Unblended Ch. 09

She saw me approach and stood up, a look of complete rage dominating her face. I suddenly felt like I was in a western as other students retreated to a safe distance. I affected a look of grim determination (or as close as I could manage) as Rhonda strolled towards me with purpose. As she got closer, I was surprised to find that her personal scent had changed from sketchy garage to upstanding, high-end garage; high-octane fuel, fresh engine grease, a faint trace of paint fumes. It only got more intense as she came within a few feet of me.

"Heya, Ace," she said, her voice a low purr. Then she hauled off and slapped me.

From everything I'd heard about Rhonda's fighting prowess, I was expecting a stiff jab to my abdomen or an uppercut to the chin. Maybe even a knee right to the groin. At no point did I foresee an open-palm slap to the left side of my face. Spinning a complete 360 degrees from the raw force of it, however, was no surprise; Rhonda grabbed me by the shoulders to arrest the spin and then got a hold of my shirt collar, thrusting her face right up into mine.

"I don't know what you said to my mom, but it freaked her out." Her voice shifted from purr to growl. "She chewed me out for the first time I can remember, and I mean the full riot act. I'm fucking grounded for a month. No car, no phone, nothing. Not to mention I'm off the team."

I was having a very difficult time reading Rhonda's face. It was mostly anger, but I caught flashed of other emotions that I couldn't pin down at all. Maybe it was her eyes: her irises had this coronal effect to them, a little like Donna's but with a more striking color change to them, a deep violet at the outer edge shifting to the palest yellow I'd ever seen right around her pupils. The colors seemed to shift as I looked at them, it was hypnotic.

A different part of my brain decided a response was called for. "Yeah, actions having consequences can be a real bitch sometimes, huh?" That was a surprise. I didn't realize until then that I had a death wish.

Rhonda's eyes flashed, and she gave me a menacing grin. "You don't know the half of it." She grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me close enough to whisper in my ear. "You will, though. I don't know how you get everyone dancing to your beat, but I promise, when I'm done with you, I'm gonna beg you to fuck me."

"Save the threats, Rhonda," I said, "you don't scare m-... wait, what?"

We both realized what she said at the same time, and Rhonda looked just as confused as I did. Her face shifted suddenly from anger to shock, then to desire. Time seemed to stop as her eyes slowly closed halfway, and her lips parted slightly.

"Rhonda," I said firmly, recognizing what was happening. Her eyes flashed open, and she let go of me as she took a big step back.

"What the fuck..." she whispered. She spun on her heel and strode off to wherever she needed to be. I just stood there in the middle of the hall, replaying the last five minutes in my head. I never thought I'd be glad to lose control of my supercharged hormones, but they seemed to defuse the situation nicely. They might have also just written a check I'd have to cash later.

"Seconded! What the fuck was that?!" a voice at my side said. I turned to see Amy Hauser, the absolute worst person to have witnessed that particular altercation.

"Off the record?" I asked, and Amy nodded vigorously. "I have no fucking clue."

*****

"I mean, clearly, she meant the other way around," I mused to my companions at luncheon, "but even then, I have to wonder if she meant 'beg me to stop' rather than 'beg me to fuck you.' Hmm..." Word of the confrontation had already spread like wildfire (thanks a lot, AMY), and one might have thought I'd hired a security team to sit with me that day.

"Sounds like that hormonal thing kicked in and scrambled her brain," Donna said.

"Does your mojo normally work that fast?" Stacy Keebler asked. "She couldn't have been standing next to you for more than a minute."

"Yeah," Becky Addison said, "when I'm around other unis, it usually takes a few minutes before I want to rip their clothes off. Not that I want to right now!" she added with an awkward smile to Melissa Bourne, who waved it off. Melissa was practically glued to my side all through lunch, which wasn't unpleasant.

"It really is that quick sometimes," I replied. "Even so, I normally have a better lock on it." I took a bite of sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. "Granted, I had fight-or-flight vibes going the whole time, so I wasn't really paying attention until she wanted to be kissed."

"Did you want to?" Tanya asked. "Kiss her, I mean."

"Under different circumstances, maybe? She was rocking a The Outsiders/Marilyn Monroe look pretty hard."

"Ugh," Becky said, "why are the crazy attractive ones always horrible people? Present company excluded, obvs." That got everyone laughing.

