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Gianna hesitated for a moment, her hand a few inches away from the handle of the entrance door to Duda's, one of the city's more well-known drinking establishments. It wasn't her first choice, and had she still been Giancarlo, it wouldn't have even been considered. Circumstances, though, had unquestionably changed, and with them, so had her strategy.

In fact, the current choice was already a revision of her original plan. After her miserable shitfest of a day, a night of drinking had seemed the logical response. Giancarlo, though, had never really been the kind of person whose night of drinking involved staying home with a six-pack or two and whatever happened to be showing on the television. So, the obvious idea was to head out - but from there, it had gotten a little more complicated. She'd already spilled more than she should to Amanda, and being around her drunk probably would only make matters worse in that respect - besides, if she remembered correct, her coworker was more into the club-hopping scene, which was definitely not what Gianna was looking for. Out of Giancarlo's other friends, well, she wasn't sure she'd trust them around her sober. There was Jonah, of course, but that wasn't going to happen, not after what he'd done to her earlier, and if he hadn't exactly cared about her needs before, he certainly wasn't going to be more inhibited after a night of drinking.

So, alone it was, which meant that another level of considerations came into play. The sketch kind of dives Giancarlo had sometimes frequented were out, for sure - she'd probably have been safer walking down the street at night with a "rape me" sign taped to her back. The next logical choice, then, had been Altman's, a classy sort of place in the posher part of downtown frequented by yuppies and the more buttoned-down college kids. Giancarlo had sometimes hung out there because the place felt so safe, so urbane, that it put the women at ease - as long as he wore a suit and made an effort to blend in, picking up an adventuresome girl from the sorority set had been child's play, and doubly so once he could lure them outside and wow them with his car, a far cry from the average college student's jalopy. As long as she paid attention, though, and kept a close eye on her drink, she figured that she should be fine, despite the pronouncements in the boneheap's curse. Problem was, though, she also remembered the kinda-cute bartender - and the way he hadn't had the slightest qualm about taking a twenty to slip a certain something in the drink of a woman Giancarlo had been having a hard time seducing. So much for that idea, then - the last thing she needed was was to be drugged out of her mind on top of some filthy fraternity mattress while some dudebro drunkenly fumbled her out of her panties.

Duda's it was, then. It was still in a nice part of downtown, although not quite as nice as Altman's, more of a gentrified area that still had something of a bohemian flair about it. It was still a nice enough place, and occasionally had tasteful entertainment as the band flyers and schedule out front indicated, but what was more important was the kind of clientele it served - that is to say, primarily the kind that didn't have penises. Well, true, it was a gay bar, but the focus wasn't on men, and the minority of guys there would be far more interested in each other than any of the women present.

The hesitation, though, wasn't due to any sense of bias - Giancarlo, unusually for someone of his professed chauvinism, had never really had anything against homosexuals. The way he'd seen it, if two guys wanted to get together, that was fine with him, as it meant that there were two women out there somewhere who were most likely currently unoccupied. As for lesbians, well... from his perspective, that had seemed like a win as well, as if you caught them together it was a guaranteed threesome, and the idea of taking a woman who had sworn off men, making her take it like the good little bitch that she was underneath all that posturing, seemed like it would be especially delicious. He'd never actually experienced either one in practice, though - he'd hung out a Duda's a couple of times out of the idea of fulfilling some of those fantasies, but when he'd ended up with guys burlier than he was hitting on him, offering to buy him drinks, maybe exchange some quick head out back... he didn't go crazy over it in response or anything, he wasn't stupid enough to draw the kind of attention to himself that caused people to remember his face, but it definitely hadn't been his scene. That, of course, was before Giancarlo had been so ignominiously turned into Gianna. At the moment, having an establishment with good, reasonably-priced drinks and the only cocks in the place pointed decidedly elsewhere seemed just about the best place she could be.

So, considering that, the hesitation was less about the place itself, and more about her presence there - or more specifically, her presence in the clothes she happened to be wearing. After she'd gotten home from work, the first thing she'd done was strip out of all of it: the stupid skirt, with drying cum smeared across the inside hem, the annoying blouse and aggravating bra that had done nothing to stop Jonah's hands, and her coworker's panties, which had seemed really weird when she'd gotten back and really thought about what she was wearing. She'd at least checked, of course, that they looked totally clean when she'd put them on. When she'd taken them off, though, there had been a trail of slick goo permeating the crotch, and tracing a depressingly accurate outline of the outside contours of her spade. There was no way she was going to return them after what they'd been through, even after washing, so she tossed them immediately - she'd just buy Amanda some new ones, or give her a pair from her drawer - after all, as far as she knew, none of them had ever been worn since they'd been installed there along with Gianna.

After shoving the remaining clothes into a hamper, she'd sat on the toilet again, to see if there was any more of that disgusting mix of stuff waiting to come out of her, but everything had seemed to have drained out - at least, the stuff that was going to. She didn't even want to think what might still be in there, drying out against her insides, although she assumed that her body would eventually take care of the rest of it - you didn't hear about women having infections or problems from having someone cum inside them, after all. After she'd been satisfied that those particular lingering remnants of her violation would no longer be a problem, she'd taken another shower, more to get any possible lingering scent of Jonah off of her than anything else. She'd also thought of cleaning up a little bit more between her legs, but even just taking down the handheld showerhead and playing it across her spade conjured up enough uncomfortable echoes of the sensations from earlier that she decided to stick to the plan of letting it sort itself out.

Once she'd gotten out, though, she'd been faced with the same clothing problem she'd faced before. Even without having to make an attempt to be professional, the clothing choices were still somewhere between girly and girlier. Aside from her underwear, which was still depressingly female, she'd finally settled on a shirt that managed to extend all the way down to her waist, although unfortunately it had been accompanied by a neckline that could be generously described as plunging, and for which she'd had to swap out a slightly skimpier bra, as the first one had been visible under the shirt along with her cleavage. She'd paired it with the pair of not-jeans leggings with the most secure waistband, and had even found a belt to thread through the actually functional loops. She wasn't under any real illusions that it would offer any real protection, but at least it was better than the skirt, which had managed to do absolutely nothing at all.

No matter how she looked at it, though, her clothes didn't exactly scream butch, or even dominant. Like the night before, there was still the vaguest outline of her spade visible between her legs against the tight clothing, and she'd thought of covering it up with one of the stupid, flouncy skirts, but that had made it even worse somehow, feeling like an even more complete capitulation to femininity, so she had decided to do without it. While the result was technically the closest she could get to the clothes she'd worn as Giancarlo with what she'd had on hand to wear, there was absolutely no mistaking her feminine curves. Which meant, of course, that even here, there was a chance she'd be hit on - and while the fact she'd be hit on by women made it seem at least a little more palatable, she'd much rather have it be the other way around. Well, even if the clothes couldn't sell it, maybe her attitude would - or maybe, after a couple of drinks, she just wouldn't fucking care.

"First time, huh?"

The voice came from almost directly behind her, and Gianna silently swore at herself as she spun around - in her current form, the last thing she wanted to keep doing was getting lost in thought and allowing people to sneak up on her. Midway through her movement, though, she recognized the voice as a female one, and to her mind less of a threat, so at least she managed not to have a hand suspiciously dart into her purse - curse or not, it had seemed prudent to leave the knife in there, just in case.

The woman standing behind her wasn't quite what she expected. Sure, her headfur was close-cropped, as she had expected, but even so it wasn't done in a particularly masculine way - it seemed more like the "pixie" style that was popular enough with all types of women. Admittedly, for species without a separate form of hair, there was really only so much you could do with it length-wise, but there was still enough to discern differences between male and female styles. In fact, it wasn't all that much different from her own - the boneheap had done something with it to make it look more feminine, but that hadn't been its focus, thankfully.

Aside from that, though, the woman really didn't seem all that different at all, at least in terms of what Gianna's clueless stereotype had envisioned: excessive ear and face piercings, flannel-patterned clothing, big and bossy and boyish. Instead, she just looked like some of the kind of women she'd faced at work: light golden fur with a few dirty-blonde notes, retriever ancestry, a cute little babydoll tee with the logo and name of what she thought was an indie rock band, and a pair of honest-to-goodness denim jeans, snug in the feminine style but far superior to the pale, stretchy imitation Gianna had been stuck wearing. The result, at least, put Gianna comparatively at ease, and allowed her to answer without hesitation.

"Not... exactly. Some reason that's important to you?"

"What? Naw, not important, it's just usually how it is."

"How what is?"

"Oh, you know... someone just hanging out there, trying to decide whether they're gonna go in or not. Usually means it's someone's first time in a place like that, and they're nervous to take that first step in, to accept what that step means..."

Gianna somehow still wasn't quite sure what the woman was getting at. "What it means? Doesn't it usually mean that you want to hang out and get drunk? It is a bar, after all..."

The woman gave a quick, barking laugh at her response. "Oh, no, I didn't mean like that! I- um, you do know what kind of bar this is, don't you?"

"Yeah - the kind without a pack of asshole hetero guys saying things about your body and touching you with their stupid, drunken paws."

"Well... I guess that is technically true, but that's not usually the reason most women come here."

Gianna frowned at the response a little - she wasn't exactly in the mood to deal with evasiveness, polite or otherwise.

"Look, if you're trying to ask if I'm gay or something, just ask already, okay?"

The woman looked a little surprised for a moment, but nodded. "Okay... are you?"

It took Gianna a moment to fully consider that. "Well, I'm a woman-" for now, at least... "-and I like women." Or, at the very least, she really did want to - however the boneheap had messed with her body and switched around her desires, appreciation of women, in a certain sense, had been a major driving force in Giancarlo's life. Even as Gianna, it wasn't something she intended to give up, whether or not that inherent spark was no longer there. "And I am really, truly fed up with guys right now, so yeah, close enough."

"Ah, gotcha," the woman replied. "So, bi, then?"

"Well... trust me, if I could, I'd give up guys in a heartbeat."

The woman looked over at her, with that same sort of knowing expression that all women, at least ones that hadn't been a man until the day before, seemed to have. "That bad, huh?"

The woman reached past her, pushing the door to the bar open. "C'mon, then. Let's hit the bar, grab a couple of drinks, and you can tell me all about it. Oh, and I'm May, by the way."

Gianna tried to reply, but the woman was already moving past her, pausing a few steps in and shooting an inquisitive glance in Gianna's direction. Not wanting to feel any more awkward just standing there in the transom, Gianna ducked inside after her, even as she grumbled internally about May's intentions. Why in the world were women so enthusiastic when it came to getting each other to talk about their problems? It seemed to her that guys had the right idea: when you were feeling hurt, you grabbed a few buddies, grabbed more than a few drinks, and pounded them until the pain went away while talking about absolutely nothing of consequence. Still, at least her idea still involved alcohol, hopefully in copious amounts, and it wasn't like Gianna was going to open up to some random girl anyway. With all the stories she'd told recently, there were more than enough vague allusions and half-truths kicking around in her mind that she could spin a convincing set of lies from. She'd already been amateurishly emotional enough to spill her feelings to one person, and she had no intention of doing so for a second time in one day.

It had been a few years since Giancarlo had visited in his futile attempts at scoring, but the bar hadn't changed all that much: all polished wood and brass, with a good, full bar running along one side featuring a good selection of alcohol arrayed on the mirrored counter behind it, and various small tabled along the other side and clustered towards the back near the small stage set aside for live music. In fact, in a lot of ways it actually felt fairly traditional, down to the flared green-glass lampshades and the array of cocktail stemware hanging down from racks in the bar's ceiling. Really, the only telltale signs that it was anything other than a traditional bar were the signed, framed pictures of gay-rights icons that shared the walls with other various musicians and celebrities, and the slightly edgier, more masculine-seeming members of the mostly-female contingent that were already present.

In any case, though, it was the absence of certain things that were the bar's most important feature: namely, any men who were interested in giving her a second, or even much of a first glance. True to expectations, the few guys in the bar seemed to have eyes mostly for each other, and it seemed a welcome relief to not be quite as noticed as she took a seat on an empty bar stool. Well, aside from May, of course, who happily took the stool next to her. Somehow, she seemed harder to read than normal, although that probably had something to do with the fact that for Giancarlo, he'd not often looked beyond the basic, binary condition of whether they wanted him or not. He wasn't usually of a mind to consider the idea that a woman would sit down next to him at a bar just for some conversation, but between women, that seemed like a real possibility. She doubted, though, that it would be all that much of a problem - she'd either soon find out what the woman's intentions were, or possibly be drunk at least enough to not particularly care. After all, it was just a woman - what could she possibly do to her?

Still, when the bartender came over a moment later, she made a note to pay close attention to where her hands were at all times. The bartender, for her part, was actually feline, which was a little unusual for that kind of establishment. When it came to social venues, at least, felines tended to keep to their own, if for no other reason that their love lives tended to revolve around specialized anatomical equipment that most other species didn't have - and, when it came to male felines at least, equipment that most other species couldn't tolerate. Still, to Gianna she seemed pretty for a feline, lithe and trim, with calico-patterned fur and enough metal attached to her face to provide an undeniably rebellious vibe. Not the kind Giancarlo would have gone for, but in her current state, at least being able to acknowledge women as aesthetically attractive seemed like an improvement.

"Well, hey there, hon. Been a while since I've seen a really brand-new face in here." She glanced between the two of them. "Can't say I'd've thought May'd be quite your type, though."

Gianna vaguely shook her head, even as she noticed May giving the bartender an indignant-looking face. "It's not like that. We're just... here."

"Sure, hon. Whatever you say." The bartender gave her an obvious wink, propping her elbows on the countertop as she leaned in closer. "Anyway, like I said, always fun to see a new face. So... what'll it be?"

"Ten High. Neat."

The bartender leaned back, seeming a little surprised. "Yeah? Hadn't figured you for a straight-shots kinda gal. In a hurry or something?"

"Yeah. Or something."

"All right, all right! Can't blame a bartender for checking on her customers, now can ya?" She glanced back over at May again. "So, one shot coming right up... and your usual, I take it?"

"Sure," May replied, and the bartender headed off. May, on the other hand, turned back to Gianna, with an inquisitive look on her face.

