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All told, the gynecological exam wasn't nearly the worst thing to have happened to Gianna as a woman. In at least a small act of mercy, the doctor had turned out to also be female - although if she hadn't, Gianna probably would have walked out of the office on the spot. Sure, it was humiliating and the opposite of fun, but the same could have been said about the prostate exam performed by an incredibly over-cautious doctor. Some uncle on his father's side had had an issue, though, the fact had made it into his chart, and that was that. Giancarlo had been many things, but one of them wasn't an idiot - if he wanted to keep doing what he was doing, all of the parts involved had to be kept in good working order. He'd grudgingly agreed to it then, and Gianna agreed to the exam now for a similar reason. The boneheap had already done a bunch of things to her, making her a woman, making her infertile, and kept changing the rules whenever it felt like. Who knew what else it, or all of the sexual encounters it had inspired, might have done to mess up her insides? It made sense, then, to get it checked out by a professional.

And really, it wasn't so bad, the cold metal of the first thing the doctor had poked into her notwithstanding. In fact, as far as Gianna was concerned, it fit perfectly with how she felt about being a woman: aggravating, annoying, and genuinely uncomfortable. Yet, for all that, it was still far better than most of what had occurred thus far with her accursed spade, at least with someone not named May: no one was forcing her or holding her down, there wasn't even the slightest hint of that bizarre feminine arousal, and it was all being done in the service of actually helping her, instead of finding some brand new form of torture. Well, all except the pap smear - that was a sensation she had no desire to experience again, despite the fact that it almost felt like the thing had been in slightly less deep then Jonah had. Then again, she was no longer in heat, with whatever that had done to the dimensions of her insides.

The real saving grace, though, was how quickly it was over. The whole thing probably hadn't taken even a half-hour between the time she stripped her panties off until the last instrument had retreated, and for the most part she'd been able to close her eyes, think of something else, and try to forget the significance of the truly weird sensations happening between her legs. It was kind of nice, in fact, not to be completely present for such a humiliation, something that fucking demon hadn't allowed. She'd felt everything that it, and Jonah, had done, and as much as she didn't want it to, it still stuck with her - its philosophy, at least, had been somewhat debunked, but the actual, physical experience of what it had done was proving far harder to shake. It even managed to creep back into her mind for a moment as she finished pulling her clothing into place and sat down in an actual chair, the doctor taking another nearby.

She at least seemed nice enough, a kind-looking woman of afghan-hound ancestry, and a solid frame apart from the trademark long, slender limbs and elongated muzzle, one that nonetheless had the regal feminine angles of high-class breeding. The doctor only took a moment to jot a quick note down in her file before setting it aside and looking up with a smile.

"Well, I'm happy to report that everything looks healthy - that is, apart from the ongoing issues. I took another quick look with the ultrasound, but it probably wouldn't surprise you to know that it doesn't appear to be any different from the last exam. Again, though, I wouldn't lose hope completely. There are cases where it's reversed, and women have been able to subsequently conceive, and there is still the option of a surrogate birth using a donated egg cell, if you want to explore that option..."

"Yeah... don't worry about it. Not sure kids are my thing, anyway." Especially the idea of having one actually growing and doing things inside her - that was a thought Giancarlo had never anticipated contemplating, and one that Gianna definitely wasn't interested in. "And hey, at least I'm healthy, right?" Although, all things considered, there was something odd about that. "Hmm... but I'm really... totally okay down there? Nothing's stretched, or scratched, or anything like that?"

"No... all tissues, internal and external, look completely healthy." The doctor leaned in closer to her, looking concerned. "Why? Did something happen that I should know about?"

Gianna hesitated. "Um... this is all confidential, right?"

"Yes, of course. If someone hurt you, though, you really should contact the-"

"The police? Yeah, been there, done that already. I don't really want to talk about it, but... from a physical, medical standpoint, let's say I was in heat, and that I then had a knot jammed into me over and over again for hours. Regardless of what I wanted, or anything else that happened, it's just... a little odd, you know? I mean, it's only a couple of days since it happened, and I felt okay enough to do some... other stuff in the interim, but... you're saying that there's not a scratch, not even a trace of what happened?"

