Shards Ch. 04B

Standing in the waiting room, I looked over to Nancy and said, "Hi, babe."

We came together in our first kiss since September. The moment our lips touched, I felt the sensation mirrored back to me, of what Nancy was feeling. 'Telepathy?' I thought.

'Or sensory empathy,' they replied, proving that they could already hear my thoughts. 'Cathy said the nanites would phase the ability for us, too,' Nancy replied, kissing me harder. 'I guess reading the mind of someone we touch is the easiest to adjust to.'

At that time, we could only hear each other while in contact, but by the end of the day, we were hearing other people as well, at increasing ranges.

"Any lingering after effects of Cathy's presence in your mind?" I asked, after we stopped kissing.

Concentrating for a few seconds, she said, "It's strange. It seems like I can remember everything she physically did and sensed, after waking up post-meteorite until now. Everything she did at work, making love to us, it's all a parallel track to what I did while inside you. But I can't remember the internal stuff, the thoughts and emotions. I guess she thought those would be too alien or might influence my personality, and erased them. Which makes me wonder how much my memories and Paige's surviving memories have affected her personality. I guess now that she's in a female body again, I have to shift back to using that pronoun."

~~~~~

It was another two hours before Nancy and I were allowed back into Cathy's room, with only an hour left in visiting hours. We had gone down to the cafeteria to get something to eat, then came back to the ICU and Zack escorted us into her room again. All of the bandages were removed and her eyes were open, having been fully repaired. She mentally transmitted, 'I have to warn you, one of the doctors hid a recording device in here, suspecting that we know more than we've said. Aloud, we will need to avoid discussing the nanites and be sure to call me Paige. I have already warned Zack.' Zack had dashed downstairs, getting something to eat for himself and something to sneak upstairs for Cathy, before the cafeteria closed.

Except for where Paige's hair had been shaved for cranial surgery, Cathy looked like she hadn't been injured at all. Not a single bruise remained. Even the recent surgical scars were gone.

Aloud, in a voice that had Paige's tone but Cathy's cadence, she said, "They are keeping me overnight for 'observation'. First stop after I leave here is a hairdresser, if they don't have one here at the hospital. I think I want to keep a short style." Telepathically, she added, 'That will make it easier for Zack to see me as a different person.'

Taking my hand again so I could hear their thoughts, Nancy said, 'It's strange. When I was in Dan's body, my mind instinctively knew you weren't me, but now I have to keep reminding myself that you're not Paige. If I have a hard time, Zack has to be feeling mixed up.' Aloud, they said, "I think you'll look cute with short hair."

I thought, 'I agree. Zack is going to look at you and remember Paige. Even with a new haircut. That can be both good and bad, if you're trying to form a relationship with him.'

Cathy answered, 'He is in emotional shock right now, caught between mourning Paige and dealing with a fantasy that Paige is still present inside me. He barely held it together earlier to make the decision to let me swap bodies, for the baby's sake. Where this situation differs is that when I was in Nancy's body, I could promise you both that it was temporary, that I would return Nancy to her body. That has now happened, four months ahead of schedule, because of this tragedy. Conversely, taking over Paige's body is permanent, with no possibility of Paige returning. What I fear is that Zack will come to associate me with losing her, without remembering that I occupied a shell that was empty of her personality.'

I asked, 'What can we do to help him adapt? Nancy and I are probably the only people who have come close to experiencing what he's going through, looking at a familiar face but knowing that it's really someone else inside.'