"Well? C'mon, spit it out already! What's got you so worked up?"

Gianna looked back, her mind clicking through several halfway-plausible scenarios, before coming to the realization that she really just didn't give a damn about pretending for sympathy. May's compassion, after all, wasn't going to change the fact that she was a woman who shouldn't be one, or that her best friend now saw her as something to be fucked, or that some monstrous, demented fuckstick had all but slapped a "rape me" sign on her back. No, those were her problems, and she would be the one to sort them out. She'd had enough of bitching about her problems, real or imagined, for one day.

"Look... I'm sure you're a nice person and all, and I know you're just trying to be friendly, but I've already tried talking about my shitty last couple of days, and I'm not feeling any better. That's why I'm here. What makes me feel better is getting fucking drunk, but I don't like doing it alone. That's why I'm here. So, if you wanna talk or something, go ahead, but I'm just going to sit here and get plastered. Silently. Got it?"

May laughed a little in response, and Gianna grumbled inwardly - among the many changes brought about by her transformation, it certainly wasn't doing wonders for her intimidation. "Yeah, I hear ya. We've all been there, right? Go ahead, then. I'll be sitting right here, for when those drinks start to loosen your tongue..."

Don't bet on it, Gianna thought. Even when drunk, Giancarlo hadn't ever spilled about any of the things he'd done, and Gianna doubted that it would be any different now. As if on cue, the bartender arrived and set their drinks down on the countertop: a shot of bourbon for her, and a pint glass of light-colored beer for May.

May raised her glass. "To meeting better people, hmm?"

Oh, if only you knew... Still, Gianna raised her glass, clinking it against May's. "Yeah, sure..."

May took a good swig, but Gianna was done being patient. She put the shot glass against her muzzle, tilted her head back, and downed the shot in one gulp. The stuff burned going down, maybe a little more intensely than it used to, but it was a good kind of fire for sure, quickly setting just the right kind of warmth in her belly. Even before the liquor took hold, the familiar sensation was relief enough that she could already feel some of her troubles beginning to melt away. She rapped the glass down on the counter and called out for another, which the bartender provided with a smile. Then another, and another...

She'd taken what she'd thought would be a comfortable amount, but it wasn't until the final drink was in her that it occurred to her that the change in her gender and body weight probably meant that her tolerance wasn't as high. That was, however, the last halfway-coherent thought she had for the night, as things went quickly from buzz to blur, with only snippets of sensation peeking out from the heavy layer of fuzz that settled over her perceptions. She recalled seeing the lights of the city flashing by from the window, stumbling a little over a step, and then a weird, wobbly blank. There were only a couple of barely coherent snippets after that: crouched over someone and laughing, two fluffy handfuls of breasts gripped comfortably in her hands, and then on her back looking up at the ceiling, fur brushing against her own, and a strange, stretchy feeling that seemed to unfold between her legs in slow motion, a weird sensation that her blitzed mind could barely parse. And after that... blackness, nothing but blackness, and a throbbing in the center of its undefined emptiness that built until it was thudding though her entire mind.

Her eyes crawled open against the persistent hammering, blinking at the sunlight that was streaming in the window from the wrong angle. It wasn't exactly an unfamiliar feeling - there had been plenty of times that Giancarlo had gone on a bender and awakened in some random apartment or hotel room with some floozy or other draped across or sprawled under him. As a woman, however, instead of a feeling of casual conquest, the awakening was met with an initial surge of panic - even more so when she sat up and felt her breasts swinging free, sheets rustling against her bare fur. She desperately thought back, recalling whatever snippets she could from the night before, and when she came across the memory of having two pawfuls of someone else's breasts, she relaxed considerably. She didn't know how she'd have reacted if it had been a man who'd taken her home, but being with another woman... that, she could manage. Technically, the boneheap's curse had had its effect: she'd gone out to a bar, and wound up in someone else's bed, sexed up in some way or other. It wasn't, however, due to any clear advantage - there was none of the weird, floaty sluggishness that came in the aftermath of taking drugs, or being drugged, just the classic symptoms of a good, old-fashioned hangover. She'd just wanted to get drunk, overdone it, and there she was. Like Giancarlo, though, she didn't really feel any shame or regret about it - after all, her ploy had worked after a fashion, and she'd avoided another humiliation at the hands of a man in favor of something she could only assume was, between two women, far more egalitarian.

Still, it probably made sense to try and figure out just what sort of woman she'd ended up going home with - May, she'd assumed, but after getting that drunk she was well aware that unpredictable things could happen. Blinking away from the window, and the bright sunlight that only seemed to exacerbate the pounding in her skull, she glanced around the rest of the room. The bed she was in seemed to have a comforter cover in some sort of tribal pattern, and the rest of the room bore that out: woven rattan chairs with similar patterns in natural brown hues, and wooden dressers and end tables with collections of what looked like African tribal art and fetishes arrayed on top of them - especially those of the large bare-breasted variety. The walls followed the pattern, and were hung with traditionally-patterned art interspersed with things that looked like some sort of voodoo or witch-doctor masks. The decor didn't immediately strike her as something that would appeal to May - but then again, it was also true that she knew next to nothing about her, aside from her name, the sound of her voice... and, apparently, what her tits felt like, which from a Giancarlo mindset seemed like a far more useful tidbit than the rest.

The room, though, wasn't particularly neat, which somehow seemed like it might be more in fitting with May's character - after all, taking home strangers to have fun with them spoke of a certain level of impulsivity, a trait that often ran counter to neatness and organization. The end tables were also filled with random things, and there were clothes draped over the dressers and strewn about on the floor - not too many, but enough to be noticeable. Some of them, of course, were her own: her pink V-neck shirt and bra were dangling from one of the bedposts, and her denim-patterned leggings were crumpled up by the doorway. To her chagrin, though, she couldn't recall which of the half-dozen panties she spotted on the floor around the bed were her own. Several of them, of course, were too frilly for her to have considered wearing, but a few of them looked far too close to know for sure. She had to get dressed, though, so she pulled herself out of bed and gathered them up, feeling far too naked and vulnerable. Not to mention, it looked beyond pervy, holding several pairs of panties in her hands and sniffing lightly at them - no matter that, far from being done for titillation, she was trying to find the ones that matched her depressingly feminine scent. When she found the right pair, though, her own scent was so clear as to be overwhelming - as was the fact that the crotch of them was clearly damp, and not with piss, but probably with her own juices, which had left behind a strange, shimmering sheen on the inside as they partially dried. She didn't relish the idea of pulling them back on, but as the alternatives were wearing someone else's, which had been weird enough the day before, and going entirely without them, she resigned herself to it, grumbling as the wet fabric settled clammily against her spade. At the very least, the leggings didn't seem to be similarly dampened, and after fumbling around with the inconvenient clasps of a bra she still wasn't familiar with actually putting on herself, she was soon as dressed as she had been last night, as stretchy and marginal as that was.

She stepped towards the door, noticing as she walked that her hips felt... weird, not the dripping aggravation between her legs that she'd felt after her unfortunate encounter the day before, but a subtle, comfortable throbbing that reverberated slightly with each stride and gave her a wobbly little hitch mid-step. She paced a few tentative circuits around the room, and the unusual unsteadiness seemed to subside, but the subtle throbbing still pulsed from time to time as she moved. She didn't know, exactly, if it was just some other part of being female, or the result of something that happened last night, and so she resolved to shrug it off and keep going. After all, as far as she could remember, it was still a workday.

As she ventured out of the bedroom, though, she found that it was part of a similarly-decorated apartment, albeit one a little bigger than her own - it had an actual hallway branching off into a bathroom and main living room, and she could hear someone moving about in the small kitchen off to the side. As her nose led her over to it, following the smell of cooking meat, she noticed the stylized clock hanging on the wall above a wicker shield of some sort - while she hadn't quite gotten up with the sun, whoever she was with was certainly an early riser, and she had at least enough time to make a quick and hopefully not too awkward farewell, get back to her own place, and do something about her pounding head before going to work.

She stood in the kitchen doorway for a moment, watching the woman in front of her flipping a spatula between two sizzling pots on the stove, swaying her hips and humming softly to herself as she did so. The golden fur itself was at least a partial giveaway, but the shape of the buttocks cradled by a pair of lavender high-cut panties, the only other article of clothing the woman seemed to be wearing besides an apron, made it clear that it had, in fact, been May she'd ended up going home with. At least, she thought, one of her Giancarlo instincts was still at full strength - if he'd seen a particularly shapely posterior once, he could recognize it anywhere. Of course, if it were Giancarlo, there would have been a bit more to it than recognition - a good squeeze, at the very least - but in the sober light of a new morning, her depressing newfound ambivalence to other female forms had unfortunately returned.

Sure enough, it was May's cute, pixie-like face that appeared as the woman heard her and turned around, smiling.

"Hey, Gianna!" May said, several decibels too loud for her to comfortably handle in her current state. "Didn't mean to make you think I snuck off or anything, but after how you were last night, I figured I should let you sleep."

"Mngh," Gianna replied, rubbing her temples. "Yeah... thanks. Coffee?"

"There's a pot on the counter over there, but I've got something better," May said, grabbing the handle of one of the pans and bringing it around to display the sausage links she was frying up. "You ask me, nothing beats a hangover like some good, old-fashioned meat."

Gianna couldn't help but snicker, and May scowled slightly. "What?"

"Oh, just... lesbians, sausages... never mind. Seemed funnier when I thought of it, but then again, just thinking hurts right now."

"Well, I've got aspirin and soda water too, if that works better." She put the pan back on the stove, grinning. "You've gotta manage your liquor better though, girl! Could have had a lot more fun if you hadn't passed clean out an hour into it."

"I... yeah. Not... really sure what happened. Usually I'm more careful, but... ugh. Guess it was just one of those days."

May leaned forward. Even hidden by the apron, the outline of her tits brought back at least some hints of a half-remembered sensation. "Well, at least it ended better than it started, right? Though I gotta say, I read you wrong. Took you for a total novice at this, but damn, you can suck a spade like nobody's business! And those soft, cute little whimpers you make when you cum, the way you got so into it, I nearly melted..."

Of course she had, Gianna thought, grumbling inwardly. Her first climax as a woman. Even though it was something she'd been halfway dreading, the notion of it was at least the slightest of silver linings along with all of the other misery being a woman had caused, and even more so without a guy and a dick thumping between her legs being involved. So, of course it would have to figure that she'd been so completely hammered at the time that she couldn't even remember the slightest bit of what it had felt like. At the very least, though, it probably explained the weird, intermittent throbbing - she knew from her experience as Giancarlo that the effects of a female climax had a tendency of sticking around a little bit longer than they did for a man. As Giancarlo, even, doing a woman to the point where she couldn't quite walk straight afterward had been a sort of badge of honor, but now Gianna had to acknowledge the other, less convenient aspects of it for a woman so afflicted. Even so, orgasm or not, memory or not, it probably didn't matter - while her days as a woman hadn't gone all that well so far, the nights, at least, had been mercifully free of any overt trauma.

"Um, that's... great? Look, I'm not gonna lie - I was pretty drunk when it happened. Not that I'm saying I wasn't drunk enough to go along with something I didn't want, and the bits I can remember felt pretty damn fantastic. I just only remember, well, some of it. I, ah... I didn't really sound that girly, did I?"

May laughed a little, and Gianna cringed. "Hey, nothing wrong with that! I mean, it's not like you have to be butch or something, and girl, I don't think you could pull that off anyway if you tried. Just take the compliment, hey? Heck, whatever experience you've got, you're better than plenty of people, for sure - and I'm hoping it wasn't just the drink, because it's rare to find someone as cute as you who doesn't just play up the whole femme thing, and isn't afraid to take the initiative..."

Well, at least one part of it had gone right, although Gianna was pretty sure that the part involving her aggression wasn't the same part when she was flat on her back and mewling like a fucking kitten. Besides, compliments or not, she wasn't exactly the kind of person who was accustomed to, well, being there the next morning, with whatever additional relational entanglements that might imply.

"Look, ah, thanks for the compliments and all, but I-"

"Don't want to give me the wrong idea, right?" She said, winking. "Hey, I'm not clueless. I kinda already got the message - if you were interested in more, you'd still be in your underwear and nuzzling at my ear as I cooked, not standing in the doorway fully dressed with your purse on your arm. And honestly, if I'd been looking for that, I wouldn't have gone to a hook-up bar like that, anyway. Nah, it was just... when I saw you, something told me you might be fun, and once you were a few drinks in, well... I dunno. All of a sudden I just felt like I wanted you, and when you responded to my overtures, I took it from there. Yeah, kinda spontaneous for me I guess, but I just had this impulse last night that you were gonna be the one in my bed, like it was... inevitable or something. Hey, ah, that doesn't sound too weird, right? Because hearing it come out of my mouth, yeah, it sounds kinda weird..."

Gianna shook her head. Of course, she was more than well aware about just how unfortunately not-weird it was. The only real surprise had been that the curse, whatever it was, was general-purpose enough that it even managed to draw other women in to take advantage of her. Even if she didn't mind quite as much, it was still a little aggravating to know that even a bar like that wouldn't be a safe haven where she could act out a little and not still end up being bedded by someone, dick-having or not. "Believe me, it's not. It's really, really not." She sighed. "The week I've had, well... let's just say that when it comes to inevitabilities, this one barely rates."

"Huh?" May looked at her quizzically.

"Never mind. I'm just... ah, thanks for being understanding. Not exactly good at the morning-after conversation, especially when my head's like this."

"Yeah, I know what you mean... probably why I'm so polite about it, right? Women can have some serious drama when their expectations aren't matched, don't I know it! Trust me, while it's really not always my thing, I'd prefer to let it honestly be a night of fun and done than have it devolve into a full-blown bitchfest before breakfast. I mean, we've probably both got work today, and I'd much rather start my day still feeling good. So if that's just how it is with you, then... well, I wouldn't mind seeing if there's anything more to it, but if you want to walk, I'm not gonna hassle you over it." She took a step back, gesturing as she did over to a small table tucked into the corner of the room. "At least have a cup of coffee, though? After all that last night, I never was able to get you to open up, at least not when it came to talking, so you can't blame me for taking one last shot at it, right? Like I said, better to go to work happy, than with something eating at you. You ask me, it always helps to get that kinda stuff off your chest..."

