Changing Rooms Ch. 03

Recap:

Road accident survivor Carl "Rusty" Russell quickly became gym buddies with the stunning Laurie Palmer. Months later their firm friendship became more after a more than flirtatious encounter in the sauna. Kicked out of the women's changing rooms, Laurie ended up sharing a shower with Carl, revealing that she's a shemale.

Their relationship becoming another level of physical, they soon ended up in the shower again at Carl's apartment, and then satisfying each other in Carl's bed. Laurie made it perfectly clear that if their relationship continued the way it recently had, that she would end up fucking him.

Besotted, spell-bound, and driven to levels of lust never before encountered, he cannot stop!

1

Don't stop believing...

'Hold on to that feelin', yeah,' Andy Davison wailed comically, his face distorted into a cliché rock star grimace. He slung on his jacket and then fist-pumped the air, nodding along to that old Journey classic, more than ready to break into an air-guitar solo. Laurie couldn't pick up the phone quickly enough.

Glancing quickly at the clock, it read quarter past six. She was late and she was tired as hell after last night. 'Hey,' she cooed. Blushing Andy wished her a good evening before heading out for the evening.

'Hi, how are you?' came the sound of Carl's gentle, smoky tones. 'I know I'm calling a bit early...'

'That's okay,' she excused. 'I just got off.' Laurie slung her handbag over her shoulder, then weaved her overcoat through the straps to dangle there as she made for the door. 'You gymming it tonight?'

'I don't know. To be honest I still feel a little drained from those extra leg curls,' he said with a hint of mirth to his words. 'What about you?'

'Sure, the leg curls. That's what it was.' Laurie was grinning already. 'I'm pretty tired myself to be honest. I think I need to catch up on some rest...'

Laurie headed into the clinic car park. It was pitch-black out there, save for the streetlight over the lot and the cold blinding river of headlights charging up the dual-carriageway. At the same time, Carl was stood in his little bathroom stall, half-stripped out of his cycling gear. His hands still blue from the freezing rush of wind that resisted him all the way home from work.

'Yeah I'm just about to grab a shower,' he said casually, and then left a pregnant pause. 'I rode to and from work today, first time since...'

'How was it?' Laurie pursued. 'Are you okay?'

'Yeah it wasn't terrible. I was a bit anxious,' was all he offered. 'I don't miss the fucking kamikaze private hire taxis!'

'Well done, you,' Laurie said warmly. He could hear the smile on her lips. He didn't know how but he was sure of it.

'Thanks. I, err... I wanted to ask something,' he stuttered. When she asked what; 'If someone asked you out on a date, what would be your ideal evening?'

'It depends,' she responded with restrained amusement. 'Err, I mean right now?'

'Well it depends on what day would be ideal too,' he supposed awkwardly. He hadn't planned on being so sudden either. His anxiety these days didn't leave him in the habit of spontaneity. That being said, he was a different person around her. 'Just say what springs to mind. I won't be offended if you want to go home and zonk out,' he resolved.

She laughed openly into the mouthpiece, reaching her silver Renault Clio and opening the driver side door. 'Zonked out sounds too tempting tonight, I can't lie.' Once inside the car, Laurie still lowered her voice secretively, purely by habit. 'You did... literally... drain me clean out last night!'

'And I literally can't stop thinking about it,' he confessed, mouth agape as he stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. Who was this man?

'I tell you what - how about this?' she tantalised. 'Friday night we get dressed up. You arrange the transport. And my treat, I'll take you to one of my favourite spots, and we'll make an evening of it. How does that sound?'

'Mystery date - how shall I dress? What shall I dress for?'

'Dinner and dancing,' Laurie blushed. 'I like candles and culture and dinner and dancing,' she beamed. The twinkle in her eye Carl would have been sad not to see.

'Perfect,' he hushed. 'See you at the gym tomorrow?'

'Rested and ready for action,' she replied with a knot in her stomach. 'Bye for now, honey...'

2

Leg day was half done when Carl got to the gym that next night. Five miles to and from the finance department and he didn't need to hit the bikes anymore, he supposed. He decided it was time to start with a splash in the swimming pool for the first hour of his future sessions, which would help him to limber up for the machines.

