Space Relations Pt. 27

When Thor got off his, well, let's be accurate here... When hot blonde Becky got off her shift, the woman strode down the hallway and poked her head into the lounge. Cruz and Mary were in there still consoling Mark, I mean Margo. Mentally, Mary caught that Becky was watching them, so she sent Becky a telepathic request. It wasn't a bad request or unreasonable, so Becky went ahead and did it. She walked into the kitchen to grab a couple of beers from the bridge.

It wasn't that Becky had wholeheartedly accepted this bizarre change into a female body. Instead, the mind within that fitness instructor's exemplary contours was using an instinctual defense mechanism to cope. Mary's idea had worked. By pretending that she was a woman in her manly mind, Becky could effectively push the manly thoughts and mannerisms aside. She still had a bold stride and a husky authority to her voice, but she wasn't freaking out in trying to be her usual self or to force the change to reverse itself.

Armed with two beers, Becky returned to the lounge. Mary had already given Cruz the heads-up, so they both made room for Becky on the couch. The Nordic beauty saw the pitcher of coffee on the table, plus whatever medications were helping Cruz to stay awake. If Cruz could avoid falling asleep and undergoing a quantum sex change, fine, Becky thought. If he changed and became Cruzette, well, Mary was all about seeing the brighter side of things. She'd probably say something like the more the merrier.

"Before I sit down, I'd like to say one thing." Becky announced. "I want to keep to my Nordic roots. If I'm to be called by a woman's name, I choose Freya."

"And who was that, baby?" Cruz asked.

"She was a Viking goddess in Asgard." The new woman replied. "Freya had a grove of golden apples that would keep the gods young. Some have suggested she was the most beautiful goddess in the pantheon, along with her twin brother Frey."

"Well, you certainly have a nice set of golden apples there on your chest, baby." Cruz quipped. It took him a full second to realize what he'd said. Looking pallid, Cruz got up and ran out of the room with the empty pitcher of coffee. "Time for a refill!"

"What was that all about?" The sullen ex-female Mark asked.

"Oh, Cruz just realized he flirted with Thor, I mean Freya." Mary said. The perky blonde patted the empty spot on the couch beside her. "Have a seat, gorgeous."

Becky... Wait a minute. I mean it was Freya who considered the seating. She could sit next to Mary or next to Mark. Because she knew that Mark was as distraught as she was, Freya decided to sit next to the big, brooding man. She passed a beer over to Mark as she squeezed in beside him, going as far as reaching an arm around his shoulders.

Mark popped the tab on the beer and took a good guzzle from it. "We really fell into the deep end of the toilet this time, didn't we?"

"Don't think of it like that." Mary tried to cheer him up. "What you mean is that you guys are ahead of the curve."

Freya took a moment to open up her beer. After a quick drink, she addressed Mary. "Thank you for absorbing all of our stress."

"No shit." Mark nodded. "If it wasn't for Mary, I'm sure we'd both be busy going bonkers right now. I just want to know one thing. How come you ended up looking like a buff Miss Universe, while I ended up looking like Moe the plumber?"

Freya considered the freshly converted man sitting next to her. "Honestly, I don't think you look that bad."

"Oh, come on!" Mark shook her head. "Heads are going to turn whenever you walk down a street. I'll be lucky if women don't clutch their purses tighter."

"Seriously, Mark, you're not that bad looking!" Mary insisted. She reached over to rub Mark's thigh for comfort.

"I can't help it." Mark frowned. "I have an inferiority complex now. I always thought I was a big, ugly woman and that nobody would like me. That's why I started hanging out with lesbians way back in high school. I became such a hard-ass so that I could hide my weaknesses. Now that I've turned into a man, all those weaknesses are coming back to me."

"Don't let them!" Mary said. "You turn that frown upside down, right now!"

"Easy for you to say." Mark replied. "Just look at me. I'm a big tough guy right? Then how come I have such a girlie voice?"

"You don't sound all that different than you did before." Mary told her.

"I know that, but Becky does. Sorry, I meant to say Freya. Her voice sounds all sultry and sugary. Why couldn't my voice come out like that?"

"You have to relax and be yourself." Mary started rubbing his arm. "You keep making like you're some horrible person, but you're not! We all like you!"

"Yeah, what about these?" Mark reached over to fondle Freya's large apples. "My tits never looked this good."