"Yeah, like this fucking bra," Gianna said under her breath, although apparently not quite softly enough.

"Heh, I know, right? I swear, sometimes I think they're something men invented just to mess with us. Of course, you don't wear one, and there's a whole other set of problems." She poked at one of her breasts through the apron, and Gianna was disappointed again that such a thing didn't feel titillating, or even worthy of a snicker, just... appropriate for illustrating what she was saying. "Eh, what can you do? Really, I can't complain - after all, they're got their fun aspects too, right? Especially in the right hands..." She winked at Gianna, who truly couldn't find any fault in that statement. Even if she wasn't particularly attracted to the woman in front of her, no matter how fervently she might have wished to be, the memory of how her tits had felt in Gianna's hands was nevertheless a decidedly pleasant one.

"Yeah, can't... complain..."

"You really are just too cute, you know that?" May said, sighing. "Seriously, though, even if it's not what you wanted in that respect, there's no reason we can't be, well, friends, right? Or friendly, at least. You really don't have to keep it all in. I'm not a gossip, I'm not gonna burn ya, I just don't like it when someone gets someone else as pissed off as you were last night. Not saying I can make it right, but in my experience, sometimes just having someone look at it from an outside perspective can help."

Gianna looked at her skeptically. "I hate to ask an obvious question, but... do women just have a thing for hearing about other people's misery? Because literally every woman I've come in contact with recently keeps going on about wanting to hear why I'm miserable. I mean, that's not something I'd do, ever..." And for that matter, back when she'd been a guy, no one had ever particularly inquired about his feelings, no matter how he'd look. Of course, he hadn't really given a shit about theirs either, so he'd supposed it was even.

"Not sure about all women, but that's how I am. Maybe it's just that the way the world is stacked against us sometimes, especially for a woman who's out, that we've all got to stick together, and part of that is helping each other when the inevitable shit comes up that we have to deal with. And if that's really, really not your thing, well, there's the door. But why not let me try and help? Way I see it, you've got nothing to lose..."

Gianna sighed. She really wasn't going to give up, was she? She glanced over at the door for a moment, wondering if that might be the easiest way to go. At the same time, though, it would still be a while before work, and something May had said resonated with her. Giancarlo had been used to being a lone wolf, as it were, as his brawn and intimidation had allowed him to skate by even without backup. Being a woman, though, was a different calculation entirely, and she was more than well aware of the dangers that were posed for one roaming around alone in certain situations. If she was going to find a way through, even though it wasn't really her style, having certain allies might be strategically helpful, at the very least. Plus, if whatever she'd gotten up to with May was worth a point or two, even if the attraction wasn't there, it might be a more viable or at least supplemental option for getting through with a minimum of humiliation and discomfort at the hands of men. And if all it cost was reiterating in vague terms how much the previous day had sucked, then...

"Well, if you really want to know that bad..." Gianna paused, trying to decide just how much she wanted to reveal, and how. Her primary goal, after all, wasn't to elicit sympathy, or stir up emotions. And she'd been direct, so far, so it made sense to keep it vague-ish, straightforward, and reasonably unemotional. "There's a guy that I've been friends with for years. I always thought our relationship was a... certain way, but apparently he had other ideas. We were alone, he cornered me, and I didn't say no when I should have. If I'd been clear about it, maybe it would have been nothing, but he was my friend and I felt conflicted so I wasn't. So I want to call it rape, but I can't, and as screwy as it is, I still want our old relationship back, because I'm not great at making friends. That's it in a nutshell, really; I want to forget that part of yesterday ever happened, want to forget that a lot of things happened and just go back to the way things were before, even though I know that I can't, and that really sucks."

"Ah, jeez..." May replied, looking chagrined. "Didn't realize it was that serious... shit. I... don't even know what to say. Situations like that are just the worst. I've been in a couple, not as bad as that, but close. Unfortunately, even with experience, I never figured out a way to get through it that's not even more of a mess. You can try being direct with the guy, I guess - that's probably the least bad option. Or knee him in the balls, if it's the kind of guy where you can get away with it. Women have their own stuff, but usually they're not like guys in that way - some men just don't get the message until you jackhammer it into their skulls. Still, that kind of shit is not okay, and... aw, crap. Sorry. I'm usually more compassionate, but guys who pull that kinda thing just piss me off to no end..."

"It's fine, really - I'm not telling you the story for pity. Whatever we got up to last night, I'm pretty sure it was a lot more helpful than hearing someone saying how they feel sorry for me. I don't feel pitiable. I just feel... violated, and pissed off, but my history with this guy... I dunno. I don't think I can just let him have it with both barrels and leave it at that."

"I don't know if it helps, but if it were me, a guy did something like that, I wouldn't give him anything but grief - but I know, relationships can be way more complicated than that. If he really is your friend, though, if he genuinely cares about you and this was just crossed signals and male stupidity, he'll fall all over himself trying to make it right between you again - and something as serious as that, you can hold it over him pretty much forever if you want. And if he gets all defensive about it, blames you or acts like a total dick, then you know his friendship was never really about being friends, and you can pack up that history and kick him to the curb without harboring any regrets. If a guy makes a history of doing things like that, there's no history that's worth continuing to stand by him."

Gianna, strangely, couldn't help but grin slightly at that, the irony hardly lost on her - after all, it was an open question as to just how many women had learned similarly object lessons about men at Giancarlo's hands. As far as relationships went, though, he'd actually been fairly straightforward - for the women who'd had sex with him voluntarily, at least, he'd left little illusion that it was anything more than that. At the same time, though, May's advice was actually fairly reasonable, although Gianna would probably ignore it and try to handle the situation with her usual calculation. In that one particular way, then, talking had helped to a certain extent - in combination with the events of the evening that had given her something else to think about, what had happened with Jonah was starting to feel less emotional, more detached - not quite as though it had happened to someone else, but it definitely was beginning to feel more like a momentary, humiliating lapse than her permanent fate. If nothing else, her night with May had proved that Giancarlo's dominance and confidence was still lurking somewhere inside her, and one humiliation certainly hadn't been enough to snuff it out.

"Thanks... I'll keep that in mind," she replied, deciding how to proceed next. As far as she could tell, she'd accomplished what she needed to in her current strategy with May - story told, response elicited, not too many unfortunate emotions dredged up. Given that success, then, it was probably time to engineer a polite exit for now. Should she offer May her phone number, though? Gianna considered it for a moment, but thought better of it. After all, that would be a clear test as to whether her strategy was working - if that connection had really been made, then May would certainly offer her own unquestioningly.

She cast around the room with her eyes until she found the clock hanging on the wall, looking meaningfully at it for a few seconds before turning back. "Well, I've got work in not too long, and as tempting as breakfast sounds, I've got to get back to my own place and get ready." She gestured briefly at her clothing. "Can't exactly wear this to work, and choosing what to wear has been... trying, lately. So, I think I'd better hit the road. Thanks for, um, listening, though." Yes, that ought to do it.

Sure enough, May nodded, before appearing to think of something and grabbing a pad of paper with attached penholder that had been magnetically secured to the refrigerator, scribbling something down quickly before handing the sheet of paper over to Gianna.

"My number. You want to talk some more, about that or anything, give me a call. And if you decide later on that you're up for some more fun, you can call for that too. Don't usually do the friends with benefits kinda thing, but you're so cute I think I might just make an exception..."

Bingo. Gianna accepted the piece of paper, tucked it away in her purse, and made her goodbyes. She wasn't able to escape without a quick, spontaneous kiss from May, but that one at least was on the cheek, and easy enough to shrug off.

She made her way down the outside stairs from May's apartment, and sure enough, her car was parked by the curb out front, albeit a little sloppily. Somehow, she doubted that she'd let May drive, which meant she'd probably been courting a DUI the entire way there, but somehow she'd made it intact. For now, at least, it was better that it was there, as it meant she wouldn't have to try and head back to the bar or catch a bus back, which might indeed have made her late for work.

She recognized the neighborhood well enough, and made a mental note of the apartment address and number as she started her drive back home. An instinct from Giancarlo more than anything, it still was one that might come in handy. Besides, if she ever was able to best the boneheap and change back, there was always the thought of Giancarlo revisiting May under different circumstances - after all, in his view, she would still make a nice little prize. In fact, Gianna thought, if she did find a way back, she might make an exception to Giancarlo's general disinterest in homosexuality, as chances were that by the time this was resolved, there would be plenty of guys in line to get revenge-fucked, with Jonah currently at the top of the list. Yeah, she'd have to find a way to deal with him, and sooner than she'd like, but she figured she'd tackle that mess later.

As it was, she hit more greens than reds, and made it back to her apartment in enough time. Maybe even enough time to shower, but she'd already done so last night - and when she thought of it, having the lingering scent of another woman on her might be a delicious little tweak at Jonah when she did decide to confront him. That meant that there was enough time for coffee, not just instant but an actual brewed pot of it, and a decent breakfast sandwich with plenty of meat toasted up to go along with it.

Once that was done, though, there was the usual problem to confront - she certainly hadn't been lying about the wardrobe giving her problems. She was happy enough to strip off the other clothes, especially the panties, and the underwear she replaced them with was, probably thanks to the curse, typically tight and comfortable. Beyond that, though, was the same unsavory selection of revealing things, made even worse now that she had expended the most conservative possible options the day before. The next available skirt was only an inch or so higher, but with some ridiculous slit going up the side that ended less than an inch below the side fabric of her panties. The one after that was another sort of tube skirt, which looked more snug than stretchier than the one before, and at least several inches shorter. When she held it up against her waist, the length of it only seemed to extend a few inches past her crotch - technically enough for modesty, but that was only assuming she didn't ever bend over, or cross her legs, or let it ride up, or a dozen other things that would probably lead to her being flashed to everyone around. Somehow, though, all the other available choices were even worse, so she grimaced and laid it out with yet another blouse that lacked a sufficiency of top buttons.

There was no way she was putting on that kind of a show, though, not after how pathetic those clothing choices had been the day before, how depressingly easily they had been shunted aside in a matter of seconds. Even if her options were disappointingly limited, she was at least going to make it slightly more of a struggle, and at least somewhat less revealing to boot. So, she pawed through the closet and drawers again with determination, looking through her various options. She came up, unsurprisingly, with a selection of leggings and some rolled-up pairs of pantyhose from the back of one of the underwear drawers. The pantyhose were too sheer and weak to be of much use. Most of the leggings didn't exactly look professional, either in cut or in pattern, but there were a couple of pairs of plain black ones that looked professional enough. Of course, when she pulled one of them on, they turned out to be ever-so-slightly see-through as well, but they were at least better than the pantyhose, even if they clearly enough betrayed her pale-green panties underneath. Sighing, she tugged them off and went to hunt down a pair of black panties that would mostly disappear against them. Of course, they had to be made from some sort of thin, silky fabric that felt even snugger and weirder against her spade, but it was better than providing bait for various oglers. The leggings went back on afterwards, and the skirt followed - this one didn't even have a zip, so she just had to struggle its stretchy fabric up over her thighs until it settled into place against her hips. The blouse, of course, displayed just as much cleavage if not more, but as grumblingly depressing as it was, she was slightly less worried about it - the ogling would continue, certainly, but at least that wasn't a place most guys would be actively thinking about fucking. At least, she didn't think so - Giancarlo had always appreciated breasts, to be sure, but when it came to sex there was only one, very focused place that was his goal to get into.

As grumble-inducing as her current clothes were, the drive to work was at least uneventful, and she spent part of it actively thinking about shopping again. While it was true that the boneheap's annoying curse meant that she couldn't think about anything that wasn't snug or short or stretchy or agonizingly feminine, at the very least she could go out and track down the absolutely most conservative things that met those criteria. Maybe that wouldn't be all that much of an improvement, but it would at least be better than her current options, which felt like a walking advertisement of her feminine attributes.

She actually made it to work a little bit early, and thankfully Hugh wasn't wandering around to harass her - instead, he was already hanging out in the cashier's kiosk, ostensibly going over the handful of receipts on his desk but spending most of his time leering at Amanda as she leaned against the counter, a lascivious smirk on his face as she did her level best to ignore the gaze she was surely more than well aware of. Jonah, apparently, was there too, as the lights were on in his office and his door was cracked partway open.

For a moment, she debated what to do. It was probably the best time to get things out of the way, and if it had been Giancarlo that Jonah had slighted, there wouldn't have even been a moment of hesitation - he'd have barged in and given him a piece of his mind, or a piece of his fist if that's what was called for. It had only ever gotten that heated between them a couple of times, though, and since both were more than capable of taking a punch or two, it had never been a big deal, and they'd shrugged it off and let it blow over.

The problem, though, was that her feelings regarding him were suddenly a lot more complicated. There were still Giancarlo's memories of their long friendship, but at the same time, there was also anger and frustration about what he'd done to her, humiliating memories from the day before, and her body's conflicting feeling about him: revulsion at the feeling of him taking her, but the unmistakable arousal she'd also experienced before was just as easy to remember, and it, along with the boneheap, had surely contributed to her pathetic capitulation to his advances. Then again, though, he'd left that encounter without receiving the message she'd wanted to send, and probably still had a distorted view of their relationship. That meant that if she didn't tackle it head on, there was a chance he'd find a way to corner her somewhere alone again, and if that happened she still didn't trust her ability to control her new body's impulses and make the right decisions - make the wrong ones, and she'd probably find herself once again humiliatingly bent over something and submitting to his desires.

So, the direct approach it was. Before she could give her mind the opportunity to overthink it, she put her body into motion, storming forward quickly to cover the distance and swinging open the door to step inside the office, closing it with a little extra forcefulness behind her, although not with the hinge-rattling slam that Giancarlo would have been capable of.