The doctor looked at her with what Gianna assumed was sympathy - one of those emotions that Giancarlo hadn't been really good at picking up on. "I... I'm not a psychologist, so I'm really not the best person to help when it comes to recovering from something like that. I am sorry that you had to go through such a traumatic experience, though. I've been blessed not to have gone through something like that firsthand, but I can only imagine how horrible it can-" She stopped when Gianna held up her hand, grimacing.

"Look, I'm not asking for your sympathy. If I wanted to dwell on that misery, I already would have. I just want to make sure my... stuff down there is okay. I kind of just assumed that it would have done something to me physically..."

The doctor didn't seem insulted by her interruption, but she did shake her head slightly before continuing. "I realize this is probably cold comfort given what happened, but as strange as it sounds, you can probably thank your species - and for that matter your specific genetic makeup - for the fact that, physically at least, you were able to survive without suffering internal harm. Not all species are like that, for sure - I've been on hand for the aftermaths of some feline rapes, and with the spines... I can't even bear to think of it, except to say those cases had to be rushed into emergency surgery. Canines, though, don't have spikes, and the pads of the spade actually absorb a lot of the shock transmitted during sex. The changes during estrus also affect the resiliency and elasticity of the vaginal canal, and for someone such as yourself with such a rapid cycle, those changes cumulatively and permanently affect those internal structures. Ultimately, that means traditional sexual contact with any non-spiny males, even repeated or prolonged encounters, are unlikely to produce any physical contusions that won't heal on their own with a good night's sleep. Obviously, that's just the physical part, though - the same can't be said about the psychological and emotional repercussions. I know it's not much, and it doesn't change what happened to you, but at least it might help a little, if you're ever in a similar situation, to know in the moment that the situation is at least survivable."

Cold comfort, indeed, although somehow she couldn't help but wonder whether the boneheap actually did have a hand in that particular aspect of her form - making sure she was able to be gang-raped over and over again, without some pesky physical limitation standing in the way, seemed like something that would be right up its alley.

"Well... honestly, I'd rather not go through that ever again, but if the alternative is having some ruined, bloody mess between my legs, I suppose it's better than that. As for the mental stuff, as long as I'm physically okay... the less I think about it, the better."

"Nevertheless, I would highly recommend talking to someone who's more of an expert than I am in dealing with the mental repercussions. I can refer you to several excellent psychiatrists, and there are also a number of support groups-"

"No offense, doc, but I'll, ah, take care of that on my own, all right? If I'm not injured, if I'm all right, then you've done your part. If there's anything I need to do down there, to make sure that everything heals up the little bit more that it needs to properly, just tell me and I'll take care of it. Otherwise, if it's all good... we're done here, right?"

"Yes... like I said, you have a clean bill of health in that department, and the only reason I'd need to do any follow-up is if you wanted to look further into options for potentially treating your infertility. If not, then I'll let you go - but I really must suggest, one more time, that it would be helpful to talk to someone about what you've been through. This is the kind of thing that can take a while to process - while you may feel like you're fine now, it's something that can lead to additional stress down the road if you try to keep it all to yourself instead of talking it through."

"Duly noted. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to put my clothes back on..."

The doctor excused herself, and Gianna got dressed, breathing a sigh of relief that that particular humiliation was taken care of. In fact, if all went well, she might actually be done with the most egregious sorts of humiliation for a while - her heat had ended the night before, which meant that she should have at least three or four days of relative sanity before it hit again. Which was good, as she had plenty to do - first and foremost, getting a better handle on her situation, and coming up with an actually sensible plan for taking on the boneheap at its own sick game.

Before she got to that, though, she needed to get her other ducks in a row. Jonah would probably get better on his own if given time, or at least she hoped he would, and things with May actually seemed to be playing out as favorably as she'd intended. Which meant that Hugh, for the moment, was the one person she needed to get into line. She'd let him get away with his insubordination the day before, but if she was going to have him truly under her thumb, she certainly couldn't let that become a habit.