Cathy said, 'I hope it will become easier as his telepathy develops. You have both already noticed I have adjusted my telepathic voice to be distinct from Nancy's voice or Paige's. As he hears that more, he should associate me less as Paige, although I sound more like her vocally. He decided he still wants to call me Cathy in private, even though I would not mind being called Paige or adopting her middle name, which is Marie. In addition, he rejected the idea of changing my appearance so I don't resemble her, but it remains an option. So would altering her vocal cords to produce a different voice and adjusting my mental tone to match that.'

'You still have to impersonate Paige,' I said. 'At least in the short term, don't you?'

'Yes, there is that,' she agreed.

Zack returned then, bearing a tuna sandwich for Cathy.

I put my hand on his shoulder and thought, 'Telepathy appears to be working already when we're in direct contact. If you hear me, just think yes.'

'Yes,' came back his mental voice.

Nancy and I arranged chairs so we could sit next to Zack, with Nancy between us and holding both of our hands, while Cathy held Zack's. Even bridged that way, I had no trouble hearing Zack's thoughts. While having an innocuous conversation aloud that I will skip recording here, our real conversation was telepathic.

I thought, 'Zack, earlier you suggested us becoming a foursome. Do you want to expand on that thought?'

Zack answered, 'Cathy made it clear that she loves both of you and wants to continue having a relationship. I don't want to get in the way of that. Nor do I want to end my friendship with you. But, when I picture Cathy moving out and being just platonic friends with the three of you, that doesn't feel right to me, either. I'm still going to be physically attracted to her, so I believe that trying to expand our platonic friendship into something more physical could be the best solution for all of us. Having four parents for our babies instead of being a single dad is another factor that occurred to me since I first brought it up.'

'Do we jump right into it?' I asked.

Nancy answered, 'It's probably better if we keep up appearances as separate couples, at first, then get together on group dates and find out if things even work for us as intimate instead of platonic. Perhaps the biggest question is, are you prepared for sex with a pair of Novas, Zack? I mean, intercourse not just with me, but Dan, too? To let go of the idea of us as man and woman and accept that we're now a melding of both? Or at the least, becoming that?'

He replied, 'I don't know if I'm quite ready to suck dick, but I suppose I can work my way up to it. As for intercourse, that's still vaginal, right? I don't expect a big problem with that. And, ummm, there's a part of me that's curious about maybe transforming into Nova, since I expect Cathy will want that. If all four of us are Nova, there would be no valid reason for me to hold back in any respect. Otherwise, I would truly be odd man out.'

'Whatever you're comfortable with, Zack,' Nancy said. 'It's not a requirement, as far as I'm concerned. We just need to explain it.'

I said, 'When we had Nancy's 20 week sonogram, we revealed ourselves to Dr. deLong and implied that Nancy's transformation was at least partially sexually transmitted to me. We can piggyback on that explanation for the two of you.'

'The nanites aren't actually sexually transmitted, are they?' Zack asked.

Cathy answered, 'No, they need to be mentally ordered to cross between bodies and that only requires skin to skin contact. But human science will not be able to determine that. Your nanite technology is in its own infancy.'

Nancy added, 'You have to make a decision soon, though. If we're all Nova when we announce, we can make the claim that it was sexually transmitted. Or if you decide against it, we can claim that it isn't sexually transmitted and only affects those who were hit by the meteorite. What we can't do is be public about being intimate together and then have you decide later on to transform, since that doesn't fit what we told Dr. deLong.'

Zack asked, 'When do you intend to go public, so we know when we have to decide?'

I answered, 'We figured on the end of my first trimester, which is still six weeks away. My transformation from male to Nova took three weeks, so you have just under three weeks to decide.'

