warnings about overuse. It was set to automatically boot the player after 3 hours and not let them return for 30 minutes as a kind of safeguard against compulsive use. Lucas figured that was just marketing. Movie promoters in the 50s used to guarantee free funerals if you were 'scared to death' during their schlockbuster horror films. Likely a gimmick, but intriguing nonetheless. If he wanted to leave before then, the booklet said that all he had to do was think the words 'I want to leave'.

The preparations complete, he gently applied the tiara to his forehead. It stuck there through some molecular process he didn't understand, something to do with air pockets. He gave it a twist, and it popped loose again. Sufficiently placated he wasn't going to be stuck with a piece of gaudy jewelry to his face for all time, he stuck it once more and readied the boot sequence. A part of him still figured it was an elaborate prank, but if it was, it'd still make for good content. He got in a comfortable position in his chair, reached for the keyboard, and touched the Enter key.

***

An explosion of light akin to daybreak after a year in a cave assaulted Lucas' senses. Nerve endings and synapses fired, twisting their purposes in ways they were never meant to go. His whole concept of self was shoved roughly through an infinite length of fiberoptic cables, reforming only after nearly reaching a breaking point. All this, an eternity of baffling sensation, only took a second of real time. One blink, he was in his apartment. The next, he was Here.

Where Here was took a while to resolve. At first he existed in an untextured labyrinth of polygonal shapes. A primitive 3D architecture that would make denizens of the 90s gawp, but not much else. Then the data filled in. The walls gained not only colour, but scale, temperature, surface detail. They were stone, large blocks of granite or something, with glints of mica sprinkled throughout. They shimmered in the light of a huge chandelier, which burned with an incandescent glow from lightbulbs made of giant crystal. Furniture grew from undifferentiated blobs into a massive dining table, fit to seat the dozen chairs that popped into existence. As Lucas turned, another pulse of detail made the ground behind him pitch upwards. A slightly raised dais, on which an elegantly carved wooden throne manifested.

So he was in a throne room! Castles and Conquest was the game's name, after all. But who's? Was he the liege lord in this game? Or one of a dozen brave knights who would do their lord's bidding?

"Your Highness!"

Lucas spun around. Emerging from a doorway that bled off into a digital void strode a tall, comely woman wearing gleaming metal armour. Long golden hair tied in an elegant braid trailed down the back of her polished steel plate. As she approached, the armor pitted and scratched itself, as if filling in the details of a dozen hard-fought battles. She stood an inch or two taller than Marcus, something he found more alluring than intimidating. There was just something about a woman who could most assuredly kick his ass.

"Are...are you talking to me?" he asked.

She nodded, smiling. "Welcome, my liege, to the world of Castles and Conquest. My name is Kara, and I will act as your guide." She held out a gauntleted hand. Lucas took it, his eyebrows raising as her powerful grip clasped his and easily overwhelmed him. Incredibly, it felt identical to doing the same thing in real life! Whatever the tiara was doing in his brain was simulating weight, warmth, strength, pressure, everything that might hint he was in a simulation. More realistic than a dream, even. It was a miraculous achievement!

More to the point, despite the metal gauntlet separating them, Kara felt like a real flesh and blood woman underneath the steel. A tall, strong, powerful woman. Lucas couldn't help but flush. Whoever had designed this program was brilliant!

"My liege?" she asked. He'd been lost in his own thoughts, and even though Kara was a computer program, he felt a little silly being lost in thoroughly unchaste thoughts right in front of her.

"Erm, sorry. This is just...a lot to take in. What kind of game is this, anyway?"

Kara gave a shrug of her broad shoulders. "This realm can be anything you want it to be. Some enjoy the experience of managing a kingdom, others partake in pitched battles or thrilling combat with monsters of tooth and claw. You can be the centre of attention or a brilliant chessmaster from behind the scenes. All of that is up to you, your Majesty. But first, we must do something about your apparel!"

Lucas looked down and gasped. He'd been so captivated by the eerie reality of the VR simulation that he hadn't noticed he wasn't wearing a single scrap of clothing! He covered his junk with one hand, then realized that even limp he needed both to protect his modesty. His arm went over his chest for a moment before he redirected it down to join his other hand. Guys didn't mind going shirtless, he reminded himself.

"W-what the hell? Why did it drop me into the sim with no clothes?"

Kara shook her head. "Perhaps they did not form as readily in your mind's eye as your body did. It doesn't matter why. To command respect, you'll need garments of the utmost quality. Quick, follow me!" She led the way towards a heavy open door off from the throne room. It opened to reveal a thin spiral staircase lit by torchlight from equidistant sconces parallel to the steps. Lucas followed closely behind, worrying that somehow this computer program would judge him as some kinda flasher. His bare footsteps made slapping noises on the cool flagstone, though they were practically silent compared to Kara's heavy sabatons clanging with her urgent stride.

After ascending for at least a solid minute, the staircase emptied out into a gorgeous bedroom. A four poster bed draped with curtains sat in the middle of a dozen different oak furniture pieces. Armoires, chests, drawers, and a huge vanity complete with an anachronistically clear mirror. To Lucas' confusion, the predominant colour to the fabrics was pink, or at most a salmony red.

"This is my room?" Lucas asked, his brow furrowed. Wrapping a part of a curtain around his naked lower body, his skin sang as the soft fabric slid effortlessly along his skin. Why were guy clothes always so scratchy, anyways?