So, in service of that, after going home and changing into somewhat more appropriate clothes for work, she made it in to work just far enough into the usual lunch break to catch the predictably laggardly Hugh alone in the break room. Needless to say, he didn't appear particularly happy to see her, much less have her corner him before he could slink away.

"G-gianna?" There was some anxiety in his voice, at least, although his expression spoke more of resentment than fear. "We're in the middle of the break room - you're not going to anything, anything like-"

"No. Of course not. Unless your nose is completely useless, you ought to know I'm not in heat right now. And besides, as you've made so abundantly clear, despite all your bravado and hollow promises, you're basically useless in that department anyway." He bristled at that, his pride certainly making itself known, although the way his ears unconsciously tilted seemed to signal relief more than anything else. Not, of course, that she cared about his pride - except, of course, that if not for its existence, her entire scheme of blackmail would have fallen though. Which meant she couldn't crush it completely, but there was certainly no harm in leaving it suppressed enough to keep him well in hand. "Don't think that means you're off the hook, though. You're still my bitch until I say otherwise."

"B-but-"

"And I don't want to hear your excuses or complaints. You got yourself into this, so you're gonna have to deal with it. Which means that if you're not capable of helping me the way that we talked about before, then you'll just have to pick up the slack somewhere else."

Problem was, she really didn't know what that would entail. She could make him her errand boy, sure, but it wasn't like she had very many to run. No point in a chauffeur, either - there was no way anyone was getting behind the wheel of her car but her. Still, she had to do something to exert authority over him. The blackmail gave her the leverage, but she still had to apply that lever in the proper way - or at least try, given that she still wasn't sure exactly what approach to use with someone like Hugh. She cast around quickly for something to use, and while it wasn't much, there was at least one one immediately obvious play she could make in the form of the half-sandwich that Hugh had yet to consume. True, it was kind of juvenile, a schoolyard tactic at best, but Hugh seemed juvenile enough himself that it just might work.

She casually picked up the sandwich, staring at him confidently as she quickly wolfed it down - as it was a sandwich fit more for a compact corgi that someone like her, it only took her jaws a few triumphant bites to make it disappear. Hugh, for his part, didn't even bother to protest, doing little more that glaring at her sullenly.

"Now, now... you really ought to look a little more enthusiastic. After all, I could have asked for something far worse. And you know... that's not a bad sandwich, really. I'm actually halfway surprised that someone like you is capable of that, even if it is just slapping bread and meat together. And while that's not much... yeah, I guess it'll at least be a start. So, here's the first thing that I want: bring me one like that tomorrow - heck, might as well just have you do that for every workday from now on. And make it properly sized, you know?"

Hugh looked at her incredulously. "Wait... you're holding all this over my head for, what, some fucking sandwiches?"

"No, of course not. I mean yeah, I like a good sandwich as much as everyone else, but the sandwich itself isn't even the point. The point of doing it is to serve as a reminder to start off every day, to keep your focused on our agreement, to instill in your mind that every waking moment of yours is mine to command. The point of your being my bitch isn't just about one petty thing, or what you're doing for me right this minute. The point is that you'll do what's needed, when it's needed, and you'll treat me with the deference befitting your new station." She paused for a moment, considering. "Actually, the other thing you're going to do, right off the bat, is treat Amanda with the same fucking deference. You need to keep up appearances and do your posturing with some other women I don't know or care about, fine, that's up to you. There's no way I'm letting you lord it over someone else in front of me, though. Like it or not, you are going to show people your respect for me, and those around me, from now on."

Hugh bristled for a moment longer at that demand, but then nodded and seemed to give in, although his glare still spoke of a certain sullen resentment. "Fine. Whatever. Just don't expect me to be enthusiastic about it."

"You can be however you want, as long as you do what I tell you. Don't worry - I'm not gonna make our arrangement known in front of your friends, and you can still be a macho asshole around our male coworkers. The reason you agreed to this was to allow you to save face, after all. However, you're not doing it at my expense, or at Amanda's. No groping, no leering, no pervy remarks. Just... act like every other male service advisor there and do your job, professionally. And when I call for you to do something..."