~~~~~

Walking out to my car, Nancy said, "I won't even ask if you want to drive us home. You've got to be so glad not to be a passenger every second. I don't need to read your mind to know that."

As I got behind the wheel and Nancy took the passenger seat, I said, "It's been an exasperating four months, for sure. I think competing with you for control would have been worse, though. Yes, I was limited to helping you adjust to being in my body and impersonate me at work, but at least I had that helpfulness to keep me sane. Can you imagine what it would have been like, to be stuck inside me, instead, where you didn't even have to help me with that?" I got the car onto the road, headed home.

"I have, many times. I even had a few nightmares along those lines where you couldn't hear my voice."

"Oh, I would have gone bonkers if you hadn't known I was there," I said. After a minute, I added, "I was about to say we're back to normal now, but so many other things have changed since Cathy arrived. We're Nova, we're telepaths, we're both pregnant. The whole world is changing."

Nancy rubbed their belly and said, "Today has also skipped Cathy and me ahead on the pregnancy calendar, Cathy by six weeks, me by three whole months. Bye bye, morning sickness."

"You don't want to hold my hand and experience mine through this empathy?"

"I'll hold your hand during labor, if you'll hold mine," they answered. "But that's a big no on the morning sickness."

"Deal." We drove for a few more minutes, before I asked, "Nancy, now that you're back in your body, do you feel more female than you were feeling male in mine? Or are we equally Nova, now?"

Nancy considered the question, before answering, "Back in September, I felt a sharp difference between female and male, especially once Cathy got the nanites to stop suppressing our testosterone. I gradually adjusted to being male and felt stable by the time we decided to become Nova. I tried to sense any transition in the opposite direction, without much success, given the physical changes we were going through, then becoming pregnant. Switching back today, though, I don't feel a sharp difference at all. Other than being back in a body that's shorter than yours, having my boobs a bit bigger than before plus being three months more pregnant than you, I feel no emotional difference. So, whether or not Nova represents an exactly equal mix of male and female traits, I think we're both done with whatever shift happened, from a new mixture of hormones."

~~~~~

Once we were home, Nancy pulled me towards our bedroom. I could feel her excitement. "Time for your cocksucking final exam, Dan. With this empathy, I should be able to feel exactly what you're doing and you can feel it from my side. Between those, we can make any corrections that still need to be made. Then we can 69 and see just how much the empathy acts like a mirror."

We undressed and lay side by side on the bed. Both of us were rock hard as I grasped their cock in my hand and began to lick around the corona. I felt like my own cock was being licked and had to look down my body to see that Nancy wasn't even touching me. 'Holy fuck,' I muttered mentally, as I wrapped my lips around the head and took more and more into my mouth. If I felt like I was sucking both of our cocks at once when I was just sucking one, what was it going to feel like when we were both doing it?

As the head of Nancy's cock reached the back of my mouth, Nancy said, "Relax your jaw a little more, Dan. Then hold your breath and let me slip in." When I had sheathed their cock in my throat and then lifted off again to breathe, she said, "Definite A grade," just before starting to blow my cock.

Even imagining that the empathy would double our pleasure underestimated the effect. I felt like two mouths were sucking at different parts of my cock at the same time, like I was sucking on both cocks at once as I felt what Nancy's mouth did, too. It was confusing at first, until I started being able to distinguish my actions from Nancy's and could focus on eliciting a reaction from them that was separate from my own reactions to what they did.

'Fuck, fuck, fuck,' Nancy chanted, as we both felt our orgasms roaring towards us. Before I could slow down, we were ejaculating into each other's mouths, perhaps the strongest orgasm I had ever felt.

There was no flash of any past orgasms on either of our parts.

As we relaxed in the afterglow, I said, "I guess we can't get a flash of each other's sexual memories the same way, now."

Nancy said, "I would guess it's because we're not in the same brain, any more and there's no barrier now. I like this much better, though. We're going to have to relearn how to hold back our orgasms, though."

~~~~~

January 30, 2016

In the days after Cathy got out of the hospital, we talked with Zack and Cathy on the phone several times, but didn't have an opportunity to get together. Both said they were getting along well, living together and exploring the new relationship they were trying to build, but also itching to explore things with us.

Cathy was relying on her telepathy to imitate Paige, both when her parents arrived to find her healed and at Paige's job, but still had to claim some memory loss from the accident to cover for knowledge deficits that mind-reading couldn't solve. Her management discussed options for compensating for that and decided on moving Paige to an equal-paying job with a training class opening up for it that would finish just as she would start her maternity leave, then starting the new job after she returned.

I settled back into my job and found it difficult to match the same productivity that Nancy and I had eventually achieved, working together. Nancy reported much the same experience, even though the memories Cathy had preserved made Nancy fully aware of their project's progress. What was missing was memories on how Cathy reached certain decisions, but Nancy figured most of those out and called Cathy to find out the rest.

On the last Saturday in January, Nancy and I had our first date together with Zack and Cathy. We decided to go to the movies, but wound up talking telepathically through parts of it.

In one notable exchange, Zack said, "This contact empathy really makes sex more intense, both in terms of experiencing what Cathy feels and her reacting to what I feel. I wonder what would happen if all four of us are in contact at the same time."

I asked, "Do you have a position in mind?"