"This is the room of the Regent of this castle, and if you're the Regent, then this is your room. If it's not to your liking, we can always commission the castle's staff to appoint it to your preference. But first, we must get you dressed!"

Kara opened the twin doors of a massive carved armoire to reveal a cavalcade of colours. Striking reds, blues, greens, and purples mingled together like a textile rainbow, bookended by white and black on either side. More hue variety than he'd ever had in his life, but as Kara pulled out a few to lay them on the bed, more questions arose.

"These...are these dresses?"

"Of course," Kara said, almost dismissively, "I said you'd be getting dressed, didn't I? If you'll be the Regent, you need to look respectable." She marched over to a dresser, where other items of clothing found their way onto the bed. Bras, panties, corsets, petticoats, a veritable buffet of feminine fashion. Lucas let the curtain fall from his hands and quickly put one of the dresses in between him and the armoured guide. They were rather gorgeous, and he always did play as female characters in RPGs. Would this really be any different?

"You sure we aren't broadcasting this to anyone?" he asked, pressing the beautiful cerulean gown to his chest to check the fit. To his surprising chagrin, he didn't like his chances. The garments were meant for someone with a much different body type.

"I'm not sure what that means, but if you're asking if anyone is watching this from afar, rest assured they are not. A Regent's privacy is paramount!"

Lucas nodded, still a little unsure. He set the dress down and grabbed at some of the underthings. He chose some panties of fine white silk. Sliding the fabric in between his fingers, he shuddered. It made the boxers he wore in real life feel like burlap. Getting them to fit might be a problem, however, and he noticed a slight incline to his cock. He blushed furiously, but if Kara noticed, she didn't let on.

"I...umm...I don't know if these are going to fit me," he said.

Kara nodded. "That may be true. Fortunately, as a Regent, you have full control over your body shape."

His eyebrows shot up. "I do? Are there, like, controls or something?"

This made the knight grin again. "No need for such crude contrivances. Just imagine how you'd like to appear to others, and your will shall be done. As is your right!"

Lucas looked skeptically down at a reasonable facsimile of the same old body he'd hated to get photographed in anywhere he went. How had the game gotten that, he wondered? Having full control of his form had always been a dream, but just being given the ability without earning it felt a little...dangerous. What if he messed up? Well, he reasoned to himself, he could start small...so to speak. The dresses seemed to be made to fit someone slightly shorter than his 5'10. He thought about shrinking, but nothing happened. He focused harder, wishing with all his might that his character would reduce in size. Kara put a reassuring hand on his shoulders.

"Think about what form would make you the most happy. Embrace that."

He tried again, relaxing this time instead of straining towards his goal. He tried to picture himself, a version of his body in his mind's eye. Gradually, he imagined himself shorter. Nothing at first. He kept his self-image locked in place, refusing to let it waver. He felt a tingle run up his spine, down his extremities, like a chill without the cold. When he opened his eyes again, it was to a miraculous sight. He really was shorter! By at least a few inches, as far as he could tell. His eyes now came to the nape of Kara's neck, much to his delight.

"It worked!" he said with delight. His initial reluctance forgotten, he raced to put on one particular dress that had caught his eye. A flowing purple number with frills and flares that made it look like a blossoming iris. He'd never worn a dress before in his life, but it slipped on as naturally as anything else he'd ever worn. Like he was meant for it. It didn't hang quite right, however. It had been tailored to conform to a more curvier form. Logically, he'd have to make another few changes to his character's body, though the distinction between his avatar and his self was rapidly blurring to his overstimulated mind.

He pictured the dress fitting perfectly, down to the angstrom. He watched the figure in his mind twirl, the skirt spinning out with him as the tingling returned. Chest, hips, and thighs pushed outward from his skin, body shifting effortlessly to accommodate. It felt incredible, and he wanted to feel it more! What would the Regent of this kingdom truly look like. Gorgeous chestnut hair, he reasoned. And it slid down his neck in a luscious waterfall. Perky lips and long eyelashes, which grew into place against a probe of his finger. He realized he didn't even need to shut his eyes anymore, and watched with a gasp as the colour of his fingernails changed to match the purple of the dress.

"It's...it's like magic!"

"Just one of the many benefits of being the Kingdom's Princess," Kara said with a mirthy glint in her eye.

Lucas froze. "Princess? I thought I was the Regent?"

"The Princess is the Regent, here. Of course, if you'd prefer, we can still call you Regent. Of course, if you stick with Princess, we might have to do something about the name."

"My name?" Lucas asked, a tugging at his heart long ignored popping back into the fringe of his awareness. An old wound aching in proximity to rain.

"Well, Lucas does not befit a Princess. Princesses are elegant, graceful, and above all figures of immense respect. A more noble name is needed. You assign such appellations in your world, I believe?"

Lucas thought about it. Maybe something like a username, something for the game to call him by. His character. Or...was his character a she? Was...he shook his head. This was all a little too much. As he lost his balance, Kara's arms snapped out and caught him. The Princess' skipped a beat.

"My...my name," the Princess began, gazing up in wonder at the gorgeous emerald irises of her companion, "Shall be...Iris. I've always liked that name. And it fits with this dress, don't you think?"

Kara carried her over to the bed, where the other dresses had vanished back into the armoire, as had the other clothing options. The moment of irreality slipped entirely past Iris's awareness. She locked her focus onto her knight.