"...I do it. Yeah, I get it, all right? I'm not a fucking child. You'll get your fucking sandwich, and whatever other stupid shit a psycho like you could possibly ask for. So unless there's something else you want, I have a job to get back to that I actually get paid for."

"Why they do, I honestly don't know, but... yeah, you want to run along for now, go right ahead. Make sure to keep your cellphone on, though. I doubt you'll be eager to discover the consequences of me not being able to reach you."

She watched as his fluffy, diminutive form double-timed it out of the break room. It was about time for her to get back as well, but she took a brief moment to relax, and savor what was hopefully a victory. It hadn't gone perfectly - if anything, she probably should have taken a more forceful tone with him, maybe even punished him for his earlier insubordination, and come up with something more assertive than some penny-ante elementary-school tactic. It seemed effective enough, though - his resentment was clear, but his pride, and his fear of being exposed for the fraud that he was, both seemed to be sufficient to shove any notion of open rebellion back down inside him. No, he'd do what she wanted, at least for the moment, and while she didn't really have all that much worth doing, just the notion of him keeping his hands and snide remarks to himself were enough. That, and if she could find some way to intimate that she was behind him no longer harassing Amanda, it might even help to bolster her power over that other serendipitous relationship.

All in all, it seemed, she was in a pretty good position, with the upper hand, or at the very least an excellent hand to play, in every single relationship she currently had. Keeping those squared away could only help - and as long as they were, she could concentrate on dealing with her own messed-up situation. And, over the next few days until her next heat, that was what she resolved to do: figure out a plan to beat the damn boneheap at its own game, and get back the power that was rightfully hers - or, more specifically, Giancarlo's. True, there was a certain fun to be had in constantly scheming, but she'd much rather bring back the day when Giancarlo could simply reach out and take what he wanted, with those being taken all but powerless to say otherwise. That day, Gianna knew, would once again come, and if she could operate under that assumption, what it meant was simply finding a way to tolerably get through the interim while minimizing her own experience of being powerless and humiliated. Easier said than done, of course, given her current form, but with her judgement currently unclouded by heat, formulating such a plan at least seemed within the realm of possibility.

As she discovered over the course of the next several days, though, finding such a plan was far easier in theory than it was in practice due to the basic facts of the situation. Even if all of the boneheap's other machinations and complications were set aside, the core rule of the game was the same. To challenge the boneheap and get her old form back, she had to accumulate points; points that, unfortunately, were primarily earned by having various sex acts performed on her. True, there were theoretically occasional points for avoidance, but that would only extend the amount of time she had to be female.

No, it seemed like the only way through was to deal with the sex some way or other - and while she wasn't able to choose whether it happened or not, the part that was within her power, hopefully, was to determine each encounter's specific circumstances. The clearest idea she had, at least initially, was that it made sense to concentrate as much of it during the periods of heat as possible, and then do her best to avoid it and live as normal a life as she could outside it. The periods of heat, after all, were all but written off due to the muddle they put her in, and in that state the actual physicality of sex seemed at least somewhat less disturbing due to that altered mental state. While being that out of control actually seemed to make it worse from a certain... emotional standpoint, if there was a way to get her head around it, it was certainly preferable to trying to endure it while completely sober and aware. If she could come up with a reasonable, stable arrangement for her heats, though - a guy or two that she could stand, and would let her be dominant enough, with May to ride out the back end of it - the plan might actually work, while leaving her enough days in between to do what she actually wanted, maybe even find some ways to tweak the boneheap back in return for all the aggravation it had dealt her.

Assuming that worked, then, the priorities seemed fourfold. First, create a stable situation within which to ride out the heats. Second, outside of said heats, take the least risky approach in every possible situation involving men, and hopefully keep the curse from subjecting her to demoralizing sexual assault in the interim. Third, do whatever else she could to make those interim times the most tolerable, and least female, that she actually could. And, last but not least, keep everyone she was involved with, especially the men, firmly under her control to avoid any more relationship surprises. Each one of those would certainly be easier said than done, but all seemed possible.