Not thinking anything of it, he had sent Laurie a text to let her know, so that she wouldn't turn up and think him a no-show. He didn't expect her to show up early, which she did. After twenty laps he was greeted by the dreamy sight of his bronzed Amazonian traipsing barefoot along the pool's length, wearing a black and blue two piece Speedo swimsuit, with shorts that cut off an inch at the top of her firm thighs.

They were alone...

'How's the water?' she asked, tying her hair into a ponytail. The reflections of the lights glimmering off the blue water's surface only highlighted her radiance. How big her eyes appeared as they looked at each other, Carl fought not to drown in them.

'It's warmed up now, unless that's just me after a few laps.' She dove in, with perfect form, plunging the deep-end, her heart-shaped behind sending a considerable ripple across the pool. Seconds later Carl felt her hand around his ankle, and then suddenly he was under the water; dragged down to the bottom.

Both of them blue-faced and touching noses, they floated just above the tiles, giggling as tiny bubbles of air escaped their mouths and noses, and they touched the tips of their noses together, like silly children. It was Laurie that kissed him then, or rather stealing one from him, before forcing him to give chase.

'Did you bring your bike?' she asked him later as they walked off the gym floor, sweating and breathless, heading towards the changing rooms.

'No, I'll be getting a bus I think.'

'I'm, err... off to see my mum for a cup of tea and a catch up,' Laurie said. He could hear something in her tone. He didn't want to say that it sounded like she wasn't too enthusiastic to see her mum, but he chose instead to listen and to keep the ball in her court. 'If you want, you could come with, and I'll drop you off after?'

'Yeah?' Carl be damned. What was he meant to think of that?

'Well don't think too long about it,' Laurie grinned nervously.

That really depend though, he thought. 'What's your mum like?'

'You'll find out for yourself, won't you?' she gathered. 'Or maybe you won't...'

'Okay, but if I get the feeling you're using her to expose the mean and terrible man I really am underneath before our first real date...'

Laurie shoved him, blushing and grinning harder. 'You dork-

'We'd better not shower together and keep her waiting,' he teased. With that she winked and licked her lips - to be reminded so wickedly of that night, and the night that it went further. She hurried along and left him standing there smiling to himself. God, he needed to masturbate hard!

3

What would one expect to find, meeting the mother of the transgender woman flipping your life upside down like no woman on earth ever had before? As Laurie traversed the city limits in that little silver car of hers, he didn't have the time to worry. Conversation and high spirits were in free-flow. It was once impossible for Carl to know a woman he could truly feel that special click with, and now here they were.

For a fifty-two year old woman, Barbara Palmer could have squeezed into forty, had she not settled for the telltale motherly widow. She was slim and kind looking, had more of Laurie's brunette colour than she sported grey, but other than their similar hazel eyes, that was where the familiarity ended.

Aside from introducing himself as a gentleman would, Carl took a comfortable backseat to their visit and entertained when necessary, just drinking his tea. All the while he observed the slightly restrained relationship between Laurie and Barbara.

However long Laurie had been Laurie for, he supposed that it had not been nearly long enough for her mother to accept it. Ten years should have been enough. Uncomfortably he realised then that seeing her mother lifted some of the spell she had over him. The fantasy was receding, revealing the reality. And that reality was that he was falling for a woman trying to forget the boy she once was; not just a woman with a cock.

'I need to go up to my old room and get one of my party dresses,' Laurie told her mother. 'I still have the dinner dresses from Italy don't I?'

Very exotic, Carl thought - truly impressed. Laurie excused herself and was gone in a flash. Carl sensed her restlessness and didn't wonder for too long.

'Likes to dress up,' Barbara smiled wanly, and it didn't hold long.

'She does, I have noticed,' Carl replied softly. He made sure to say the word 'She' clearly. 'I can't wait for our date tomorrow.'

Barbara hesitated a little before speaking. 'Oh, you're dating?'

Carl nodded - offered a "believe it or not" look.

'Like a man-woman date,' Barbara trailed off. It wasn't completely unreal, her reaction, he supposed. He didn't believe in turning phobias into political weapons. He didn't believe in arguing about the things you couldn't change - hearts and minds included - and whereas he might never have known the immensity of change Laurie's adult life had brought, he couldn't help but feel that there was no respect here.