"Hey," Melissa said, "thank you for asking people to look out for me. I really appreciated it, I was worried about what might happen today."

"It's no problem," I said with a smile, "we're all friends, we look out for each other."

"Hear, hear," Donna said, raising her water bottle.

"It was nice of you to let her know we were doing that," Stacy said.

"...I didn't," I realized. I looked at Melissa, who had turned beet red. "I wasn't sure it wouldn't make things worse, so I decided not to. I still don't know if it was the right call, but apparently it doesn't matter?"

"If that's the case, how did you know we were keeping an eye on you?" Becky asked Melissa, and everyone turned to diminutive blonde.

"Well," she said nervously, "I mean, I overheard Amy say something about it, you asked her as well, right?"

"No," I said, the pieces clicking into place, "she's not on the chat server."

"But Jamie is!" Melissa responded, panic creeping into her voice. "She must have told Amy!"

"How do you know Jamie's on the server?" Stacy asked. I felt a wicked grin form on my face unbidden.

"Ladies, please, it's very simple," I said, turning to Melissa before I started singing. "She's just a devil woman, with evil on her mind."

"NO!" Tanya said. Melissa sunk into her chair, her face a mix of embarrassment and relief. Of all the recent invitations to the chat server, DevilWoman66 was the one username I hadn't identified yet. She tended to be pretty quiet, which fit with Melissa's public persona, but she could be even filthier in chat than anybody else, and that was saying something.

"You're DevilWoman66? Like, this whole time?" Donna asked, and Melissa nodded.

"Tessa reached out to me when she was sending out invites, and it sounded like so much fun. I asked her to not tell anyone."

"Hold on. Cliff Richard? Really?" Becky asked, looking at me askance. I was impressed she knew the song.

"It seemed appropriate." I took Melissa's hand in mine and gave her as reassuring look as I could. "I'm glad you're on the server already, though. I want it to be a safe space for everyone."

I could see her heart melting in her chestnut eyes. "God, you're so hot," she blurted out suddenly, and released my hand to gather up her things. "SorryI'mlateforclassseeyoulater!"

"Hey!" I called after her, "come by the booth later, we'll work on character stuff!"

"Ooh, that's a great idea!" Donna said.

"Give her a chance," Stacy observed, "and I'll bet Melissa would work on more than just characters."

"Yeah," I said, wincing, "I should work on not flirting so much and setting better boundaries."

"As your girlfriend, I request that you don't do that," Tanya said. After a moment, she backpedaled a little. "Stop the flirting, I mean. Better boundaries are always appropriate."

*****

The Granite Hills Activity Fair took place during the last two periods of the second Friday of the school year. It was an opportunity for all of the sports teams and special interest clubs to attract both incoming freshmen and the student body at large. The setup was pretty straightforward: the athletic teams and clubs were on the gym side of the lunchroom, the musical and dramatic arts groups were on the auditorium side, and everybody else set up somewhere in the middle.

This year, D&D Club was a spot removed from Performing Arts Row, with a corner table next to the Drama Club. Our table was rather sparsely decorated with sourcebooks, dice, and my wooden dice tower and tray. I thought it was alright, but it paled in comparison to the posters, banners, and light cosplay of Anime Club (Michi put forth a pretty convincing Kagome from Inuyasha) or the fully costumed tragedians repping for Drama. Marty (Martha) Sampson looked pretty amazing in her Titania outfit from last year's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, if I'm being honest, so the costuming would be an effective draw.

Melissa and Donna both arrived right after I'd finished setting up, and I'd snagged a smaller round table to set up behind the main booth so they could work on characters. I noticed they were getting along famously, and I was glad of Melissa integrating into our friend group so easily. We had some time before the Fair started officially, so I finally got to answer Melissa's questions from earlier. Donna had expressed an interest in playing a weapons specialist of some sort, so I gave her the D20 Weapons Locker to peruse for ideas.

"Hey, Ace," Marty said, "any chance of you not upstaging us this year?" It was a fair question, as we both had very similar flairs for the dramatic.

I stood to address her properly. "Were thy heart as hard as steel, as thou hast shown it flinty by thy deeds, I come to pierce it or to give thee mine," I responded with an authoritative snap.

"Sooooo, that's a 'no', then?" she asked with a laugh, and I shrugged.