"Well, an easy option is an oral daisy chain, although I wonder if I'll feel anything from the person who is on the other side of the square from me, from mutual contact with the other two people. Do you know, Cathy?"

She answered, "Since this type of sensory exchange is not something that developed on Teclewt, I do not have any special insight. I did not experience it with Dan and Nancy when I was the only one with telepathy. I have no idea what will happen with four minds."

"I guess we'll find out," Nancy said. "I'd also like to find out how it feels to have a cock inside me while mine is in someone else. Novas can't manage that as a duo."

Zack said, "That should be easy. One position might have you on your back, while your cock is being ridden and someone else enters you from behind that person. Either you could suck the third cock, or if it's Dan inside you, I could enter him. We could also try arranging all four of us as a chain of rear entry. Have me at the back, Cathy in front and the two of you in between. It might be easiest on our sides."

After the movie, we went back to Nancy's and my condo. We decided to try the rear entry chain first. It took some arranging to keep four pairs of legs from tangling up, but we managed to get into a position that almost resembled an unfolded fan, with our hips closer together than our upper bodies. Zack entered Nancy while Nancy was in me and I was inside Cathy. What followed was five fumbling-but-fun minutes figuring out how to coordinate our thrusting. What worked best was for Zack and Cathy to stay still while Nancy and I did most of the work, rocking apart towards Zack and Cathy, then towards each other again, hands on hips helping to move each other.

Cathy said, "I can feel Zack's cock moving in Nancy, but it's muted, like the sensation is an echo, because I'm only in direct contact with Dan."

Zack suggested, "Reach your arm back so we can clasp hands." When she did so, he said, "That's the ticket. I can feel Dan inside you better, plus I'm making direct contact with Dan's hip, too."

Nancy penetrating me while I fucked Cathy added more pleasure over either act done alone, stimulating my cock both inside and out. On top of that, the empathy felt like it was turning into a feedback loop between the four of us, our arousal soaring. Feeling three penises going in and out of three vaginas morphed into feeling like we inhabited all four bodies at once. Not quite as mirrored as when Nancy and I 69ed, because Zack and Cathy were experiencing different sensations, but it was still intense. I wound up being the first to cum, with my orgasm triggering all of the others. We grunted and groaned and cried out, as each new spasm washed across us, barely able to distinguish between my own orgasm and the others.

"That was just incredible, at the end," Nancy said, as we all regained our breath. "Figuring out these group positions is going to be fun."

~~~~~

On February 1st, Senator Chaston finished second to Governor McDermott of Iowa in the Republican caucuses, while Governor Burke won the Democratic contest by a 10 point margin over any other candidate. Both were ahead in their respective polling for New Hampshire.

On the 9th, in the New Hampshire Presidential Primary, Chaston and Burke won their respective primaries by significant margins, causing most of the remaining candidates to concede to them. The pundits all predicted that both would pivot to attack each other, then were surprised when it did not happen.

~~~~~

February 13, 2016

Four weeks until our public reveal and Zack still had not made up his mind about becoming Nova. Cathy was waiting until he decided.

After dinner with them at their place, we tried the first four-person position Zack had suggested at the theater, but with me on my back with my hips close to the edge of the bed, while Cathy rode me in cowgirl position. Nancy stood between my legs and entered me below Cathy, while Zack crouched behind Nancy to enter them.

Having Zack's thrusts push Nancy deeper into me was the closest I had gotten to Zack fucking me directly.

"Don't you think it's time, then?" Nancy challenged.

I realized I wasn't shielding my thoughts and everyone had "heard" me.

Cathy lifted herself off of my cock and made room for Nancy to take her place. Nancy straddled my hips, lowering their wet pussy over my cock, before Cathy backed onto Nancy's shaft between us. Cathy's fuller belly was brushing mine as she leaned forward to brace her arms on my chest, my growing breasts just beginning to be squeezable.

I felt Zack's cock pressing against my labia. He leaned around to make eye contact and smiled at me, asking, "Ready for this, Dan?"

I nodded. It was time to let go of any lingering homophobia. Why should taking Zack's cock into my pussy be any different than taking Nancy's? Just because he was still male instead of Nova?