--

The second one, ultimately, turned out to be the one that was easiest to handle over the next few days . As it turned out, Gianna realized that she didn't really have a whole lot of places to go, aside from errands, work, and home. Giancarlo certainly would have been out trolling various bars and clubs, looking for people to take advantage of, but without that particular motivation there seemed little reason to venture out; after all, a beer drunk in her own apartment got her just as buzzed without any of the potential repercussions. May didn't seem to have anything major planned, so her place was about the only other one Gianna ended up hanging out at; she certainly didn't want to be with Hugh in a place where he might feel that he had more power, and Jonah still seemed to need more time to work things through.

In fact, since the conversation on the way back from the hospital, most of their conversations had been like the ones Giancarlo had had with him: short, often monosyllabic, and rather shallow and general. Jonah didn't seem ready to deal with the situation, especially when it came to the "with benefits" part that they'd previously acknowledged, and Gianna wasn't quite eager to hurry him and make things even more awkward between them. After all, it still seemed likely that he should factor into the heat situation somehow, since he was the only guy Gianna knew that was capable and considerate enough to handle it, unfortunate night of demonic possession aside.

Still, as he was still a ways away from feeling comfortable trusting himself to be alone with her, aside from May there really wasn't anyone to do things with socially. She still wasn't sure whether Amanda was more a "work" friend or a "friend" friend - in any case, she'd made no attempt to contact her outside of working hours. Socially, then, there wasn't much going on, and no reason to hang out around unknown men - and since she drove pretty much everywhere now, not really wanting to be stared at on the sidewalk, there weren't a whole lot of particularly vulnerable situations. So, predictably, with little to no opportunities, no random people managed to accost her and drag her off somewhere.

If she made it through without being raped, though, she couldn't exactly say the same about being run-of-the-mill molestation. Hugh, considering the situation, was hardly a threat anymore in that particular way, and even Jonah seemed completely professional and hands-off for now. The rank-and-file male customers she had to deal with, though, were another matter entirely. True to such a random sampling, their behaviors ran just about the entire gamut of what could be expected. Some, thankfully, were completely polite, a few even weirdly chivalrous in the way some men were whenever they happened to be around women. Others stared, but even that varied, from the confident, knowing leer of some, to the case of a young-looking man of dachshund ancestry whose height naturally aligned his eyes at the level of her chest, and had appeared to stare in wonderment while blushing so deeply a hint of crimson was actually visible beneath his dark fur.

While to a certain extent she preferred the latter reaction, as it seemed less threatening, glances were annoying more than anything else; rather, it was the guys who took a more hands-on approach that really pissed her off. She lost count of the amount of times a hand managed to land on her butt or along a contour of her bust, ones brushed off as "accidents" to particularly aggressive ones accompanied by a leer or a lascivious comment. At least, since she wasn't in heat, none of them managed to conjure up immediately problematic emotions, but each one was another depressing reminder of her current state. If she'd looked like Giancarlo, there was no way they'd have tried any of that - or, for that matter, gotten away without a good, solid beating if for some reason they had.

All that, of course, further motivated her to tackle her third priority: making her time between heats less problematic. To that end, several more shopping trips were in order - she couldn't change everything, for sure, but even if she could make her clothes slightly more conservative, that would surely dissuade at least some of the advances. The curse, of course, made that difficult, but each shopping trip allowed her to try different tactics, using trial and error against whatever specifics the curse had done to her mind, or at least her fashion sense. The same pattern, though, seemed to hold true: give in on something tight, short or feminine, and the pressure lessened enough to pick out something more reasonable. Since Gianna was comfortable enough financially, she could afford to sacrifice some clothing picks to get more of what she wanted, and if the things the curse forced upon her simply languished in her closet, then so be it. True, the things she really wanted were still out of reach; proper pants, for one, stayed out of the question. She did manage, at least, to get some yoga-style pants that were at least loose in parts (although sadly still rather form-fitting along her thighs and posterior), and some skirts that, while still tighter than she liked, at least were of a length approaching actually appropriate professional attire. Nothing ideal, for sure, but as long as it was at least more tolerable, she could live with it. Yeah, it was still humiliating to wear a skirt, but far less so than having to wear one that made her panties, and spade, clearly visible if she did just about anything other than stand upright and motionless.