'Candles and music, dinner and dancing,' he recalled Laurie's own words the best he could. The spell-bound feeling came back at that. Looking into Barbara's confused eyes, his heart saw Laurie instead.

'Well then... have fun,' was all she could say to that. If anything Carl sensed that something else was amiss there, that her words did not convey her true feelings. What was amiss, in truth, was her husband - Laurie's step-father. Her true feelings were no less than the lowest; loneliness.

'Maybe we could all have dinner sometime,' he suggested.

But; 'Well, I don't think...'

Barbara may have been happy not to have to finish her words, it seemed, when Laurie interrupted. 'I'm ready,' she called, bounding down the staircase at high speed, which even startled Carl. If anything though, he could understand her eagerness to stay on the move. Still...

'Come and sit down,' he called back. 'I only need a minute to finish my tea.' For Carl she did wait. And to both their surprise, Barbara used the time to at least try to be less formal with her daughter.

4

'Ask her how she feels, you moron,' his mind implored. 'You can see she's down. You can see what was going on back there, with her mother. Say something, anything - a compliment, a joke!'

Unlike the drive to Laurie's mother's, the drive back to Carl's apartment was more a cruise. This time, now that she took the time to relax, the radio played. The music stifled Carl. He became too easily lost in his thoughts to soft music. As he gazed out at the night, the passing red-bricks doused in orange streetlight flame, it was her who spoke first when she said, 'don't just sit there in silence if you've got something on your mind.'

'I'm sorry,' he excused. 'I just thought you were appreciating the silence after that awkward visit.'

'Yeah,' was all she said, and then she stiffened behind the wheel in the silence.

'If it makes you feel any less weird, I haven't got a fucking clue what to make of your mum...'

A sharp hiss of air escaped her nostrils. At one moment he thought it laughter. Then upon listening to how she stifled those sounds, and didn't follow them up with words, he feared that there were tears instead. Instinctively, Carl patted his hand gently atop her thigh and rubbed it.

'Are you okay?' She turned to look at him with glassy, intense eyes. Other than those big eyes, reflecting the lights of the road ahead, he could read nothing else. There seemed no expression to read. She nodded and turned her eyes back to the road.

'She didn't make me think or feel any different about you,' he said, rubbing her thigh one last time before removing his hand and placing it uselessly in his own lap. 'Or us,' he wanted to say. Maybe she was psychic. Maybe it was a sign of how strongly they had bonded by that point. Laurie hastily reached over, grabbed his hand, and placed it back where she wanted it to stay.

'She, err... she blames me for the end of her marriage. And she doesn't know how to accept me as I am. Do you know what I mean?' Carl nodded. 'Do you mind me telling you this?'

'I'm glad you trust me enough to want to tell me,' he said gratefully. 'I could tell the last part,' he recalled. 'I told her about our romantic date tomorrow. I teased her a little with it. She couldn't look at me.' With that he tried to suppress a chuckle but it came out dry and wicked. The next time she turned to look at him, those eyes were the same - big, glassy, gleaming, and bright in the dark - but she wore a tight smile on her pink lips.

They pulled up to his house and immediately he asked her; 'Do you want to come in?'

'I think... we'd better save our energy for wining and dining and dancing tomorrow,' she reminded him and with a hint of mystery. She was conveying something with those eyes. One eyebrow arched upward, and the smile on her lips widened, creating two tight dimples at her cheeks.

'You're absolutely right,' he whispered, shifting closer to her over the gears. 'But it wasn't a ruse just to get up to no good with you.'

'Oh was it not?' Laurie flirted, moving closer to him to hear the truth. He shook his head, and the look his dark eyes sent back gave her chills.

'No, because I'm not taking another step forward without you guiding me and leading the way,' he vowed. And with that he moved a little closer. Between the front seats, they were nearly leaning into each other; faces inches apart.

'Oh I'll guide you just right,' she assured him, placing a hand on the back of his head, and she pulled him closer, moving her own lips into place. 'Kiss me, Carl,' she breathed and parted her lips.

Defying his sometimes sandpaper-rough touch, Carl's lips touched to hers as lightly as the wings of a butterfly at first, and because he wanted her to know just how sweet this moment made him feel inside. Her lips closed around his when they touched, like a Venus Flytrap stealthily capturing its prey. But there was no sting to be felt - only the slow and careful devouring of each other's lips as they warmed once again to each other.