"Mark, stop it!" Mary scolded him. "You're creating one excuse after another to make it impossible for you to be happy!"

When Mark took his hand away from Freya's chest, Freya gazed at him curiously. He asked, "What?"

"I felt an oddly pleasant sensation when you touched me." Freya admitted.

"Breasts are very sensitive." Mary explained. "A man's chest is very sensitive too, but most men don't think about that. They block it all off because they think they have to be Mr. Tough Guy all the time. You know what just happened? You dropped your usual manly guard because of your body change. Now you get to feel what us girls feel."

A mischievous look crossed Mark's face. He reached over to cope another feel of Freya's chest. "Does this bother you, hot stuff?"

"No, not really." Freya answered. "It just feels different. It feels nice, actually."

"Do you want to touch my pecker?" Mark asked. "I've had one for like an hour now. I keep thinking about using it on Mary, but honestly, I'm afraid she'll reject me. There, I said it. It's out now and I won't take it back."

"I'll pass." Freya said. "The last thing I want is to put my hand on another man's pecker."

Mary made a face at him.

"I know I'm a woman right now, but you know what I mean." Freya said. "Mark here is used to putting her hands on men and women, but I'm not."

"Do you want to see my pecker?" Mark stood up. He'd only been wearing a long shirt and boxers, but he didn't go any further in showing his piece off because he didn't want to offend anyone.

Freya looked at Mary, who shrugged back.

"I've already seen it, so no surprise there." Mary said. "I even measured while it was soft and while it was hard. How about this? Mark will show you his, and you, Freya, can show him what you have now. This can be like a science experiment. I'll be the control."

Mary stood up and started shimmying out of her tight pants. She got them as far as her knees before she looked back to Mark. As usual, she wore no undies.

"Damn it, Mary." Mark stared at the blonde's tempting nakedness.

"Come on, let's see what you've got." Mary said. "Freya, you can join in with us when you're comfortable. We're not putting any pressure on you."

"You're putting a lot of pressure on me, Mary." Mark said, as he stood up and tugged at his boxers.

Freya unconsciously leaned away from the male genitalia, but at the same time, she felt a sort of morbid fascination while looking at it.

"Egad." Cruz said. He was standing at the door and ready to come in, with a fresh pot of hot coffee in his hand. "Methinks I shall head in another direction."

The Hispanic science officer ducked out of the room and strode down the hallway to the ship's hub. Once the doors got out of the way for him, he stepped in and found only two people there instead of the three he thought he would find. Captain Washington sat in his command chair, while Barbie was typing information down at her terminal.

"Is that more coffee?" Washington asked, quickly pulling his mug out of the armrest cup holder and holding it out. "Please give me a refill."

Cruz stepped over to fulfill the task. "Where is Cammie, if I might ask?"

The captain went to his terminal, putting on the main screen a live image of the bunk Cammie and Freya shared. The older woman looked to be pleasantly asleep on the top bunk.

"Is that a good idea, Captain?" Cruz wondered. "To let her sleep like that? What if she changes sex on us?"

"Barbie has several programs monitoring Cammie's bunk." Washington explained. "If all goes as planned, any anomalies will be captured in a number of different energy spectrums. By studying the data, we will hopefully come up with a good way to counter whatever is happening to us."

Cruz didn't want to come across as pessimistic, but what if they couldn't counter it at all? What if the crew changed sexes and they stayed that way forever?

"You guys shouldn't be drinking so much coffee." Barbie said.

"But what if we change, baby?" Cruz asked her. "I really don't fancy myself a girl, you know. I never have!"

"Neither do I." Washington agreed.

"That's your ego talking for both of you." Barbie commented. "Maybe something will happen to you guys or maybe it won't. If it does, we either deal with it or we can't."

"You're just full of constructive ideas, aren't you, baby?" Cruz grumbled. "Hold on. I apologize for that, Barbie. I feel that I've overstepped the line and insulted you. I didn't mean to say that. I'm just a little stressed out at the moment."

"That's because of the coffee, don't you think?" Barbie asked.

"I suppose." Cruz nodded.

"Besides, it takes a lot more than saying I'm full of ideas to insult me." Barbie chuckled. "I've been going over what took place with the Beagle for a while. I know you guys have this idea to scram as far away as you can because of potential embarrassment, but are you willing to listen to another point of view?"

Washington and Cruz glanced at one another.