So, some successes, at least. The problem was, though, that sorting out the first priority was proving to be far more difficult. The fact of the matter was, she simply didn't know any other guys who weren't complete strangers, or close to it. Sure, there was the cop, but now that she was outside of heat she reminded herself that she really didn't know the first thing about him, and wasn't entirely eager to find out - understandably, considering Giancarlo's past, consorting with law enforcement was something he hadn't been keen on. Jonah and Hugh were useless, at least for now, and aside from them... that was it. She thought about asking May about it, maybe suggesting some of the gay guys she'd mentioned who were willing to take care of "mutual biological needs," but quite frankly that still seemed kind of weird to her. She wasn't exactly sure how adept they'd be at it, considering the assumption that guy-on-guy sex would be a rather different thing - especially when it came knowing what to do with the knot, which as far as she knew took an insane amount of training and effort to do safely using an orifice other than a spade.

Which left her with... no real options at all, beyond May herself, who'd been more than clear on the fact that she could only help out some of the time. Gianna still needed to find some tolerable guy, somewhere. A dating site seemed like a better solution than some bar pick-up - which, given the curse, would probably end up with her drunk and subsequently raped, something that wasn't exactly high on her list. Problem was, she hadn't exactly known what to put on the profile, considering she knew next to nothing about actually having a female persona in that sense, and having her picture staring back out at her from the screen, used voluntarily to represent her, seemed even more depressing, somehow, than just seeing it in a mirror. As a result, she'd gotten frustrated with the whole idea and put it on hold, endeavoring to get back to it but never really finding the motivation to actually do so.

Not a lot of progress there, then. At least her relationships had all remained more or less stable: friendly enough with Amanda, somewhat more than friends with May, and Jonah at least not doing anything else distraught or impulsive out of some misguided sense of justice. No, everyone was generally doing well enough - with, to her consternation, one glaring exception.

Hugh, it seemed, was not reacting as predictably to his situation as she'd hoped. Admittedly, it hadn't gone smoothly from the start, but the overall premise had seemed solid. Hugh was a chauvinist, a bully, but obviously overcompensating, and Gianna knew well enough what that usually meant: a blustering front hiding a perilously weak and fragile persona beneath it. Logically, then, it meant that once she'd cracked that facade, Hugh would show himself to be weak and controllable, and she'd have no problem all but owning him.

It was a principle Giancarlo had often used, albeit in a more direct fashion. He'd taken on plenty of girls who'd fought, struggled, put on a brave face, but once he'd overpowered them, once he'd shown them to be as helpless as he knew they were, at some point they almost always broke, and from that point on they tended to be as obedient as one could ask for. So, in theory, it should have worked the same with Hugh, and for a while it had seemed like it would - apart from the sex stuff, which apparently he flat-out couldn't handle, Hugh had been sullen but compliant. So, sensibly enough, she'd asserted herself a bit more, asked for more things, reminded him exactly who his superior was, driving to cement that surrender and submission into his personality.

The problem was, it hadn't really worked - all it had done was cause him to grumble, and bristle, and a couple of times stubbornly refuse outright to do what she'd asked, to the point where she'd actually had to threaten him with the consequences of her blackmail directly. And they hadn't been enormous favors, either: stuff like getting her coffee or filing her paperwork. And when he looked at her, sometimes his eyes showed fear, but other times all she could see from him was just flat, cold hatred. Obviously, she'd pushed him too fast, too far, and so she tried to correct it, got on his case less often and stopped coming after him when he tried to hide. That, at least, seemed to get him to back off from a simmering pit of resentment back to his previous sullenness, but she still wasn't sure how to strike just the right tone to fully get him under her thumb.

In any case, though, the annoying swagger that he'd had before was long gone, not just with her and Amanda, but with just about everyone. He'd made a half-hearted attempt with the girl that came by in the morning to deliver packages, but instead of his previous, unashamedly sleazy confidence, the attempt truly came off as sad, to the point where she didn't laugh or snarl in response, but looked back at him with what seemed genuine pity, and actually patted him on the head before turning to leave. In that moment, he'd looked like he was actually on the verge of tears, but when he'd noticed Gianna out of the corner of his eye, he'd given her the strangest look: for a moment, teeth-bared, snarling rage, but then it had sagged into an expression of utter hopelessness, wet-eyed, slump-shouldered, and absolutely pathetic.