Jonah, sitting in his chair with a sheaf of papers in his lap and his feet propped up on his desk, glanced up at her sudden appearance with unfazed nonchalance, something he'd always seemed to be effortlessly capable of. He was wearing a light-grey suit today, contrasting nicely with his fur, the well-tailored jacket emphasizing his broad shoulders and trim, muscular physique. Even after all that had happened, his clean-cut masculinity still managed to stir up something involuntarily within her, and while she was able to use the lingering rage from yesterday to shove it back down, it still left her feeling unsettlingly flustered. She did her best to fight that down, too, as she knew that if she wanted to avoid trouble later, she needed to make everything as clear as possible now.

"Hey, Ginny!" he said, smiling up at her as he swung his legs down and swiveled in his chair to face her. "Don't usually see you in so bright and early. Not that I'm complaining, though - you're a sight for sore eyes, no matter where or when you are. So, what can I do for ya?"

"We... need to talk." Gianna replied, her flustered state causing the words to come out less forcefully than she had hoped, and also less articulated, leaving her wincing inwardly when she considered the obvious cliche her words had managed to form.

Jonah's face instantly fell when he heard them. "Um, I gotta say, that doesn't sound good, especially for a workday morning..."

Gianna looked down at him, trying to find her resolve, and figuring out how to start the discussion in a way that wouldn't mess things up too badly - after all, he was still ostensibly her friend and definitely her boss, so it had to be at least halfway tactful. First, though, she knew she had to figure out exactly what she was dealing with.

"Look, ah... how would you describe our relationship?"

Jonah's face fell further. "Oh, it's one of those kinda talks. You know, I'm not the only one in the relationship, so if this is a test or something..."

Gianna shook her head. "No, it's nothing like that. Just humor me for a second, okay? Pretend I'm someone who's never met us, and you're trying to describe our relationship objectively. All right?"

Jonah gave her a sort of halfway grin. "You know, that's the thing about you. You never, ever do stuff in the way that I'd assume you would. None of the bullshit that other women seem to love so much - you want something, you say it. Guess that's why we're so inseparable."

He leaned back in his chair, his eyes drifting momentarily off to the side. "How would I describe it... I mean, you know we met back in high school, with me trying to date you 'cause it felt like a rebellion to bail on those airhead cheerleaders and hang out with a chick who wore leather and listened to metal. Of course, I'd never figured on you picking me up in a car I wish I'd owned! I guess it never really worked out back then, sexually I mean, but it's not like any of us really knew what we were doing, right? I guess we officially broke up after a month or something, I can hardly remember, but somehow that just made it easier, and shit, I guess we've been hanging out together ever since. I mean, yeah, the sex thing has only been going on for maybe a year - I guess working in close quarters for a few years like this finally brought you around - but with 'no complications, no crazy relationship stuff.' I believe those were your words, not mine, by the way. Man, is that what this is about? I though things were still staying pretty casual, but if you feel like you want something more-"

"No. That's not what..." She trailed off, trying to figure out where to go with it, even as she parsed what he'd just said. Overall, the brief period of dating aside, the story really wasn't any different from the friendship Giancarlo had had with him - well, with the exception of the escalation that had happened within the last year or so. At least, it helped explain part of the boneheap's meddling - as part of whatever it had done to adapt the world to her new gender, it had decided to add an additional complication by giving Jonah memories of a sexual relationship with her. Which meant, sadly, that the encounter in the break room had probably seemed to him like nothing out of the ordinary. Well, it was past time to change that particular notion.

"Look, what happened yesterday, you coming up behind me, surprising me, jumping all over me... that can't happen again."

Jonah looked confused. "Huh? What are you talking about?"

"What I'm talking about? I'd think that it's pretty obvious what I'm talking about!"

"Um... no, it isn't. You do remember that the toner thing isn't actually about fetching toner for my printer, right?"

Dammit. Of course it would be something like that - if they were having an office tryst, there would be some kind of code so that it wasn't obvious what was going on to their coworkers. Yet another piece of information the boneheap hadn't bothered to share - and one, of course, that she probably should have been aware of, and might have been if she hadn't been trying to simultaneously control her body's intrusive feelings.

"Besides," Jonah continued, "you said that you liked me aggressive like that. That you enjoyed it the most when I really made you feel like a woman. I know I've heard you say that, and you've only encouraged me in the past when I've acted that way..."

Yes, clearly the work of the boneheap, or perhaps the curse it had put into place. It certainly hadn't been kidding when it had mentioned helping things along! Still, she had to find some way of getting around all the ideas that had been planted in Jonah's head. After all, whatever he thought, she most definitely did not harbor those kinds of preferences, even if the boneheap had done its best to reinforce that impression the other day.

How to explain it, though? Suddenly having a complete about-face on her supposed sexual preference would be suspicious at best, and probably make him wonder if something else was going on with her - or with someone else she might be seeing. At least he'd described that aspect between them as casual, so that probably wouldn't be a big deal, but it would make things yet more complicated. And who would she say it was? May? Apparently Jonah either hadn't noticed the scent on her, or was unconcerned by it because it was female, but somehow she really doubted intimating that his performance with her had caused her to turn lesbian was a good idea - even if that kind of notion was bullshit in the best of cases and didn't even really apply for someone who was supposed to be a straight guy in the first place, she doubted it would do wonders for their friendship. After all, especially now that she'd realized he was probably more of an unwitting pawn in the boneheap's sadistic scheme than a directed aggressor, she really did want to keep her friendship with him. Problem was, while she still wanted the friendship, she didn't really want the sex that he'd become accustomed to having along with it, and that was thornier to extricate herself from - was it something she could really cut off cold without affecting whatever else they had between them? Of course, a friendship between a man and a woman just wouldn't be complete without that kind of complication...

As she thought that, though, she immediately hit on a possible way out, at least for now. Of course, it would be supremely ironic considering her original nature, and probably hypocritical, but then again, it wasn't the first time she'd spun a story to nudge a situation her way, whether as a man or a woman. And, after all, like all of the rest there would be at least a shred of truth to it, after what she had gone through.

"Yes, maybe I felt that way, but... look, I didn't want to tell you, because guys tend to fly off the handle with stuff like this, even if we're just friends with some casual stuff along with it..."

Jonah looked a little incredulous at that. "Really? And here we were, being direct... You know, I've told you a dozen times before. I know what kind of relationship we've got. If you're seeing someone else, you can talk to me about it. Jealousy really isn't something I do. As long as, you know, he's the kind of guy who doesn't have a problem with our thing going on the side..."

Gianna shook her head, trying to decide how to play it up. If Jonah was expecting it straight-up, then that's probably what she should do - she really wasn't all that comfortable with doing the weepy female routine again anyway. "No, it's not that. There was... a bad night a few nights ago. I got caught out in an alley, and there was this guy there, and... shit, what can I say? I tried to fight him off, but he was too strong and he overpowered me. You can fill in the blanks yourself, because I sure don't want to. It's over now, but... I should have told you. I was trying to get over it, but what happened in the supply room, pinning me down like that, just brought it all back, and I... I can't do this right now. I'm sorry, I just can't."

The story seemed like it worked, and apparently coming from her that sort of delivery was believable - Jonah's face had first flashed shock, then anger, before settling into a look of intent concern.

"I, um... shit! Ginny, you can't just not tell me about stuff like that! Especially if you know the kinda stuff we get up to. Shit! Really, I did not mean to traumatize you more, you know that! Why didn't you just speak up?"

"Uh, you know how I get when we get intimate, right? Once we get into it, talking's not that easy, and you barely gave me any chance before starting in on me..." Hopefully, at least that part of what happened would be included in the memories to make her statement believable.

"Oh, yeah, forgot about that... shit. Really, though, I... all right, maybe I gotta pay better attention before jumping in. And I get it - it doesn't matter what I did or didn't know, if sex right now is bringing up... that... I can't blame you for not wanting anything to do with me, or with guys, for a while. I mean, jeez, I know I'm not perfect, but guys who do that, I just want to track 'em down, cut their fuckin' nuts off, and make them swallow 'em whole. Real guys don't do that, just corner a woman somewhere and force themselves on her..."

Upon hearing that, it was all Gianna could do not to crack up laughing at the sheer irony of it all. If only Jonah had really known who he'd been friends with... and for that matter, he hadn't exactly turned down the women Giancarlo had passed to him who were so drunk or amped up on heat that their consent would have been hazy at best. Of course, those were experiences that Gianna probably hadn't shared with him, so it made no sense to bring it up. Besides, she'd gotten what she wanted for now - a temporary respite that she could probably milk for quite a while. Maybe, she wondered, it might even be long enough for Jonah to find someone else on the side, and then she could just go back to being casual friends without worrying about any of the sex stuff altogether. Knowing the boneheap, though, there would certainly be other problems, but at least there would be one less man making advances on her. Now, she just needed to wrap it up convincingly.

"And that's why I didn't want to bring it up. Having you running around the city looking to bash someone's head in doesn't help anyone, and I didn't get a good look at his face anyway." Well, actually, she had gotten a good look at the creature that had for all intents and purposes raped her, but if she'd described it, the credibility of her story would have gone clear out the window. "It's over, and it sucked, and right now I just don't want to feel a guy's touch. Sorry."

"Yeah, don't worry, I get it. Seriously. I know you've seen me with women sometimes, and maybe I'm not exactly super chivalrous and stuff with them, but you're not some random bimbo. I fucking care about you. And I'm a big boy, I can handle whatever you've got to tell me, so remember that in the future, okay? We're friends, and that means we don't have to suffer alone."

"Still," he said, swiveling his chair slightly as he cocked his head, "what are you going to do about your heat? Er, it's not like I chart it or anything creepy like that, but we have been together in that way for a while, so I get a general idea of when it is, and it's not exactly like it's not a regular thing. It is coming up pretty soon, isn't it?"

Shit. Yet one more reminder of another miserable aspect of womanhood that the boneheap had taunted her with, and one that she hadn't really given that much thought to. She still wasn't exactly sure how it worked, not internally at least, beyond the notion that it often made women into sluts that were very susceptible to any concerted male advance. Apparently, she guessed, the fabricated female version of her had resolved the issue by jumping Jonah's bones whenever she needed to for its duration. But if she wasn't going to let him touch him... how did unattached women, or lesbians for that matter, handle it? She was pretty sure that in such a state, just licking wouldn't do much...

"Um... I've got some, y'know, toys that are, um, filling... They're not perfect, but they'll get the job done. I just don't know if I can deal with handling it the... traditional way, right now."

"All right, if you've think you've really got it under control like that, then I'm not gonna try to convince you otherwise. Speaking as your boss, though, if you don't have it under control, I really don't want it causing trouble here. I'm not gonna push it, but I'll have you take a sick day or two if need be. And you know, if you do end up feeling too lonely, or worked up, or desperate, I will absolutely be there for you. If it comes to that, I promise I'll be super gentle, no rough stuff at all. Er, I mean, as gentle as knotting can be..."

It was basically the answer that Gianna was looking for, even if the end of it did make her grimace inwardly. She wasn't entirely sure why, but from Giancarlo's experience, women who were in heat always seemed to want to get knotted. It probably had to do with the reproductive drive that was behind heat in the first place, and the fact that knotting was the thing that properly facilitated and helped to guarantee said reproduction, at least before the advent of birth control. Unfortunately, though, no one had ever come up with a convincingly effective heat-control pill, as the two things were somehow separate - otherwise, Gianna would certainly be actively seeking a prescription for them.

"Um, thanks? Look, I don't really want to talk about this any more, and I've said everything that needs saying. I'm all right, I just need time. If we're both together on this, then... conversation over? I've gotta finish getting things set up for work, and you do too..."

"Oh, yeah... shit, what time is it?" He glanced over at the clock. "Yeah, no kidding. We open in five, and I've still got a fuckton of stuff to get in order. Yeah, got it, good conversation, I'll lay off until you're ready to go again, and we'll take it slow and gentle next time if that's your speed now. Seriously, though, you ever need to talk, know that I can take it. And if you do see the guy again, you let me know, and I'll make sure he gets what's fucking coming to him."

He turned back to his desk, and Gianna left his office, pleased that things had gone far more smoothly than she'd initially anticipated. She couldn't help but wonder if maybe, as Giancarlo, she'd misjudged how cavalier he was with women, projecting his own predatory mindset onto his friend - either that, or it was the fact that Gianna was still tough and no-nonsense enough that the boneheap hadn't been able to change that aspect of Jonah's memories, and so she held a special status with him as far as women went. Either way, she'd managed to mitigate the most serious, immediate, and complicated situation regarding male attraction so far, and along with her mostly successful bar trip, it felt like another small string of successes against the boneheap's machinations against her - or, more specifically, its machinations towards getting her fucked in every possible way. At the very least, she could go into yet another potentially depressing and probably demeaning workday on a roll, with what felt like the most confidence she'd had since the boneheap had transformed her.

Unfortunately, though, once the workday truly began, it quickly wore on her even more than usual. She couldn't help but wonder if the boneheap had become frustrated by her victories and was trying to find ways to snipe at her, but every single male customer tried to find a way to look down her blouse, or make some lascivious comment, or pat her butt when she leaned over to retrieve their service order from the printer. One even had the audacity to drop his pen on the floor, and when Gianna instinctively bent down to retrieve it, had run his finger along the outline of her crotch! Thankfully, the additional layer of the leggings muted the touch slightly, but it was still beyond creepy, and felt disgustingly humiliating. Who would even do that? Well, Giancarlo, if he was drunk enough, but that was beside the point. She'd rounded on him, teeth bared and eyes glaring with rage, but the jerk was already walking away out the door. And, of course, the guy hadn't even been one of her customers, just someone who wandered over, so she couldn't look up his personal info and figure out some way to get back at him. Even worse, he'd managed to tug the underwear beneath out of position somehow, and every time she moved in certain ways the fabric started to rub against her spade, creating even more uncomfortable and disturbingly arousing sensations, which was the last thing she needed around a bunch of harassing customers. The women of course, varied between neutral and apparently jealously hostile, which hadn't exactly provided a respite. When she'd finally had a break, she'd gone to the restroom to try and sort things out, disappointed that her spade had left another wet spot from her unwanted arousal. She managed to settle things into place better, but not perfectly, and the fabric was so smooth it seemed like it couldn't help but rub slightly every time she moved, and every movement seemed to make her slightly more sensitive to noticing it, and her stupid spade to somehow swell out and make the fabric even tighter and more uncomfortably stimulating against it. By the end of the day, all of it put together left her aggravated yet again, and her earlier thoughts of going shopping quickly flew out the window - all she wanted to do was get home, get out of her annoying fucking clothes, and spend some time alone forgetting that men ever existed. Or, rather, forgetting that she was a woman in a world where they were subject to such discouraging treatment. She recognized the irony of that as well, of course, but it didn't change the fact that at the moment, whatever their ancillary benefits, being a woman still kind of sucked.

