Shifter Sports Ch. 01

All characters are over the age of 18. This story occurs in the Shifter World invented by the creative ZZChromosome and is based on a plot that Zee asked me to develop for him. If you're unfamiliar with the Shifter World, please read on:

This world is very different from our own because of the widespread presence of the X-Virus (which attacked the X-Chromosome) and the S-virus (also known as the "shifter virus") which is spread solely through sexual contact. The populace is now divided into a total of 12 different genders. For our purposes, however, it's sufficient to recognize three rather than two gender-groups:

First are genuine, genetically XY, males, but such males usually experience premature aging, often unable to work beyond age 45 and passing away in their 50s or even earlier. Not all of them are fertile, and to preserve the human race many of the most violent sports and other traditionally-male activities, such as football and martial arts, have been outlawed. Even war has become a desperate, last-resort policy option because of the potential it brings to wipe out a nation.

Next are the more numerous XX females. With the male gender unable to function for a full lifespan, smart women with both skills and longevity moved to the fore and became the leading businesspeople and politicians of their societies. When the first generation of such female leaders took power, at least some of them could not resist exercising the same type of control, including sexual exploitation, over their younger, more attractive subordinates, control that had once been the province of male predators abusing their power positions. Interns became a status symbol with sexual benefits, although most of the leaders were more responsible than their male predecessors, treating their interns with kindness and generosity. Despite the humiliation involved, becoming an intern in this manner was and is often the quickest, if not the only, means for personal advancement.

The third gender group is XYS, consisting of those former males infected with the shifter virus. When a shifter changes genders for the first time, the former male's physical characteristics often adopt what he had once considered a more idealized form, the one that the former male had most admired (or lusted after) in a woman. Some infected persons are changed semi-permanently into a new feminine form and may remain so for the remainder of their lives unless they suffer a major physical shock. Only a minority—roughly one in eight—of those infected can learn to control their changes, shifting genders (along with hormonal levels and preference for sexual partners) at will. One advantage that all shifters gain is that the process of morphing into their ideal female forms also involves permanent repair of any chronic injuries or birth defects.

*****

(Larry's Point of View)

Well, crap. Another failure in a long chain of failures. My entire conscious life I had loved sports; once I had hoped to be a ballplayer myself, but a torn ACL put paid to that during my freshman year in college. So, if I couldn't be a professional athlete myself, I thought I could at least be a broadcast reporter. I mean, yeah, most of the famous guys who narrated broadcast games and even those who held down commentator slots on the networks were themselves veteran athletes—nowadays, almost nobody was good to play at that level for more than a dozen years, after which they used their reputations to land prestigious broadcast jobs for a short second career before old age set in about age 40. But there ought to be some path for a hard-working non-athletic guy like me to get involved, right?

Standing on the sidewalk in my best suit, I squinted upwards at the WBN building that I had just left, having been booted from a job interview for broadcasting interns after less than ten minutes talking to a minor functionary. On the way in and out, I had seen what was probably my competition. The building was filled with bright, articulate, pretty, well-but-scantily dressed young women; most seemed to be either secretaries and admin assistants or interns, striding confidently in and out of all the office doors I passed. A number of them gave me brief smiles, but it was obvious that was just because they had learned to be pleasant to any male in that building—not because they were impressed with my looks! The moment they figured out that I was just visiting, their faces shut down as if I had become invisible. Instead, they strutted abound, wearing short skirts, plunging necklines, and artfully-applied makeup.

I did NOT think that their looks got them their jobs but couldn't help suspecting that I DIDN'T get to join them because, regardless of my education and qualifications for the job, I lacked something they had. No criticism of those women intended, and no, I didn't assume that all or any of them had slept their way into their positions. Still, in a world where the powerful of any gender regarded cute interns (either women or more often shifters who presented as women) as a status symbol, all those young people in the office building had the qualifications to get hired, and I didn't.

I know it's a cliché, but I ended up in the bar of the too-expensive hotel where I was staying, trying to drown my sorrows in beer—I certainly couldn't afford whiskey in that place. I had another interview three days hence, but by now I had lost what little self-confidence I had.