He loved the feel of her hand running through his hair, caressing his cheek, his neck, and then his chest. And just as he supposed that she would push him back and make him hunger for her, she clasped her fingers around the neck of his t-shirt and pulled him deeper, snaking her tongue into his mouth and coming to lay with his.

Boldly he ran a hand up from her knee, to her thigh, and then coming to rest on her hip with a sly pinch. From there he ventured up her waist, over her arm and shoulder, and then pulled back from their embrace to softly brush the hair from her eyes. There he found love battling with uncertainty, a most exquisite pain, and he understood just how she felt.

'I could kiss you all night, you know,' Carl whispered as he leaned in for more, his partly-wetted lips sticking to hers like syrup. Their tongues battled sensuously for dominance, then settled for slipping and sliding together in their mingled saliva.

'Don't tempt me, you smooth bastard,' she groaned quietly, frantically nibbling and smooching hungrily at his lips. Every kiss she stole just fuelled her new addiction. And she knew that if they didn't stop soon, they would soon be in his bed again, rampantly sucking the life out of each other.

'I'm trying not to,' he tried to say beneath the passionate bombardment of her lips on his. He twisted his head to the side and entered her mouth again, lapping thirstily against her flickering tongue. In his mind it came to him, how her tongue deliberately became erect against him. He exhaled heavily at the thought.

Again, his senses on fire, his imagination became filled with the promises of her invading his body, hard lust leading the way seven inches deep. She would blow his mind all over the wall soon enough, he was certain, showing him love the way no other woman could. And his world would be changed forever.

'Okay stud,' she gasped, smacking her lips as she pulled away. She was blushing furiously yet again, her breathing unsteady. 'Tomorrow night, you and me...'

'I'll be thinking about you,' Carl said, and he kissed her goodnight one last time. Honestly he felt like a teenager again. So did Laurie. And she would be thinking about him that night, in great length. There was a lot to think about, a lot to feel about, and a big decision to be made.

5

What essence was it, of a friendship that flourished into something much more beyond the boundary of desire? Attraction, flirtation, intimacy, and the glue of companionship - trust and humility if anything - all played their part. But lock and key both opened hearts and bound them together, and in that the story told could only have a chance at completion if the story of those two hearts could compliment as well as it could contrast.

Carl and Laurie were different people, of a different world at times. Their adversities were as contrasting as black on white, so it would seem to the average eye. How they complimented each other, sometimes like hand in glove, came down to a myriad of factors shaped by life's experiences.

Over a year ago Carl had nearly died. Though he survived, fate seemed determined to rob him of everything else. What hurt the most was how his many friendships turned out to be no more durable than a flimsy fortune cookie note held over a flickering candle. Nobody wanted to know the crippled and struggling Carl Russell. Scarred and moody Carl was not fun Carl. It left him questioning everything - mostly how fleeting life's apparent certainties actually were.

Now and forever since he had met Laurie, he was not only determined to retain what little he was mortally attached to, but to become the undisputed champion of his own life. She made a man of him again, in his mind, but she had also made other things possible. She showed him that yesterday held no power over his actions as he lived for the here and now. She showed him that there was no limit where there was no fear.

Laurie's life began at eighteen. For that to happen, what came before had to come to an end, and she did not expect the cost to be so great. She lived for independence for so long, and walked a tightrope of loneliness and trying to live the best life she could. Though her mother was never far away, and though Laurie had made the effort by her not to become a complete stranger, she was a stranger, and it left a hole so big in her that nobody else could ever fill.

No matter that she appeared in the form of perfection, the facade hid the sadness that life bestowed upon a small few; the experience of life's petty prejudices and unforgivable betrayals. Predatory men and trolls were in surplus, but all she wanted was to be made to feel like the woman she worked so hard to become and to maintain - and for what?

But Carl had shown the ability to do so, little by little. He had become her friend, the honourable gentleman who didn't just want her body. She found him refreshing in character and manner. She was a woman to him, but first things first, she was a soul and a personality. He was no pretender, but if their friendship was destined to lead to this night, then it was an astonishing act of foreplay on his behalf. But it wasn't all him alone.