And, to top it all off, when she walked into her apartment and prepared to flop down onto her bed, surprise, surprise, the fucking boneheap was sitting on top of it. Or standing, or kneeling, or whatever it was that a pile of bones could be said to do. The fact was, though, that it was there, and that alone was reason enough to piss her off.

"Are you fucking kidding me? I thought you said you were at least going to leave me alone for a while!"

"plan changed. made slight miscalCulation. failed to understand impressive genes on motHer's side. latent in male. not so in female. altered timetable. annoying. detriMental impact on dramatic tension. disappointing, but acceptable given intrigue of genetic revelation."

"Genetic? What the fuck are you talking about?" Whatever the thing's shiny new revelation about her was, she really wasn't in the mood to hear about it.

"assumed heat cycle was near stanDard. conversion changed body, flipped chromosomes to maintain form. fiddling other genes too complicated. too lazy to bother. however, latent genes provide intrIguing heat potential. several unanticiPated aspects. onset of heat after conversion accelerated. full onset anticipated early tomorrow. fun, but moves up introduction of new dynAmics. intent was to introduce after more encounters, at more dramatic precipice. current situation suffices, however."

The boneheap began moving its exposed, bony hand back and forth above the bedspread as it continued. "minor congratulations in order. clever approaCh with woman. curse, however, took effect regardless. no evasion bonus. however, earned point for enthusiastic digital penetration. bonus point for first cliMax as female. too bad sensation was missed. five points total at current juncture. additional congratulations. now entire one percent accumulated of points necessary."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute! Fine, points, whatever... but seriously, you're fucking making me go into heat tomorrow? I just got through basically being raped yesterday, had a crazy and mainly miserable day too, and I don't even get a fucking break before that happens?"

"getting to that. as menTioned before. genetics pain to manipulate. keep current ones. heat identical to pattern present if born female. four days off, two days on. repeat from there. luck of genetic draw. favorable patTern, nonetheless. potential for additional intrigue. silence now, however. finishing phase."

Gianna glowered at the thing, wanting to say something angrily about what the boneheap had just intimated, but for the moment found herself suddenly, disturbingly mute. All she could do was watch as the boneheap's arm continued to move back and forth along the bed, faster and faster, even as a light seemed to form within it that grew brighter and brighter. Finally, it flashed an intensely bright light that left Gianna staggering back, blinking, as sparks seemed to dance through her vision. They cleared fairly quickly, though, and Gianna looked back over to see exactly what it had done.

There were several new items of clothing that had appeared on the bed next to where the boneheap was, apparently conjured there by the wave of its arm. The foremost items were two underwear sets, composed of matching bra and panties. The first set not only looked girly, but almost like it was meant for an actual girl, but scaled up into an adult size: something like a training bra and full-coverage panties in pink cotton, with super-girly images printed on them: rainbows, unicorns, flowers, that sort of nonsense. The other pair, however, were unmistakably adult in a novelty sort of way - the black bra had images of two hands reaching around to grab each of the cups, and the panties were stenciled with the words "Penis Goes Here" just under the waistband, accompanied by a thick red arrow pointing down directly at the crotch. Most intriguingly, though, was the item that lay flat on the bed next to them - a pair of women's dress slacks, not exactly perfect, but the closest thing to actual pants the boneheap had allowed near her since the transformation.

"so. considered game. just points counting up. not exciting. causes little behavior alone. got bored. decided game needed more conditions, choices, consequences. more pieces on board."

It gestured over at the first set of underwear. "clothes on bed now have benefits, conSequences. first set, wear day before heat. heat for next day cancelled. one day cooldown before working again. however. each time worn, like being female more. more comFortable. more female desire pattern. like and remember being male less. wear too often, may never desire becoming male again. however, more time in heat, get fucKed more. maybe learn to enjoy anyway. intriguing choice."

The bony arm moved over to the second set. "different choice. still interesting. wear any day, guaranteed to avoid all sexual enCounters. not recommended for heat. however. after day worn, guaranTeed encounter within week. forced, mulTiple males, or both. at least five points worth. every day has encounter risk. choose to accept, or avoid and face certain consequence later."

It seemed to wave vaguely over beyond it. "pants just for fun. see if tempted. catch simPler, less consequence. wear when wanted. not affected by clothing curse. however. next day, only two outfits in house. one work, one pLay. specifically selected, nothing entirely inappropriate. next day, clothes reset. acceptable intrigue."

Gianna glanced down at the stuff on the bed, grimacing. Of course, the boneheap had been thinking up even more ways to fuck with her - it was actually, she thought, even more of a transparent ploy than usual, waiting to see if she'd choose a way to temporarily alleviate her situation by having something guaranteed to be worse later, whether she would sacrifice the future for the present. That being said, though, at the moment none of the options felt like they were particularly tempting her. The notion of going into heat tomorrow was equal turns aggravating and infuriating, but if regular women made it through their cycles without completely losing it, it would certainly be possible for Gianna to find a way through. As for the other, she'd generally been one step ahead of the boneheap so far, foiling or blunting most of the curse and the boneheap's machinations, so it hardly seemed like much of a gamble to take her chances with her current skills and strategies. The pants, admittedly, were tempting, but she could only guess what sort of degrading costumes the boneheap would make her wear afterwards.

She glared back up at the boneheap, a slight but confident smirk on her face, and when she tried to speak again her voice came out unhindered. "Really? You really think you're going to tempt me with that?"

"unknown. experience of heat, other things may change tempTation. mere presence of option makes game more interesting."

"Oh yeah? And what if I tell you that you can take your game and shove it up your ass?" Gianna regretted saying the words as soon as they left her mouth, but there was no denying she was pissed, and her irritation only seemed to be growing with each passing minute. She was just about done playing along with the nonsense the boneheap kept spewing.

"no ass for things to shove in. participation voLuntary, however. ignore game. stay woman. get fucked indefinitely. fun to obServe choice either way. also. one more thing."

The bonehead's arm suddenly snapped forward, pointing right at her, and a line of jagged, electric blue light shot out from its outstretched finger and hit her squarely in the center of her abdomen. She staggered back, her guts momentarily twisting in agony, but before it caused her to completely double over, the pain vanished as quickly as it had arrived.

"heat pattern forced consideration. false pregnancy creates suffering, but internal, solitary, uninteresting. hormones involved also prevent heat for duRation. determined condition unnecessary, eliminated. now just sterile. guaranteed contraceptive of unlimited duration. no tainted seeds. opporTunity, however. unlimited heat cycles. sex without major consequence. one less barrier to becoming eager bitch slut. choose to stay woman, heat now fRequent, unavoidable except for one option." It gestured back down at the first set of underwear, meaningfully.

Gianna pulled herself upright, not sure how to feel. In a way, she figured, the boneheap had actually done her the minor favor of not having to deal with even more uncomfortable indignities that her female body had had the potential to spring on her. On the other hand, though, she certainly wasn't clueless about the fact that heat was another of those feminine indignities, and something that would make her plans of avoiding sex and finding some other way to combat the boneheap that much more difficult. And the amount of it was just insane! Four days of heat out of every dozen, which meant she'd have to deal with it a full third of the time, about as frequent as anything she'd ever heard. Of course, it was hard to truly consider the impact of swapping one indignity for another, especially as she'd never experienced either one, but she would have much rather avoided both, and the fact that she had to face any of it was certainly the boneheap's fault.

At the moment, though, she knew that she was still effectively stymied - knowing what its arm was capable of doing to her, she knew that attacking it outright would be trivial at best, and it was still so much of an enigma that she couldn't yet figure out a way to come at it indirectly. As far as she could tell, the thing hadn't even hinted at any obvious weakness she could try and exploit. The only slightly hopeful indication was the way it had come back - due to an unanticipated result, and slightly caught off guard. That meant that whatever the thing was, it wasn't quite omniscient or perfect or all-powerful. It was capable of making mistakes. And if it ever made one that she could exploit, Gianna would be all over it. And speaking of loopholes... Gianna glanced down at the second set of underwear for a moment, wondering.

"So, I wear this one set... and no one has sex with me at all that day? No matter what?"

"correct," the boneheap answered, and for a moment, Gianna was hopeful - it might be a problem in terms of getting the things washed, but if Gianna just kept wearing them, there was the possibility that she could be protected with having to deal with sex nearly indefinitely - after all, the boneheap had only mentioned a cool-down period for the first set, not the second. Unfortunately, though, the boneheap kept talking. "debt incurred with each day worn. guarantee of encounTer within week overrides protection. each debt comes with individual guarantee. protection reVoked each guaranteed day until all debts repaid. however, opportunity for additional fun conSidered. achieve thirty points or more in single week, voluntary or otherwise, all current debts cancelled."

Great. More games. Games which, predictably enough, all seemed centered around getting her female body abused to the maximum extent possible. If this was the boneheap's idea of fun, attaching benefits and consequences to certain outfits of clothing - and really, what could be more female of an idea than that? - Gianna didn't really want to imagine what further indignities and absurdities the boneheap would impose as part of its "game." And if the boneheap could decide to change the rules at any time, any loophole or respite that she found would probably be only temporary. Unfortunately, the only alternative to wading through its sick game was for this inferior form to become her permanent one, and that was something the Giancarlo part of her would never countenance, even more so if it meant being nearly constantly in heat.

So, what other option was there? She'd play along, to the minimum extent that she had to, and she'd hold the boneheap to its promises of points, or at least half-points, from victories of her own. And as much as she wanted to rage at the thing, as much as she wanted to tear it bone from bone and gnaw each one into impotent dust, she would keep her emotions in check. True, in her new form there were certain emotions that were harder to suppress, heat certainly among them, but part of the reason Giancarlo had never been caught was that he'd never let his desires completely overwhelm him to the point that they spawned recklessness. Maybe certain aspects of her new existence were still overwhelming, but she'd just have to find ways to get used to them, find ways to bring them into equilibrium, so that they served her own interests instead of steering her towards danger.

For now, though, that meant shrugging all aspects of anger from her face, and replacing them with a tight, easy smile that showed just enough teeth. Maybe there wasn't anything that could be gained from antagonizing the thing, but she wasn't going to let it think that it was intimidating her, either.

"Is that all, then?" she said, trying to sound as dispassionate and aloof as she could. There was no easy way to tell if her attitude had affected the boneheap, though - it just stayed there on the bed, bones slowly shifting and clattering, looking as blank and cluttered and horrifically otherworldly as it always had.

"for now," the thing replied in its awful, bone-clacking tones. "look forward to observing reaction to heat. enjoy few scaNt hours remaining before onset. or not. anticipating promising action to come."

This time, the boneheap didn't bother to fade away or sink back into the wall or floor - the bony hand reached up and yanked the cowl of its amorphous cloak back across the bone-stack that seemed to serve as the closest thing to its head, and a moment later it seemed to just blink cleanly out of view, like it had never been there. The clothes, however, remained, lying on the bed, and Gianna grumblingly shoved the lingerie into the back of her underwear drawer, and tucked the slacks away on a hangar in the farthest end of her closet. She had no intention of wearing any of the things by mistake - the consequences, as they were, seemed far too great compared to their benefits.

Once she put them away, she glanced around the apartment, growling to herself. Whatever else the boneheap had gone on about, the most important message was clear enough - when she woke up tomorrow, she'd probably be in heat, with whatever repercussions went along with that. She knew the obvious ones, of course, as they had been easy enough to notice and exploit as Giancarlo: the lack of focus, the huskier voice, the higher susceptibility to seductions both subtle and obvious, the spades that were soaked and slick even at first touch. And, of course, there was that smell, like a natural female scent but amplified several times, with something mixed in that was sweet and spicy at the same time, the noticeable components of the pheromones, released both in the lubrication and through glands hidden beneath the fur, that had the power to make any man within reasonable range quickly stand at attention. She was also, unsurprisingly, well aware of the consequences - while there had been a few women who had been tough enough to spurn his advances even while clearly in heat, at least until he'd physically overpowered then in anger over their rejections, few women in heat seemed able to spend much time around any determined man without allowing him to lead them to some secluded place and the obvious activity that would occur there. She hoped, though, given those examples and her own history of determination, that she would find a way to hold out and fight back against the things heat would try and do to her. For now, though, the best idea seemed to be ignoring it to the greatest extent possible - after all, if she only had a few evening hours before she was in the thrall of it, she certainly didn't want to spend them dwelling on the approach of that inevitable condition.

First things first, though. She tugged off the stupid skirt, yanked the blouse over her head without bothering to unbutton it, and pulled the aggravating panties from where they were tangled between her legs before punting them emphatically into her clothes hamper. At the very least, nothing seemed to be dripping down there just now. She found another, more comfortable pair of panties to pull on, and while those felt tighter than usual against her crotch as well - no doubt something to do with her body preparing for heat - it was better than going around nude and possibly catching an unsettling glimpse of her weird, squishy female anatomy. On the other hand, though, she didn't exactly feel like pulling on anything else, especially the girly options that were on hand, so she settled on just lounging around in her underwear. After all, it wasn't like there was anyone else there to mind.

She dug through the fridge, finding some acceptable leftovers to nuke up, and laid them out on the coffee table before settling into the couch in front of the television. She'd brought a six-pack over as well to keep the leftovers company - she was far too irritated at the moment to be sober, but given the situation, this was hardly a good night to socialize. After all, there was still always the chance of a miscalculation leading to her waking up in someone else's bed - and waking up in heat with someone else around, especially given the off chance that said someone might be male, made it only too easy to consider the incredibly obvious consequences.