"Go ahead, Barbie." The captain said.

"Well, we think that maybe the cloud-thingy didn't approach us, or the Beagle mind you, while the ship was docked on the California and the Neptune." Barbie explained. "Maybe we should have stayed on the Neptune and just put ourselves in quarantine."

"That sounds reasonable, except we didn't suspect what was happening until Margo first went through her sex change." Washington negated the idea. "By that time, we were already in space."

"But we could have gone back to the Neptune right away."

"I don't know." Washington took a deep breath. "Thanks to the scandals that erupted right before we left, I think the Neptune is probably a media circus right now. You know how polarized people can get thanks to the news. For all intents and purposes, we have become major celebrities. Even if we were placed in quarantine, the media would have been pestering us non-stop through the Galactic Web and trying to sneak into our ship to sensationalize things even further."

"We could have docked on the California." Barbie suggested.

"No, they wouldn't have taken us." Washington replied. "That's a military vessel with a specific set of orders. The moment we would have declared quarantine, they would have taken us to the nearest ship with adequate medical personnel, and that, once again, would have been the Neptune."

Barbie looked stumped for a moment, as she tried to think of another way to help the crew. She turned her head when her terminal buzzed. "We have motion sensed in Cammie's bunk."

All three looked up at the image of the large screen. Cammie had left her bunk and was seen walking over to the comm. A second later, Barbie's terminal buzzed again.

"You've reached the bridge." She said, bouncily. "How can I help you?"

"I'm awake now." Cammie said. "Did anything unusual happen in here while I was asleep?"

"Nothing unusual, according to the computers."

"All right. I'm going to hit the humidifier in a minute. Where is everybody, in the hub or in the lounge?"

"Let me check the lounge." Barbie said, going to her terminal for a moment. "Mary and our two converts are in the lounge. They're all naked right now. The rest of us are on the bridge."

"Well, that didn't take long, did it?" Cammie joked. "I'll stop in to tell them I haven't changed into a man yet, before I head over to the bridge."

"Not necessary." Washington said. "We've been cooped in here too long. We'll set the ship to hover and meet you in the lounge."

"I'll see you there. Cammie out."

"See?" Barbie told the two men with her. "Cammie went to sleep, and then she woke up and everything is fine with her. Maybe we outpaced this cloud-thingy by going at full speed ahead like we have been. I don't think you guys are going to change."

"Do you trust your wife's outlook, Captain?" Cruz wondered.

"As much as I trust yours." Washington casually shrugged.

"Excuse me?" Barbie asked. "You're walking on thin ice, hubby."

"What am I supposed to say?" The captain threw his hands up. "That I trust you more than I trust my science officer? On a scientific matter like this one?"

"That's it, buster." Barbie glared at him. "You're in the doghouse now. You'd better get while the getting is good. I'll put the ship on hover by myself!"

Before things got any worse, Washington motioned for Cruz and him to leave. He didn't say a word until they were in the hallway. "Cruz, you know more about dealing with women than I do. What did I say wrong?"

"I have no idea, Captain." Cruz shrugged. "I didn't find anything offensive in your replies. Perhaps Mary might shed some light on this."

They found Mary and Mark dancing naked in the lounge, while Freya was splayed out naked on a couch. As they approached the trio, the two men watched as Mary gave her back to Mark and started rubbing against him.

"Oh, hi guys!" Mary waved at them. "I've got Mark under control now that he's in tune with his masculine pecker. One of you needs to dance with Freya."

"Who is Freya?" Washington asked.

"The DJ formerly known as Thor." Cruz whispered. "You do it, Captain. You dance with Freya. I'm afraid of her."

"I'm afraid of her, too." Washington whispered back. "Can't you dance with her in the name of science?"

"I can't, Captain. I caught myself staring at her breasts earlier, and the entire time I imagined Thor's face on her. That is wrong on so many levels, baby."

"Get up, Freya." Mary went and pulled the tall beauty up to her feet. "The guys are going to dance with you."

The big blonde looked shy as she stood there. Both Cruz and Washington couldn't help but start at her generous physical endowments, but it was Cruz who responded first, by gently pushing his superior ahead of him.

"You go ahead, Captain." Cruz insisted. "I'll dim the lights a bit for you."

This left Washington standing only a few away from his formerly brawny battle technician. "The name is Freya now? Is everything okay with you?"