And then SHE walked in. The kind of woman I would have sold my soul for—she reminded me strongly of that cute Ms. Huntington, a college senior who had done her practice teaching in my high school six years ago—high cheekbones, cute nose, dark eyes, shoulder-length black hair, porcelain skin, long hair—just frackin' perfect. Only, the woman who came on to me that late afternoon after my failed interview was even more attractive than Ms. Huntington—at the time I was no judge of female bodies, but she HAD to have D-cup boobs and an equally sexy, shelf-like butt. Not to mention that she was throwing herself at me, which tends to make most guys overlook any imperfections!

I was not a virgin but was hardly experienced in such situations. In modern society even the most studly man in the room had to be cautious about becoming intimate with an unknown female no matter HOW drop-dead gorgeous she was. I really should have known better, but I was severely depressed and slightly buzzed, so I never even considered turning down such a magnificent female. And Janice—at least I THINK that was her name—was even better than she looked, funny and flattering when we talked, and absolutely superb in bed. In the course of two marathon lovemaking sessions, she had my dick in her hands, between her magnificent breasts, down her velvety throat, and rubbed between those magnificent buttocks—not to mention entering the paradise of her vagina and then her anus. Even considering what happened as a result, I can't really regret that night; she was the last piece of ass had for several weeks.

*****

The next morning, half-awake in the dark, I groped around in the bed but didn't find her. Eventually my bladder forced me to get up, but I couldn't see very well (there seemed to be dark hair in my eyes) or even WALK very well. Still, I concluded that my bladder was more important than figuring that out right then. I staggered into the bathroom, flipped up the toilet seat—and sprayed urine all over the room.

"What the frack?" I asked, scrabbling in vain for the penis I had FELT I had down there. And then, when I looked up at the nearby mirror, I saw her. And by her, I mean Ms. Huntington. Only THIS Ms. Huntington was buck naked and sported a rack that belonged in the centerfold of a men's magazine.

After a few seconds, my sleepy brain caught up with the sensory inputs, and I realized that the goddess I saw in the mirror was ME—and I obviously had contracted the Shifter disease from Janice whoever-her-last-name was. Or should I ask what HIS name was, at least on the birth certificate?

I didn't have the guts to ask for help, still less turn myself in to the Public Health authorities. That wouldn't have accomplished anything except to get me a scolding for failure to use condoms, then put on an official list of victims.

Instead, I staggered out into the bedroom—I say "staggered" because I was befuddled by the massive change, although even in my confusion I noticed that my torn ACL seemed miraculously repaired. Once in the main room, I grabbed my cell phone and took several selfies to show to medical authorities LATER, when I gathered my nerve. Then I sat down on the toilet (and had to stand up immediately and flip down the seat, then collapsed onto the toilet.) I was in a stew of depression. Catching the virus was just one more in a long line of failures, going back to wrecking my leg in college. I must have cried, because when I finally lurched upward to go back to my bed, I slipped on the tiles (and perhaps the remnants of my urine, sorry), fell, and banged my head on the corner of the bathtub.

An undetermined long time later, I swam back into consciousness, still lying on the cold bathroom floor with my head hurting. Cautiously, I touched my head but didn't feel any blood, just a tender, bruised area. Even more carefully, I stood back up, went to the sink, and splashed cold water on my face. Only, when I finally focused on the mirror, it was MY face again, not a woman's. The only difference from 24 hours earlier was that my hair was longer and black in color. Frantically reaching downward, I discovered my trusty dick had returned, but I was so stunned by the sequence of events that I didn't even masturbate. Now what?

I spent the next day mostly in my over-priced room, frantically searching the internet to understand what had happened to me. Afterwards, I felt like I ALMOST understood my new reality but the internet is so full of lying truths, truthful lies, and flat-out lying lies that I could never be sure. The official government websites seemed very helpful, though. On the other hand, I was also certain that they contained what the (mostly female) politicians WANTED to be true. Or wanted me to BELIEVE was true. Sigh, who knew?