Unsurprisingly, she spent the rest of the night getting halfway drunk, watching bizarro asian reality shows on a cable channel that seemed to be devoted entirely to carrying them, reveling in the contestants' on-camera humiliations. They were, of course, a pale imitation of what Giancarlo had felt when he'd had complete power and control over a woman, but they were at least something. Giancarlo, though he'd been occasionally tempted, had never resorted to the stupid move of recording any of his encounters for later enjoyment - and even if he had, Gianna knew that they would probably be more depressingly disempowering than anything else given her currently enforced perspective on things. So, she'd take what enjoyment she could, and it turned into a decent and drunken evening all told, culminating in a brief, hot shower, barely bothering to even pull on some underwear before staggering over to her bed, collapsing onto it face-first, and then not so much drifting off to sleep as belly-flopping straight through its surface.

Somewhere through the night, though, her heat unmistakably took hold, managing even to bleed into her unconsciousness. Giancarlo, overall, had never been much of one to dream - or, if he did, they had never been dreams that had lasted all the way until waking, and he'd never awoken with any recollections of them, or even of having them in the first place. At any rate, most of his pleasures took place in the real world, tangible pleasures that he could actually sink his paws into, so if there had been something he'd missed by not dreaming, he hadn't really cared. Up until that point, Gianna hadn't had recognizably dreamed either - one night she'd been completely exhausted and disoriented by her sudden transformation, and the other she hadn't been asleep so much as knocked the fuck out on the strength of what she'd drunk. Tonight, however, there wasn't nearly enough intoxicant to blunt the results of the hormones that began to irrevocably flow through her.

As far as the content of the dream went, it wasn't particularly imaginative or revelatory. Aside from unusual lighting and some sort of incomprehensible mist that blurred the edges of everything, it was basically a rehash of Gianna's first and only remembered sexual experience as a woman: her, in the stockroom, being progressively molested and then ultimately taken by Jonah. In the dream, though, all of the crazy and conflicting and painful emotions she'd felt when it had actually happened were conspicuously absent. All of the confusion, the sense of betrayal and panic and fear, the sense of fighting her own body, every part of it was completely suspended. All that was left was the experience of the act, sensations flowing one after the other and flashing through her mind in pinpoint detail: the smooth, wet heat of his tongue writhing against her own, the feel of his hand running through her fur, the undeniable shock that ran through her body when his fingers tugged at her nipple, the way he'd massaged her spade in just the right way, how his tip had felt nestling in between its puffy folds...

Swiftly, inevitably, the dream had progressed to the point where he'd taken her, and again their was no shock or fear, humiliation or horror, just raw, animal sensation, the feeling of him vigorously pounding her, the feeling of her body rocking and shivering in response to his quick, hard thrusts, the intense feeling of being simultaneously stretched and rubbed along a hundred different points inside her as his cock moved relentlessly against her wet, eager inner walls. This time, though, it wasn't the casually rough and brief couple minutes of hard thrusting followed by a disappointing, unilateral climax. Instead, it just sort of lingered, a repeating loop of feeling him humping her over and over and over again, each one feeling better and better until they plateaued into a perfect cycle of stimulation. Far from being the trauma that it had been, in the dream it felt like the best thing ever, the bliss of having such wonderful feelings being constantly stoked inside her, and all she wanted to do was lie there, to feel his strong hands keeping her perfectly positioned for each of his thrusts, feeling him nuzzling her in that one exquisitely sensitive spot on her neck, so comfortably close to cumming but not quite, just hovering comfortably there on the edge in a way that Giancarlo, that most men, could never have stood. Nice and soft and comfy, her spade being worked just right, and every part of her melting into a fuzzy, horny haze of stimulation that for a moment, she never wanted to leave. It didn't last, though, eventually giving way to a rawer, wilder edge, and all of a sudden she felt all but consumed by lust and wanted nothing more than to climax, right then and there. The pounding kept up its steady rhythm, though, blissful and right but not quite enough to get there, and finally she screamed at the top of her lungs in frustration, yowled and yelled, but it was never, never enough...

Somewhere in the middle of it, she snapped out of the dream abruptly, to the first rays of sunlight shining in through the window, this time at the proper angle. Gianna, though, wasn't in a proper state at all - while the vivid visions of the dream seemed to quickly fade after her eyes snapped open, the feelings that it had apparently stirred up were doing nothing of the sort. She felt unquestionably aroused, in that unusual female way - but this time, there was nothing vague or amorphous about it. Just the slight feel of the fabric of her bra against her was enough to send aggravating waves of sensation down her chest, and the weird, fluttery feeling in her belly had already gone beyond that into full flip-flop mode. And below that, things were even worse - she could already feel that the crotch of her panties was completely soaked through and plastered against her, and saturated continuously enough that the wetness hadn't even begun to noticeably cool. Through all of that mess, there was a weird sort of anxious buzzing that seemed to tense through every part of her, sort of like arousal but not quite, putting a feeling of tingly, actinic warmth running back and forth along the layer of skin just beneath her fur, and crackling up her neck to sizzle insistently in the background of her thoughts.

This apparently, was what heat was like, and so far Gianna was neither impressed by nor enamored with the condition. The anxious, energetic feelings by themselves might have been okay, as they weren't entirely dissimilar to the ones Giancarlo had occasionally felt when he was keyed up to go on the prowl. The really strong and incredibly feminine feelings, though, she could do without. She'd already had enough of the weirder, wetter aspects of female arousal, and she was not looking forward to it being a constant in her life for the next couple of days.

What could she do about it, though? There were a few over-the-counter things she'd glanced past in the drugstore that claimed to ease certain aspects of heat, but she hadn't seen much in the way of anything that actually blocked the really aggravating features, such as the ridiculous amounts of hot, slick lubrication that was soaking through the fabric of her panties, the cotton fibers wicking the moisture up enough that she could feel it against her fur just a little bit below the waistband. Not even wanting to think about what that disgusting aspect of her heat had probably left on the sheets, she got up, yanking her panties down and watching them fall down her legs to form a crumpled, sodden heap on the floor that reeked strongly of her undeniably feminine scent, which now seemed even stronger than ever.

Grumbling, she kicked them to the side and started to walk over to the dresser to paw through the panties again. Knowing the boneheap, and its penchant for forcing her into clothing that was as feminine as possible, it had almost surely included in her underwear drawer several pairs of heat-specific panties, the kind with extra padding in the crotch to absorb the attendant lubrication.

She only took a step or two, though, before she shuddered at an uncanny feeling - she could feel the soft fur on the uppermost part of her thighs actually rubbing against the outside edges of her spade as she walked, somehow managing to feel both deliciously and aggravatingly tickly at the same time. It was something she hadn't felt before, and for good reason - while her spade had been obnoxious enough, it had at least sat tidily between her legs, with probably a couple centimeters or so of soft, incredibly short fur around where it protruded that made up the area between its position and where her crotch connected with her thighs. That meant that either her thigh fur had somehow gotten incredibly frizzed up, which was probably unlikely - or, much more depressingly possible, that the heat had made her spade swell up to its maximum volume and made it completely dominate the area between her legs. It only took a quick glance back through Giancarlo's memory to know that it was almost certainly the case, as it had been one of the things that he'd always loved - it made them extra-squishy against his fingers and extra-vulnerable to his touch, and he'd loved the way it had looked when he'd speared them and made it look like he was stretching them open so much there was nowhere else for the puffy flesh to go, spread all the way from thigh to thigh around him, and how it had somehow managed to look even more impossible when he'd managed to work his knot in... Dammit! Given her current state, that was the last thing she wanted to think about, especially as just the notion of getting knotted had managed to get her hot and bothered even more, and she could feel several new rivulets of moisture spreading across the surface of her puffed-out pussy.

For some reason, not exactly instinctual but mostly automatic, she reached a hand down between her legs to try and wipe some of the stuff off. As soon as her fingers touched the flesh down there, though, she gasped aloud. Under her fingers, her spade was even more incredibly soft and stretchy and springy than it normally was, on top of being somewhere between warm and actually hot to the touch. The feeling of her fingers rubbing against that flesh, though, felt both beyond intense and incredibly, compellingly good. All of a sudden, all she wanted to do was be touched down there, and she let her fingers keep roaming around its periphery, feeling the blissful sensations that the tracing fingers caused, and hearing a sensual chorus of moans echo around her for a few confused seconds before she realized that she was the one who had been making them.

Then her finger slipped amidst all the juices coating it, and she felt it skitter along one of the edges and slide effortlessly inside her, poking against flesh that yielded completely against the probe before bouncing over to sink into something equally soft on the other side. Neither touch, though, felt completely surrounded, and when she pulled her finger back a little, she felt it surrounded by moist, dense air, but not actually feeling like it was directly touching anything. It took a moment of confusion before she realized, to her horror, what it meant - her spade and her inner walls were so prepared, so unfolded, that she could literally put her finger into the middle of her spade without it even coming into contact with its inner edges. She knew, from her own traumatic experience and Giancarlo's long and comprehensive knowledge, that a spade didn't do a whole lot to prevent or even hinder penetration on a normal day - like this, though, even the slightest thrust would be more than enough to fully impale her spade, and she doubted that in its condition it would even offer all that much resistance to a knot being shoved in. Of course, that was probably the point - after all, heat was tied into some primal desire to be bred, and the clearest way to ensure that happening was to make sure that a woman was, well, tied with the man who was breeding her, ensuring that all of his seed stayed locked inside her and directed at her most fertile spots, whether or not her higher-level functions wanted to protest. Gianna knew that that particular fate, thankfully, was no longer one she would have to face in any form, but for women who could become pregnant and ignored contraception, a solid knotting and it was all over. In a way, at least from Giancarlo's perspective, it was deliciously perverse, how a woman's body could turn on her, how it could cause her to get fucked and knotted and bred if she was caught just the slightest bit off guard, and in a way that made her own actions and protestations irrelevant to her ability to be inexorably taken. Now that she was a woman, though, the perspective was considerably less appealing - she knew already, just from that light touch, that fighting her own drives was going to be beyond difficult, and that meant, depressingly, that her chances not just of being fucked, but of being fully knotted, of being penetrated as deeply and as widely as it was possible for a woman to be, had gone up dramatically. It was an appalling enough thought that it managed to shake her out of the odd, blissful reverie of touch, and she pulled her finger back, disgusted with herself and furious at the state the boneheap had seen fit to ensure she was in all too often. She didn't know if the boneheap was telling the truth about her genetics, or just wanted another excuse to fuck with her, but she had no intention of enduring this sexual madness nearly as often as not.

She made her way over to the dresser, hating the brushing-fur feeling that still came intently between her legs with each step, and pawed through the drawer. Sure enough, there were several pairs of heat-specialized panties - which, she noticed, had a residual little line of fabric that poked up from where it was stitched into the seams around the padded crotch, probably to combat precisely the thing that was aggravating her. A small break, at least, but one that was wholly inadequate against the burden of heat. Especially since there was still a work day she had to figure out how to get through in her phenomenally annoying, oversexed state.

Something about them, though, didn't seem quite right - maybe it was the brand name embroidered on the front, which seemed somehow vaguely familiar to her, or something that seemed a little weird about the pad design. She flipped them around in her hands, and when she turned them over to look at the outside of the crotch, she realized what the problem was - instead of a regular strip of fabric, it was covered in a dense lattice of thick, interwoven threads - threads that were designed to take in a woman's heated juices, evaporate the moisture, and in so doing ensure a constant release of her heated scent into the surrounding air. It was something Giancarlo had discovered on a couple of his heated "conquests" that turned out to be rather more mutual than he'd anticipated, where some women, instead of trying to mask the scent of their heat, wore similar things to slowly diffuse it and constantly tantalize the men who happened to be around them. It stood to reason, then, that the boneheap's sadism would extend to providing her with such a thing, just to make her choose between wearing something miserable and wearing something designed to attract even more attention to her precarious condition. That being said, though, having soaked-through regular underwear wouldn't exactly disguise things, either.

She pawed through the drawer again, looking for every pair of heat-related panties she could find, but every single one bore the same brand and the infuriating external lattice. Finally, she just pulled on the first pair she'd grabbed, resigning herself to its disadvantage even as the light touch of the padded fabric against her spade caused her to squirm again in aggravating arousal. At least after a few moments, the things settled in reasonably comfortably, but she was still unquestionably aware of them pressing against her as she finished getting dressed. That wasn't much better, of course, as the options seemed to keep gradually dwindling in length and coverage, and as she pulled on the most conservative things remaining, which weren't that conservative at all, she swore that if she made it through the day, and didn't end up either driven insane by the stupid heat or fucked into the carpeting because of it, she would do some fucking laundry, and actually go out and buy the most conservative stuff she could find, along with some properly heat-concealing underwear.

As she got ready to head out the door, though, she realized that the symptoms of her heat, which she thought she'd already experienced to their fullest, somehow managed to build in both their breadth and intensity. The weird, antsy buzzing feeling and the arousal it stoked continued to grow, managing to make her feel horny, amped up and ticked off at the same time. Meanwhile, the weirdness in her abdomen just kept feeling weirder, and even though she knew she hadn't eaten, her appetite was nowhere to be found, and between everything else she had no motivation whatsoever to cook anything up. And then, when she decided to forgo food and head out the door, the urge happened to arrive.

At first, not exactly being familiar with every possible sensation that could emanate from that part of a woman's anatomy, she mistook the feeling for a really powerful urge to take a piss, but when she did there wasn't much to come out at all - and once she'd finished, the urge was still there, not ameliorated at all. In fact, the more she felt it, the more she realized it really wasn't the same thing at all. It was some kind of aggravating tension inside her, but not in quite the same way, not trying to clench a muscle in place to hold something back. It was more like her muscles wanted to clench, wanted to clamp down on something, but somehow weren't in the proper position to do it, and all they could do was just sort of twitch in frustration while an infuriating, skin-crawling itch seemed to work its way through the flesh around them. Given her state, though, it didn't exactly take a wild leap of insight to figure out what the urge was about. That part of her, almost certainly, wanted to clamp down around a cock, preferably a cock knotted inside her, and would probably sit there, twitching and itching and growing in frustration and impatience, until she gave in to doing something to satisfy it. Which, unsurprisingly, Gianna was not at all eager to do, although with each passing moment, her unbidden arousal and aggravatingly heated impatience were hammering against the disappointingly fragile wall of that resolve.