Johnny Seaver walked up then, joining me behind the booth as the Fair began in earnest then. We chatted for a bit about our respective campaigns as things got underway, and it wasn't long before a pair of freshman boys stopped by.

"D&D Club?" one of them asked. "What's that?"

"Here we go," Marty said, shaking her head as I stood to address the young men.

"Dungeons and Dragons," I said theatrically, "SATAN'S GAME!" I heard Melissa do a spit-take behind me to Donna's amusement. After checking that everyone was alright, I went into my prepared spiel about tabletop games, meeting on Thursdays, and the general sense of camaraderie enabled by regular gatherings around the gaming table. I repeated it a few times, altering it to suit the audience as I went, and I only did the complete Dead Alewives' intro once (at Marty's request, weirdly, but there was a pretty big chunk of underclasspersons around to get the full effect, and both clubs got a lot of interested email addresses afterward). Johnny, for his part, had a more low-key pitch that was no less effective, and I observed he was equally popular with his male and female peers.

The Anime Club table was also doing brisk business, though I could tell Michi was getting a little irritated by every third question being about that kind of anime, hur hur hur. I hoped I was never that obnoxious at that age when I stepped over to rub Michiko's shoulders, giving her a pep talk as though she were a boxer and I, her loyal corner-man.

I saw Amy making her way along the booths with Cara Temple, the latter taking plenty of pictures. When they got to our table, I gave Amy the brief version of the speech, and Cara took a picture of me, Melissa, and Donna behind the booth. When Cara asked if Donna wouldn't mind ducking down so her head and shoulders weren't blocked by the banner, we all took a look at the picture and Donna demanded they use it as-is. It was pretty hilarious.

*****

I was nervous as I waited to see my doctors. I'd made it a little early for my second weekly appointment, and it had been a while since the nurse practitioner brought me back, took my vitals, and went to summon Drs. Ellison, Morrison, and Schneider. While I was waiting, I'd finally remembered to look up Dr. Margaret Ellison, Mayo Clinic Lead Researcher of Adaptive Physiology (holy shit, I thought, I didn't realize she ran the team), lately of Rochester, MN. She was top of her class at Johns Hopkins (both undergrad and med school), and completed her residency at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital in Seattle. She was offered a position at Mayo's Arizona campus developing gene therapy techniques for several years, publishing some highly-regarded (and, to me, completely indecipherable) papers on advanced cellular reconstruction. When the first cases of the Blend appeared in the US (in the Twin Cities, of all places), Dr. Ellison transferred to the Minnesota campus to start their Adaptive Physiology team and get to work analyzing the "condition". Now, roughly two years into a rapidly transforming world, she was in Massachusetts investigating a new mutation in the process. Namely: me.

I jumped when someone knocked on the door before entering. Dr. Ellison entered, tablet in hand, and gave me a friendly smile. "Hey, Ace. Ready to get started?"

I nodded, and she gestured for me to disrobe. The bulk of the inspection was again efficient and clinical, Dr. Ellison running through the usual questions and procedures with the same level of professional detachment she displayed during Monday's assessment. I started to relax a little when we got to the penile exam, and we discovered that I was just about 6 inches soft. "We'll need another measurement later," she remarked. When the exam was complete, she asked me to get dressed.

"Don't you need another, er... sample?" I asked.

"Eventually," she responded. I threw my clothes on and followed Dr. Ellison out. On the way, she started talking excitedly about the progress they'd made analyzing my ejaculate.

"It's remarkable," she said. "It's a little like a Blend booster shot, really. Massive levels of adenogesterol, but also higher levels of fructose and practically a pharmacy's worth of vitamins and minerals. On top of that, there are some compounds that have never been observed occurring naturally within humans, much less in human ejaculate."

"I'm not putting out battery acid or something, am I?" I asked.

"No, nothing like that. Let me rephrase: there are compounds that have never been observed in nature, and one of them, ever. Word of this gets out, you're going to have a lot of excited scientists battering down your door for samples."

"I'll adjust my diet accordingly," I quipped as we got to Dr. Schneider's office. "I wonder if that means I could get unisex girls double-secret pregnant. If the fluid is that potent, my sperm must be super-soldiers by now."

Dr. Ellison snorted. "We'll discuss that," she said, opening the door and gesturing me in.