Even though I had returned to my male form, my long black hair and miraculously-repaired leg were tell-tale indicators that I was, indeed, infected and had now become a shifter. I decided that I needed to experiment to see whether I could control my gender, but not until I got through my remaining interview and returned home—imagine looking like Ms. Huntington while trying to establish my identity as Larry Holbrooke so I could use my "cattle class" air ticket to fly back! With all due respect to transgendered people, the prospect of uncontrolled changes in my body and appearance at any moment gave new meaning to the term "gender dysphoria." I thought it best to remain calm and hope nothing major changed for a while.

Quite apart from my new genetic condition, I had to marshal my tattered self-confidence in preparation for my second and last chance at employment—my upcoming appointment to interview as an intern at the Sports-A-Million cable network, aka SAMCN [pronounced "SAM-SIN"]. Thursday morning, I found my way through ANOTHER office building, again infested with what at least appeared to be incredibly hot young women. By contrast, I had put my new, longer, dark hair into a tight manbun to conceal it. (It was the softest, smoothest, most luxurious hair I had ever run my fingers through. I had initially planned to get an immediate haircut, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Looking back on it, that was one of the best decisions I ever made.)

I allowed myself a modicum of hope when the initial screener referred me to her boss, the head of Human Resources. The latter personage was Mizz Sharon Bergen, an assertive 30-something woman in a power suit who must have been a total knockout when she left college a dozen years earlier—she was still a well-built and well-turned-out, imposing lady who could have had her choice of most of her male peers, let alone a young nerd like me. After making such a choice, I could easily imagine, Mizz Bergen would take charge in the bedroom and put FemDom fiction to shame! Given my terrifying experience of a one-night stand with Janice, not to mention my desire to get hired, I hastily attempted to repress any sense of attraction to Mizz Bergen.

Not that it seemed to matter to my employment future. Give her credit: this lady was very thorough in her interview technique, going into my (scanty) employment history line by line and then satisfying herself that I really DID know a lot about sports when I responded quickly, trying to be both informative and entertaining, to a variety of questions. Finally, she sat back, visibly considering the matter, then shook her head and said, with a hint of regret in her voice,

"I'm sorry, Mr. Holbrooke. Your credentials are impressive and you obviously care about a career in sports journalism, but I don't think you'd fit in around here as an intern."

After a half-moment there, when my already-stressed mind registered that I had failed (again), that mind simply overloaded and blew its circuit-breakers. I heard a roaring in my ears and felt a tightness in my chest, then pitched forward onto the desk between us and (for the first time I can ever recall) fainted!

At least, that must have been what happened; I was unconscious in seconds. The next thing I knew, I was lying on the couch on which I had previously sat, while Mizz Bergen's secretary, a look of concern on her face, was bathing my head with a damp cloth. Humiliated, I tried to sit up and made some lame apology about troubling her and her boss. And THEN I realized that my once-crisp white shirt had lost several buttons because two large protrusions were thrusting forward from my chest, barely concealed. More than that, there was again black hair on my face; my manbun must have come loose. I had gender-shifted right in front of the woman who declined to hire me! If I had thought my first interview was a failure, this was a total disaster that would probably get me blackballed from any future job in sports broadcasting. DOUBLE-Crap! No, Crap Cubed!

When I finally dared to bring my eyes up to meet Mizz Bergen, I expected to see nothing but contempt. Instead, she seemed much more interested in me than she had been before. There was even a note of approval in her face—but also a predatory look that took me a moment to understand. And then she really surprised me with her next comment:

"You've been holding out on me, Mister—excuse me, Mizz—Holbrooke. Why didn't you put your gender on your resumé?"

"Ummm." I replied—brilliant comeback, Larry. Things can't get much worse, so at least try to get out of here with the shreds of your dignity if not your clothes! "I'm sorry, Mizz Bergen. I only just got infected this week, and I haven't had time to adjust to the change." I told her briefly what had happened, blushing again when I had to admit to risky sex with a complete stranger. At the end, I apologized for taking up her time and making a scene and stood up, offering to leave.