She stormed down to the garage, gnashing her teeth at the frustration and sensation she could feel with each step, somehow managing to be pissed off more than anything else: at being a woman, at wearing a stupid skirt, at having to carry spare underwear in her purse because she knew her annoying, heated body was already busy leaking stuff into the pair she already wore, at being in fucking heat in the first place. Why had Giancarlo liked it so much in the first place? Well, she knew the answer to that, but it seemed more absurd with each passing second. Now that she had to go through with it, it just felt like some stupid, ancient throwback that should have been evolved out around the time that women were in a social position to choose their own mates. Sure, it made sense back in primordial times when there was no intelligence and the roles were set in stone, where females were there to be bred by whichever male won their internal competition, and where heat was designed to keep them primed in a mounting position and ready so that the aggressive but inelegant males couldn't fail to breed them. At the moment, though, it just felt like a cruel joke played on women since the dawn of time. No wonder they'd been such pushovers around Giancarlo, considering they'd felt like this!

Gianna continued to alternate between anger, incoherent rage, and uncomfortably arousing, unintentional visualizations of Jonah with his clothes off as she drove into work. In the midst of everything flowing through her, it seemed like her emotions were just firing off impulsively - in fact, her entire body seemed primed for that sort of impulse, the coiled feeling in her extremities only intensifying. It was all she could do to find enough concentration to drive reasonably safely, especially when she seemed to alternate between wanting to put the pedal to the floor and blow by all those other jerks, rip the steering wheel off with her teeth, and hump her crotch against the edge of the bucket seats. Somehow, she made it in intact, although not feeling particularly sane.

It felt like she tried to yank the handle out of the door as she walked in, noting, a little to her surprise, that she'd managed to make it in quite early, and there didn't seem to be much of anyone else around. Jonah's office was still dark, and none of the other service advisors were around - even the front kiosk was empty. The only person around was a woman on the tail end of the janitorial crew, pushing a broom back and forth along the floor of the parts department.

She leaned her elbows against the front counter of the kiosk, sighing as she tried to do her best to consciously tamp down on the jangling feelings. The urge, though, was still undeniably there, and while she could at least differentiate it now from the need to piss, it was fueling more than enough wetness on its own. Even the padding of her panties was beginning to feel uncomfortably slick against her, and she half-wondered if it would be necessary to change them already before work even started.

Her uncomfortable thoughts, though, were made even less pleasant when a new sensation suddenly jolted out to join the rest of them: the hearty, stinging slap that someone had just landed on her butt.

She knew who it was, of course, even before she rounded on him - he might have been a pervy little sleazeball, but the one word you could never use to describe him was late. Sure enough, there was Hugh, grinning back at her, his corgi muzzle screwed up into a sleazy, creepy little grin. For a moment, she had half a mind to slap him across the face, or maybe punch him square in his muzzle, but instead she froze, her eyes locked onto him. His ancestry made him kinda cute on a normal day, but all of a sudden he looked almost unbearably so, in that strange, melty feminine sort of way. That, the musculature that was just masculine enough to catch onto the thoughts lingering unwanted in the back of her mind, and the scent coming off of him that was now especially, intriguingly male, and all of a sudden there was no question as to whether or not her underwear was going to be an issue.

"No snarling this time, huh?" Hugh said, ogling her cleavage and her short skirt unashamedly. "You didn't fool me last time. Maybe you had to save face with everyone around, but I just know what a dirty little girl you are inside."

"Yeah, and how the fuck do you know that?" He reply was meant to be aggressive, but it didn't have any real oomph behind it - in fact, it came out low, husky, and just a little too slow, in a way that might have actually passed as sensual.

Nevertheless, the reply seemed to take Hugh slightly aback. "I, um... I heard stuff, all right? Thing about you, and, um... never mind." He shook his head, grinning again as he seemed to regain his composure. "Whatever you are inside, after all, there's always gonna be something missing. Unless I'm around, of course, 'cause baby, you know I've got what you need..."

Gianna ground her teeth, knowing just how true that statement was at the moment, even if Hugh didn't seem quite aware enough to understand that. He was sniffing at the air, though, and Gianna knew exactly what he was smelling - after all, her stupid panties were engineered to all but advertise it.

When he started talking again, his grin had expanded back to the full-grown creepy leer. "And I was so right, too. You chicks get all snooty when you're preheating, like you don't want that attention, but I've got all your attention now, yeah? That's right - take it all in." He took a slight step back, putting himself into what Gianna guessed was supposed to be a macho, muscular pose, although he didn't exactly have the guns to pull it off, at least not under his ill-fitting blazer. "You know there's no way you can resist that. And when you finally give in to that burning desire for me, all you have to-"

"SHUT. UP."

Hugh actually jumped back, surprised, as Gianna glared at him, and she imagined her eyes must have been practically on fire. Every single emotion in her was burning hot, and as much as she wanted to simultaneously punt him and kick his balls in, the most prominent part of her wanted to shamelessly let him bend her over the counter and do what she was sure they both somehow wanted. As disgusting as he was, as disgusting as the idea was if she'd really been able to think it through, somehow it didn't matter. All that did was that he was a guy, she was unbearably, impossibly horny, and he had a pole that a part of her wanted desperately to ride.

So, almost incomprehensibly to both of them, she just grinned, a wide, crazy grin, and clamped one of her hands down hard enough on his wrist that he winced and tried to pull away, but she held on to him firmly.

"You know what? Fuck it."

"W-wha-" Hugh started to reply, but Gianna wasn't done yet.

"You're always talking a big game, going on about how you're such hot shit, how you're the best, how women should be falling all over you, right? So let's see just how well you can put your money where your mouth is." She yanked on his arm, half-dragging him along as he stumblingly followed, stammering off various half-syllables but not quite doing enough to pull away from her.

She dragged him down the hall, and partway around the corner to where it led off into the service bays. Those were quiet, too, and she dragged him around the frontmost one and towards a door on the back wall. The metal door was blank and nondescript, except for a taped-on paper sign labeling it a supply closet, and a combination lock shackled uselessly around the door handle.

To the uninitiated, it probably did appear to be a supply closet, but Gianna, or rather Giancarlo, had worked the service bays for more than long enough to know it served double-duty as the place where the repair guys took their girlfriends, or occasionally the women who had come to check out their cars being worked on, to have some fun on their breaks. Using her other hand, she spun the dial on the lock, and sure enough the code was still the same - even though it didn't lock anything, she clicked it open and left it hanging from the handle. The unfastened lock, of course, was the signal that the room was occupied, and that meant no one would be disturbing whatever they got up to. Satisfied enough that there was one thing around here that still seemed the same, she swung the door open and pulled Hugh inside.

Sure enough, while the place did have some storage racks stacked with various car parts, the worktable in the center of the room had been stripped of all tools and accessories. Instead, it was topped by a slab of the same heavy-duty automotive cushion foam that was also taped to the walls as makeshift soundproofing, sealed with a couple layers of clear plastic sheeting wrapped around it to create a sort of spill-proof mattress on top. It wasn't exactly pretty, but as Giancarlo had known quite well, it was more than functional, and he'd had no problem getting the job done on top of it.

She released Hugh's wrist, and he stumbled back against one of the shelves, still looking like he was trying to figure out just what the hell was going on.

"Wha... what is this place? I don't, I don't understand what's going on..."

"Really? You can't be that fucking clueless," she replied, snarling with impatience. What the hell was with him? She was alive with lust, practically throbbing with it, so worked up she'd have had no problems if he'd just up and started tearing her clothes off, and all he could think to do was stammer on about nothing? "Just in case you really are, though, let me make it so clear that you can't possibly misunderstand it."

She was done screwing around. She was done with ceremony. The stupid buzzing and aggravation, that basic, physical urge that needed satisfying, felt like they were all but taking over her mind, and it was a minor miracle that she could even manage to string her husky-sounding syllables together. The die was cast, the decision made, and she was absolutely done with fucking waiting.

She undid the side-zip on her skirt, shrugging it off her waist and letting it fall to the ground. The panties were next, just as quickly and directly, even if it did take a moment to peel them off her spade before the slick, sticky mess would finally fall to the floor. It really wasn't done in a remotely sexual way, and probably qualified as just about the worst striptease ever, but it had left Hugh suddenly gawping and mercifully silent - not the confident, cocky leer from before, but a look of genuine, stunned bewilderment.

Gianna took a couple of steps back and hopped up onto the table, leaning back and bracing herself with her arms while she spread her legs to either side, displaying her swollen, heated spade. Even from her angle, she could see it jutting out between her legs, big and puffy, slick and angrily red. Hugh just stood there and stared at it, his jaw hanging open slackly in amazement.

"You get it now? Yeah, you were right. I'm in heat, it's driving me so crazy I can't fucking stand it anymore, and you're literally the only guy around right now. So right here, right now, is a once in a lifetime chance for your sleazy fucking ass. So stop gawping, get over here, and STICK IT FUCKING IN ALREADY!"

Hugh, though, was still just standing there, staring, and looking as if he might actually be sick. In fact, incomprehensibly, he actually looked afraid.

"Um, I... I'm not sure..."

"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?" she snarled at the top of her lungs, her frenzied frustration hitting a crescendo. Out of aggravated desperation, she pawed at her spade, rolling the springy flesh beneath her fingers, and while her touch had the same intensity as before, it was somehow muted and totally inadequate by the time the impulses really registered. It somehow did less than nothing for her deeper urge, though, which suddenly felt even more urgent than it had before. She literally felt like she was ready to burst, like whatever it was couldn't be held back, but at the same time she was completely powerless to release it. The only thing that could do what she needed was still concealed by a pair of dress pants several feet away, attached to a sniveling little pathetic jerk who couldn't seem to figure out the most basic thing about being a man. "This isn't fucking rocket science! You walk over here, you take your cock out, and you stick it in the incredibly obvious red thing that is sitting here between my fucking legs! If there was a fucking dog in this room, an actual fucking four-legged animal dog, it would have figured it out by now, so what the fuck is your problem?"

Hugh looked genuinely scared, now. "Um, uh... I just, um... look, I just wanted to look like I was, y'know, a player, okay? I just wanted to make the other guys respect me and stuff, and maybe I went a little overboard, sure, but I kinda thought chicks just l-liked that kinda stuff 'cause they always seem to smile when Jonah and Leroy do it, a-and maybe I was just fronting and stuff, but-"

"Seriously? What are you trying to do, fucking confess? Do I look like a priest over here? That this is the sacred shrine of the almighty fucking spade or something? I don't care about that. You're a fucking jerk. We all know you're a fucking jerk. But right now you're a fucking jerk with a cock, and you need to get over here, NOW, and start using it."

"I, er, um, I mean, it's not that I don't want to or anything, I mean of course I do, after all I'm a guy and everything, but it's just that maybe, you know, our, uh, professional relationship and stuff being what it is, maybe I should-"

"Our professional relationship is you smacking me in the butt and going on about how much you want to do me. So FUCKING DO IT ALREADY!"

"Well, um, you see, it's just that I'm, you know, kind of actually a virgin, so I probably wouldn't do a good job anyway, and I'm kind of not actually but maybe just a little bit afraid right now, and your spade looks really huge and red and not really at all the way I thought it was going to look, so maybe it would be better if I just left and you maybe calmed down and we can sort of just talk about things like that somewhere down the road..." As he was talking, Gianna noticed that he was ever so slightly sidling over towards the door while trying not to meet her gaze. Apparently, Giancarlo's initial assessment of Hugh had been depressingly accurate: all talk, no action, using his apparently callous attitude towards women in place of actual machismo. In reality, he was just a pathetic little bully, suddenly completely clueless and terrified the moment a woman actually called him out on his bullshit posturing. The thing was, though, that he was only a couple steps away from the door now, and Gianna had no intention of letting her only current outlet for relief just walk away.

"Fuck it." Pushing off with her hands, she bounded up from the table, took a few agonizing, spade-squishing strides over to Hugh, grabbed onto his arm again and yanked him around. Caught off balance, he swung around to the other side, and as soon as he was in position she let go and gave him a hard shove in the center of his chest. He staggered backwards until he bumped up against the table, leaning partway over it, and tried desperately to regain his footing, his eyes wide with panic. Gianna, though, with a speed born of desperation, was already on him. She hooked her arms around his waist, and while she wasn't as strong as Giancarlo had been, they had enough oomph to hoist him up and flip him over, causing him to land bodily on his back on top of the table. She heard his breath whoomph out from the impact, and while he gasped and tried to recover, she pounced on top of him. Suddenly, they were face to face, her hands pressed against the foam to either side of his head, and her hips straddling him and holding him in place, her crotch grinding against the obvious bulge in his pants. Even if he was a clueless, pathetic little virgin, he was still a guy, which meant that at least some parts of him worked automatically - any sexually mature guy in the world who spent enough time with the smell of heat tickling his nose, gay or straight, was going to get hard just from their basic biology.

For a moment she just ground against him in triumph, grinning down at his panicked face as she realized it was Hugh's turn to fight his own body for a change. He looked absolutely petrified even as his eyes widened and the innermost parts of his ears reddened with arousal, the kind of expression that Gianna knew all too well, and it was still, even in her form, an instant turn-on. She brought her muzzle down towards Hugh's neck, nestling it against the fur and growling just enough that he could feel the vibration, even as she reached one of her hands down lower between them. Her body protested for a moment as she willed it to momentarily halt the flood of sensations it was receiving from grinding against him, and managed to pull her hips back for long enough to unzip his fly and feel around inside. Luckily, he was wearing boxers, so things wouldn't get any more complicated than that - she just found the secondary fly, reached around in it until she wrapped her hand around the warmth of his cock, and pulled it out until it escaped the layers of fabric and sprang fully upright.