"That's not ominous at all," I said, entering and suddenly receiving a massive hug from Helena Morrison. That was followed by a deep, sensual kiss as her hand slid down to cradle my butt. She felt very soft and pliable in my arms, and her lips were full and inviting.

"Heya, Doc," I said weakly, recovering from the highly disruptive kiss. Helena had indeed transformed: she was maybe an inch shorter than I'd remembered, and her hair had turned a deep silver with a platinum blonde skunk stripe through the left side. Her boobs had grown at least two cup sizes, and while the rest of her body was still pleasantly plump, her weight had shifted to give her a more rubenesque figure than before. Like my parents, she looked about 5 years younger, and many of the lines in her face had either smoothed out or disappeared completely.

"Hi, Ace," Helena responded, "what do you think?"

"I think he needs a second, woman," I heard Trisha snark beside me, "give him some air!"

Helena laughed and released me, but I didn't have time to think as Trisha spun me to face her and planted a similarly searing kiss on me with no preamble.

"Hey!" Helena protested. "What about giving him some air?"

"I lied," Trisha replied after our kiss broke. I stumbled over into the nearby chair, stars in my eyes. Dr. Ellison took Trisha's seat behind the desk as the other doctors pulled up seats next to me.

Dr. Ellison started off brightly. "So, observing Dr. Morrison while her body processed your ejaculate was fascinating, and we learned a lot about what effects it's facilitating."

"She stayed up all night watching Helena's monitors," Trisha said, "it was super creepy."

"I thought it was nice of her to keep an eye on me!" Helena protested. "Also, you were there too."

"Can you say for certain she didn't jerk it watching you sleep? Because I can't."

"I'd be flattered! And probably asking to help."

"ANYWAY," Dr. Ellison broke in, "Dr. Morrison entered a minor blend coma when she went to sleep that night, and she got a full eight hours of sleep. During that time, we observed her body shifting: adding mass to her breasts, penis, and testicles; reducing it elsewhere, evening things out still elsewhere. The time-lapse footage is a little enthralling, especially her hair color shifting. It's safe to say that medical science has never seen anything like it."

"And you're okay with the changes?" I asked Helena. She gave me a big smile and wrapped her arm around me.

"Ace, I've never felt more like myself. You've given me a tremendous gift, and I don't know how to thank you enough."

"I've got some ideas," Trisha said, and I laughed in spite of myself.

"I bet you do," I replied. "Any other insights?"

Ellison's face dropped a little. "We ran a sperm count on your last samples, and it was a little low. I assumed it was due to not being your first time ejaculating that day."

I nodded, blushing a little. Monday had been pretty cool from an "Ace gets laid" perspective.

"Still, we wanted to see whether your sperm had been affected by your physiology shifting, so we ran some advanced tests to check for motility, cell strength, chromosomal composition." She took a breath, her face twisting a bit before continuing. "Ace, as far as your sperm are concerned, you are still 100% unisex male."

I nodded again. "That makes sense," I said offhandedly, "if I haven't actually blended yet, I shouldn't be biologically compatible with blended people, right?"

"Sure," Trisha said, "your sperm aren't, but the rest of your spooge IS. That's why we're a little stymied." I had to hold in a snort at her crude language.

Dr. Ellison turned the computer screen around for me to see better. "Remember how we theorized that your ejaculate could potentially cause a unisex person to blend? I don't think there's just a chance of that happening, it's a certainty. There are some further studies that need to be conducted, but based on the analysis, we're starting to get a much clearer picture of the biological processes involved."

"It's entirely possible you've just saved the medical community years of intense research," Helena added.

That was pretty insane. I knew that I was uncharted territory, but advancing the cause of science by a few years because my body didn't know whether it wanted to stay male or blend was unexpected.

"So," I said cautiously, "if I ever had sex with a unisex woman, I could cause her to blend, but I could also impregnate her before the blending happened?"

"Correct," Dr. Ellison confirmed. "I suspect it's a very narrow window, but it's very likely."

"So, you know, feed her instead," Trisha said with a smirk.

"We're still no closer on any of the rest of it, right?" I asked. "Like what determines the changes or the regenerative effects?"

Dr. Ellison shook her head. "Once we've identified the rogue compounds you're producing, maybe. Until then, it's still best to keep it under your hat. Now, if you'll excuse me," she said, rising from the chair, "Drs. Morrison and Schneider had something they wanted to discuss with you." She exited the office with a sly grin.