"Not so fast, Larry—oh, wait, I guess I'd better call you 'Lorraine.' Your genetic status makes you much more attractive to SAM-SIN. In fact, with the right clothing and hairstyle I could see you making the cut." She thought for a minute, then asked me to stand and turn around slowly. I was acutely aware of being exposed, disheveled, and suddenly female, and I suspected that she was interested in my physical "Ass-sets" more than my mind, but what choice did I have?

She asked me whether I could control my "genetic status," and I replied truthfully that this was only the second time that I had morphed into a female shape. We talked briefly about what I already knew or thought I knew, the usual methods of mentally controlling my form. She encouraged me to experiment with that, but for now, only when I was in private. If I succeeded in controlling my shifting, I should immediately do four things: (1) write down what I had been thinking about when it happened, (2) take a 20-minute rest including lots of water (because shifting really maxed out the metabolism), (3) try to shift BACK to the other gender, and (4) report everything to her. That final remark prompted me to hope that I would be working around here.

"OK," she finally concluded. "I've decided to offer you a different position." She smirked while saying the last word, then resumed a businesslike demeanor. "I know you really want to be a sports-caster, and this may EVENTUALLY lead to that, but first you need to get your foot in the door, right?"

"Yes, Ma'am," I replied, both alarmed and still hopeful. What did I have to lose?

"Ma'am. That makes me sound so old. Let's compromise on the old Southern construction, and you just call me "Miss Sharon," as if I were your teacher, except when we're in formal meetings, OK?"

"Yes, Ma—Miss Sharon." She smiled in a friendly manner at my stutter.

"All right, Lorraine, here's the deal: I will offer you a one-year contract to be my intern here in HR." When I started to protect, she held up a hand to stop me, and went on talking. "I know that's not what you want, but as I said, you need to start somewhere. So, for a year you'll be my personal intern, which will give you a broad exposure [another smirk] of the entire company. Long hours, frustrating treatment—like a raccoon, you may find yourself with rings around your eyes digging through trash, but you WILL learn a lot."

She paused and went on: "If, during that year, a senior broadcaster or journalist asks you to work under him or her [smirk three]—and be careful to ensure that said broadcaster really wants your skills and not just your body!—if, as I said, someone seriously wants you to work for him or her, then I will PROBABLY release you from working with me; believe it or not, good management requires that a supervisor help develop an individual to his or her full potential rather than just keeping the individual in one position. Even if you DON'T get hired out from underneath me [by this time even a blind man would have picked up the innuendo in her voice], one year from now we'll discuss your subsequent employment with SAM-SIN; if you still want it at that time, I'll arrange another internship with a sports journalist or broadcaster; otherwise, if you fit in as well as I expect I'm sure I will have a vacancy for you in HR. So, what do you think, Lorraine?"

I knew I had to be grateful for this offer, and I was. "I would be honored to work for you, Miss Sharon, and I'm sure I'll learn a great deal. Only . . . I think I need to do something about my medical condition and my appearance so that I don't distract anyone. . ."

"Not to worry, girl," she responded. "I haven't got to the best part, which is that the corporation has a special program for shifter interns." She must have seen the cynical, skeptical expression in my face. "No, not THAT type of program, although you WILL have to work closely with me, and we'll talk about our interactions later. Seriously, SAM-SIN has a one-year program for shifter interns—it provides medical consultations, a free wardrobe, a makeover, periodic hair and beauty treatments, and a lifestyle advisor to help you learn to blend into the office as a female. If it turns out that you can control your appearance, I'll decide which gender best suits your duties, but in either case we pay for TWO wardrobes. I expect you to present as a female to start with, but we'll at least ensure you have two male outfits, one here and one at home, in case of unexpected gender shifts, OK?"

My head was whirling as I tried to take this in. While I was thinking, Mizz Bergen swiveled in her executive chair and used one perfectly-manicured hand to pick up the telephone receiver while the other hand pushed four digits, presumably an intercom number.