She ran her hand up and down the shaft, making sure it was completely erect. The flesh was velvety soft beneath her fingers, and she realized that it was actually her first time touching another guy's shaft. At that point, though, she was far beyond any sense of embarrassment or shame she might have felt about such a thing, as heat had stripped those inadequate considerations away some time ago. Besides, her touch wasn't about playing with or satisfying him, so much as verification that his cock wasn't going to wimp out on her somehow. It held fast, though, with both the shaft and the knot fully swelled, and that was enough.

There was no more trepidation, no more delay. Her urge was overwhelming, and her relief close at hand. Even as Hugh tried to weakly push her away, before realizing that his shove had pushed his hands onto her breasts and managed to look even more terrified and embarrassed as he pulled them back, Gianna didn't even bother trying to do anything to make sure his cock was properly positioned - the way her spade was swelled up between her legs, she was pretty sure that it couldn't miss. Instead, she just let of the thinnest thread of control that was holding her body in check, and allowed her hips to just hump back down the way they wanted to. Sure enough, the tip hit the inner edge of her swelled-open spade, slid momentarily along it, and then popped comfortably inside, rubbing exquisitely against her exactly where she needed it to until her spade was snuggled comfortably against the warm upper edge of his knot, coating it with a warmth of her own as her hips shuddered happily around the perfect stretching sensations emanating from inside her.

After the initial, exquisite shiver, the most immediate thing Gianna felt was a deep, profound, overwhelming sense of relief. Whatever it was that had been building up to burst inside her, the act of snugging her spade down around his cock had released it, stretching things into just the right position for the desperate, aching muscles inside her to clamp down around him, and for a moment she just let them work, pulsing and squeezing and massaging along his flesh, pulling her head back a little and watching his eyes go beyond wide, watching his pupils constrict to pinpoints as he all but went into shock from the never-before-felt intensity, and in response she felt a sudden, familiar sense of predatory superiority. She'd won, she'd taken him instead of the other way around, and now she was going to use him for exactly what she needed.

She let her hips hump tightly against him, quickly letting them find their desired rhythm, not quite the frenzied, forceful cadence that canine guys used to hump their partners into moaning submission, but purposeful nonetheless. As aggravating as her insides had felt in the absence of that contact, in its presence they felt compensatorily wonderful, each stroke blissful and triumphant and deliciously arousing. The pleasure quickly built, even as a phenomenally confused and panicking Hugh writhed underneath her, alternately gasping and whimpering as his hands flailed ineffectually at her arms and shoulders. Finally, she just swiped at his wrists and pinned them down against the bed, enjoying the feeling of him struggling futilely against both her and his own animal arousal, and thrilling at the sensation of the struggles tapering off.

Her hips thumped down faster and harder, pausing every few strokes to let her interior muscles work to their steady, relieving rhythm. Everything was starting to feel good again, and the fact that she was being penetrated, that she was fucking as a woman with wild abandon, was all but irrelevant. It was just the flip side of a biological coin, a means to an end, because she already had exactly what she wanted: someone under her, someone under her control, someone to whine and moan while she called the shots. Someone who would, for a blissful, fleeting moment, let her fucking feel like Giancarlo again.

Even as her hips worked, even as the sensations plateaued to a flowing, stroking, rhythmic bliss, even as she let herself cry out and listen to the sound of her own vindication, she knew somehow, instinctively, that it all wasn't quite enough. There were still certain parts of her that the stimulation wasn't reaching, something eager and anticipating just a little deeper inside her and just out of the tip's reach, and the spread-open part near the entrance that Hugh, for all his reasonable girth, was just barely rubbing against. If she wanted to completely release all the heated feelings pent up inside her, if she wanted to finally fucking climax properly as a woman when she was actually sober, she knew that the knot had to, needed to go in. And as crazy as it sounded, as much as it seemed like a complete surrender to femininity, she just didn't care. She could already feel her spade stretching out just a little more around the knot every time she humped down. Just a little bit more force, a little more determination, a few more good, solid slams of her hips and she would be there.

Hugh, though, had other ideas. While he had somehow managed not to just give in on the spot when she'd first clamped down around him, the quickened pace was apparently too much for him, and it only took a couple more humps before his entire body seemed to stiffen and shudder under her, and she heard him gasp in desperately before letting out a cute, warbling, almost feminine moan. Then his cock seemed to come to life on its own for the first time, pulsing against her insides as she felt splashes of wet heat spurt up inside her, reaching that most sensitive, needy part, but only glancingly, a tantalizing taste of what she most deeply needed. Strangely, as soon as he started spurting inside her, she felt her own desire to continue rapidly cooling off, and as soon as her head finished momentarily clearing, the idea of forcing herself down around a knot seemed absolutely, completely absurd. In fact, thinking consciously about it for the first time, she wasn't exactly thrilled about the fact it was Hugh under her, and his disgusting stuff now surely coating her insides, but it paled in importance to the basic fact that he was on the bottom and she was on top.

She eased herself off of him, allowing his cock to slide out from her spade and angle wetly down toward his own fur, taking a moment to shift over and wipe the mess off of her spade against the fur on his upper thigh. Of course, she was well aware that she'd have to feel him dripping out of her for some hours yet, but considering that she'd practically had a small stream running down between her legs the entire day, somehow she doubted it would make all that much of a difference.

Gianna moved herself up a little, scooting her hips up along his body until she was straddling him across the middle of his chest, keeping him in place as she released his hands and pulled herself upright, looming down over his prone form.

Hugh still looked a little dazed, trying to meet her gaze for a moment before cringing back, his ears flat with shame and fear.

"What, what just... what did... what did you..."

Gianna just grinned down at him, and while things were far from perfect, she felt sated and genuinely happy for the first time since she'd encountered the boneheap. And this time, she knew exactly why.

"I did exactly what you think I just did. And in case that's still too vague for you, let me spell it out. I just raped you."

Now his eyes really went wide. "But... you can't..."

"I can, and I did." She leaned down a little, making sure that her grin bared plenty of teeth as she gazed down at him. "So, how does it feel? I imagine you're in fairly rare company. After all, it's not every day that a guy comes along who's so pathetic that even a woman can fucking rape him."

Hugh's ears were actually flat against his head now, and he looked like he might actually be on the verge of tears. "I didn't... I didn't want to... and you made me put it in anyway..."

"Yeah. That's kind of how rape works. And seriously, you really are the most pathetic guy I've ever known. I'm pretty sure that even that pussy Renford, who works at the advisor desk next to me, would've actually done it if I'd spread right in front of him."

"That's not... you can't... you can't do that to someone... you can't do that to me!" He shoved at her again, this time using the strength that his anger and fear had lent him, and he was more than strong enough to push her off of him. Gianna saw it coming, though, and shifted her body so that she could roll off him cleanly, landing comfortably on both feet to the side of the table. Hugh quickly sat up and rolled off to the other side, trying to shove his cock back into his pants, and realizing as he did so that the entire crotch area was a mess, soaked through with Gianna's heated juices.

He looked back up at her, his eyes a mixture of fear and burgeoning, impotent rage. "What kind of a crazy psycho bitch are you? Who does something like that? You can't just-"

"Just what? Smack someone on the ass? You really think you have the moral high ground here? And really... who does something like that? Oh, I dunno, probably every woman in heat, if they're that frustrated. It's just that since most of them aren't with pussies who can't back up their talk like you, they don't fucking have to."

"It's still completely psycho! It's, it's... harassment, it's beyond harassment! This is a... it's a a fucking crime! You're so completely psycho you even admitted what you did! I should c-call the cops, and have you..."

He trailed off as Gianna burst out laughing. Even naked from the waist down and dripping stuff from between her legs, she felt more than confident, and Hugh, for all his bluster, was still quaking in his boots. Best of all, she'd just given her the perfect opportunity to stick the knife in.

"Oh yeah, you're gonna call the cops. And tell them what? That you're such a wuss of a man that when a woman in heat spread her legs in front of you and all but begged for it, you were too fucking scared to do what literally every guy who's actually got a pair would jump on in a second? That you're so pathetic that she had to actually jump your bones, so afraid you couldn't even take the slightest bit of charge? They'll fucking laugh you out of the precinct."

"But-"

"But what? It's still a crime? Think again. That's the thing about heat - if it's involved, no one takes any claims of rape seriously. If a woman's so out of control that she can't resist a guy bending her over and taking her, it's not rape, it's just her being in heat. And if a woman's so out of control that she just up and jumps the guy, and the guy, despite being stronger than her and able to resist at any time, doesn't manage to fight her off, it's the same fucking thing. All they have to do is take one whiff of your pants and whatever criminal case you're fantasizing about goes out the window. There is nothing, nothing at all, that you can do. You can sulk, you can cry, but nothing will change the fact that a woman just raped you, that your first ever sexual experience was forced upon you against your will. And you know what, you sleazy, creepy little jerk? I actually fucking hope that it haunts you, that you feel it every time you close your eyes. You brought this on yourself."

She took a few steps forward towards him, locking eyes with him as her grin morphed into something appropriately devilish. "Oh, and here's the absolutely best part. You see, I've just dominated you, unquestionably, and the way I see it, that means I basically own you."

"W-what?" Hugh replied, somehow managing to look even more stunned and fearful than he already did.

"You see, whatever pathetic façade of reputation you have, it's still out there. Women see you as a creep, sure, but at least the other guys around here, the manly men who you so desperately want to be like, still grudgingly respect you for the most part. Right now, though, that reputation is hanging by a thread. All I have to do is open my mouth and tell this sordid little tale, a tale that given your personality and reputation really will be oh so believable, and everyone's going to see you for exactly the kind of fake, blustering pussy that you are. Well, except for Jonah, who'll probably wait to laugh at you after he punches your muzzle in. You won't have one shred of respect or credibility left, and even puny little Amanda, once she sees what you really are, will find some way to lord it over you. You'll have to quit, leave all your colleagues behind, and if you don't think I can't track down whatever other friends you might have outside work and turn them against you, you'd be sadly mistaken. The things you care about the most in life are now in my hands, and what that means, in real terms, is that I really do own you."

She took another step forward, until their muzzles were all but touching, and she continued in a soft but unwaveringly menacing tone. "That means that for all the time we have to be together here at work, you're going to do whatever I fucking say. You're not going to lay a hand on my butt unless I tell you to. If I tell you to jump, you fucking jump. If I tell you to get me lunch, then it's there before I go on break. And if I tell you to take off your pants, lie down on the ground, and let me fuck you, then you do so without one single whiny word of protest. Refuse, and I burn you. Cross me, and I burn you. Got it?"

She kept her eyes focused tightly on his, making sure that she'd read him right, though she was all but certain that she had. Sure enough, while for a moment his face flashed anger and defiance, his expression quickly fell, and after a few moments he couldn't meet her gaze as the reality of his situation set in. She knew now just how much effort he had put into building up an illusion of himself to get the respect that he craved, and there was no way he was going to give it up, not now. In fact, she could all but predict the next words to come out of his mouth.

"It's... j-just between us, right? No one else has to know..."

"No, no one has to know about our little pact. I'm not going to lead you around on a leash or something. You will do what I ask, though, and you will come when I call." Of course, it couldn't be out in the open - after all, that would kill his reputation just as surely. At the same time, though, that promise was the final thing that would both allow and seal his compliance.

"O-okay... you win..."

"Say it."

"Huh? S-say what?"

"Say that I own you. I have to hear you say it, have to hear in your voice that you know it's fucking true."

Hugh shrank back again, gazing down at his shoes, trembling and embarrassed. After a few moments, though, he managed to speak up, even if it was through gritted teeth. "You... own me."

"Good." She stepped back, raising her hand and pointing at the door. "People are going to be here any minute now, so you'd better try and get cleaned up the best that you can. Oh, and don't turn your cellphone off. If I call you, it had better not go to voicemail. We clear?"

"C-clear..."

"Then go. I'm sure I'll have something for you to do soon enough..."

She stepped aside, and Hugh darted towards the door, whimpering and shrinking back a little as he passed her. It was true that he hadn't exactly been a huge challenge to break, but then again, most people didn't handle being raped very well, and it was the ones like him, the ones that were weak enough to eventually collapse inward instead of lash outward once it happened, that had been the easiest to manipulate on the few occasions when Giancarlo had seen a need for it.

Thanks to the bed's protection and the fact that the results of their encounter had largely ended up on Hugh's crotch, there really wasn't all that much to clean up - in fact, all she really had to do was toss her wadded-up panties in the sealed trash bin in the corner, pull on a new pair from her purse, and settle her skirt back into place.

Satisfied that everything was in order, she walked out of the storage room, clicked the combination lock closed again, and walked back towards the advisory area, humming happily to herself. Contrary to every expectation that she'd had, somehow she'd actually managed to come out on top, reveling in finding a way for her female body to actually achieve a conquest rather than just be the target of one, and for the moment, she couldn't be happier...

Well, almost. As she walked back to her desk, she was still more than well aware of the lingering feelings inside her, the ones that hadn't truly been satisfied. And while some of the other things were relieved for now, she could still feel them building back up in the background. While that overpowering urge was reasonably sated, she still sensed the faintest sensation of it lingering inside her, and she knew full well that it was still only a matter of time before it asserted itself again. After all, Giancarlo had known enough women in heat to know that even when they were knotted, they were rarely satisfied for it to happen just once. She didn't know exactly when, but at some point, before the day was done, that urge was going to be back again, and probably strongly enough to force her into some other reckless act.

The problem was, though, that even if she ordered him to, Hugh probably wouldn't be up for another encounter for a while, as he worked through his new, more precarious reality. And while she knew he would eventually adapt, and would certainly be available for another of her heats, that wouldn't do any good for her today. There was Jonah, technically, but after their talk the day before, she really didn't want to cave in on it the very next day. Even if it would obviously be due to heat, even if Jonah would completely understand, it would look, well, weak - and at the moment, as confident as she was, that was absolutely not how she wanted to feel.

With the two most obvious people ruled out, though, it did pose the obvious problem: somehow, she had to figure out how to get through an entire, functional workday in the throes of a heat that certainly wasn't going away anytime soon. She knew, given her capabilities, that she would figure out a way through some way or other. She knew now, though, just how unpredictable heat could make her behavior, and if it did the same thing when it was once again fully inflamed, it was going to be a disturbingly interesting day indeed...