The Nordic blonde lowered her head. "I don't know, Captain. I feel very awkward at the moment."

Dance with her! Mary shot into the captain's head. She needs your support!

Washington sighed, but he tried to hide doing it. He took a step forward, probably feeling as insecure as the Viking woman before him. Finally, he thought, screw it, and he went to cross the dwindling divide between them.

They both looked up when the lights dimmed, before looking at each other. Freya could barely hold her superior's gaze, however, and was soon looking down. With some trepidation, Washington reached out for the woman's arms and pulled her close. She came easily.

"I hope you don't mind, Captain." Freya said. "But I'll be shutting my eyes while we dance."

That was a relief, Washington thought. The woman looked just like Thor but in the female version. The resemblance was stronger than a brother to a sister, comparable more to an identical twin. Freya's eyes were especially unnerving, so much that the captain would have been compelled to look away if she hadn't shut them.

"My body is very sensitive." Freya went on, nervously. "Mary and Mark both say this is how women always feel, but it is a novelty for me. I can sense the fabric of your uniform on my bare skin, and the way you're touching me."

"Should I stand further away?" Washington asked.

"I'd rather you stay where you are." Freya let go of a long breath. "Mary says I should get used to being in this body, just in case I stay this way for some time. I hope this change only lasts a few hours, but then again, we don't know what might happen down the road. I'm trying to adjust to this, to be comfortable until I change back."

"Okay. We'll go at your pace. What should I do?"

"Just hold me like this until I relax. I think that's the best thing."

Since Freya still had her eyes closed, Washington could take a few moments to consider her. Thor had turned into a tall and beautiful vixen, he noted. The shape of her face was squared, much like Thor's, but the features were bold and handsome. Freya was slightly taller than he was, giving him a close-up view of her chin and jaw, and the soft skin of her throat. Washington hated to admit this to himself, but he was embracing a very attractive woman.

"You smell nice, Captain." Freya whispered. "Your after shave, I mean."

Washington's eyes were taking in the woman's blonde hair. He reached up to brush it away so he could see her bare shoulder. There was a lot of muscle there, but as had been noted before, Freya's form was less like a bodybuilder's and more like a fitness instructor's. Unable to help himself, he wrapped his arms around her bare back.

"Consider this like a bro hug, Captain." Freya said, as she pulled closer to him. Her chin ended up resting on his shoulder. "This has been a very strange voyage."

They both turned when they heard Mary start squealing. Mark was behind her, pawing away at Mary's breasts and hips, and maneuvering the pretty blonde over a couch armrest. Very willingly, Mary let her curvy body get bent over the armrest.

"I'm going to do it, Mary." Mark was panting by then. "I swear I'm going to put it in you unless you stop me right now!"

"Okay, okay!" Mary squealed in delight. "I want it!"

While the couple watched, Mark pushed up against Mary's backside. He let out a long groan, sounding much like the old Margo would have. Then he was holding onto Mary's waist and bucking into her.

While watching this, Washington's hands had slipped lower on Freya's back. His fingers found the swell of her butt. Without really thinking about it, he reached down further and clasped two handfuls of tight and shapely Nordic ass. Freya shuddered at his touch, lifting her head and still closing her eyes.

"You're crossing the line, Captain." Freya gasped.

Washington was oblivious to her words. He kept groping at ass and thighs, running his hands up and down the blonde's sides. At one point, he squeezed his arm between them so he could grab at one C-cup breast.

"This is no longer a bro hug, Captain." Freya shuddered at the erotic assault. "I can hardly think anymore! Is this really what women go through?"

"I have no idea." Washington shook his head.

The captain kept grabbing and groping, not really shocked when Freya started groping him back. They handled each other roughly from shoulders to thighs. The senior officer did pause when he felt Freya's hands tugging on his pants.

"What are you doing now?" Washington asked.

"I don't know, Captain. I'm going on instinct now."

Washington let loose a groan of his own, when a bigger hand than usual started rubbing on his crotch.

"You can't go in there, baby!" Cruz warned, standing before the lounge door and holding his arms out to protect it.

"Why the hell not?" An angry Barbie asked."

"Because they're having a therapy session in there! If you go in there with your sour puss, you'll ruin everything!"

"If my husband is messing around with another woman, I'm going to clobber him!" Barbie threatened. "I still haven't forgiven him for screwing all those cat-women!"