For a moment, she'd though that might have been the point when he'd actually, truly broken, but a minute after that the blank sullenness had returned, and the next day he'd called in sick rather than having to face her. Obviously, he'd been screwed up far worse than she'd initially thought, which left her in uncharted territory - she really didn't know whether it made sense to push it any further, or to just let go of it entirely and let Hugh spiral down on his own. After all, she didn't really need him, and even if she gave up on her blackmail, he seemed more than defeated enough to cause her any further hassle. Maybe it was better, then, to just let things lie, and let Hugh direct his attentions elsewhere instead of leaving her as the sole focus of his resentment. Still, she wasn't quite ready to give up on her leverage entirely, so she resolved to just let things be: not officially let him off the hook just yet, but not demand anything further - just let him sulk and see how things shook out.

In all, then, while the intervening days hadn't exactly been perfect, it had probably been the best half-week she'd had since the boneheap's arrival. No rape, no crushing humiliation, no sexual contact at all save for the sadly predictable collection of gropes that seemed to come with each workday. Slightly better clothes, generally stable relationships, and no real reason to think about her female aspects, unless she was taking a piss or something where there was no choice but to acknowledge them. Stable, clear-headed, mercifully heat-free... with the exception of Hugh, it had, in fact, been nearly ideal, and it actually was starting to feel like she might actually be able to get through it all, tolerate everything long enough to take the boneheap up on its challenge.

--

Depressingly, it hadn't seemed very long at all before those days were up, and it was time for her next heat to arrive - when she'd woken up that morning, though, she'd been on edge, but mercifully still dry and reasonably unaffected. That awakening, though, had come with a sad reminder - her next heat was still surely on the way, supposed to have been there already for that matter, and she still didn't have a plan for dealing with it beyond fervently hoping that May was feeling especially vigorous the next couple of nights.

Sure enough, the feeling of being on edge continued to grow, and shortly after her lunch break, she began to feel the familiar sensations of heat stirring towards prominence in her belly. It was as inevitable as it was annoying, but at least it was better than the alternative - it meant she hadn't had to go through the entire workday feeling like that. Thanks to her anticipation, though, she'd planned her intimate apparel accordingly - the boneheap, during some point in the last few days, had randomly deemed her plain heat panties "unsexy" and swapped them out for something more frilly and alluring, but at least it had been respectful enough to keep their general type, and not swap them out for the scent-spreading ones instead - in fact, the minor point was the only bit of meddling that the bonehead had seemed recently to engage in. Maybe the thing with the not-angel had gotten to it more that it had let on? Whatever the reason for its restraint, though, Gianna certainly couldn't complain.

At least it had been a quiet afternoon, with only a couple of male customers to deal with. Jonah was out for some meeting with the regional management group, which at least meant there wasn't a chance of him freaking out when he caught a whiff of her heat, terrified that he was going to lose control again, as unlikely as that was. On the other hand, while he hadn't exactly put her in charge while he was gone, she'd still ended up stuck with a few of his responsibilities - including, once the department was closed down, helping Hugh haul a bunch of stupid boxes that he was probably too inept to handle on his own. She probably could have just ordered him to do it all himself, but being able to watch as his diminutive form struggled with carrying them, and another way to lord her own superiority over him, was something she wouldn't want to pass up.

Apparently, every few months, some of the financial records expired or something, and to make room for new ones, the old ones had to be hauled away for shredding. Hugh's car was about as small as he was, though, and so didn't have room for multiple boxes full of paper; that meant all of the boxes had to be hauled over to the dealership's fleet utility van, stashed as it usually was in a remote corner of the lot where its drab appearance wouldn't put off customers. In hindsight, she probably should have just asked Hugh to go pull the van around to the front entrance instead of walking out to it, and been at least a little suspicious that he hadn't, but it had been more than enough just to stay focused on the task at hand with the familiar sensations of heat swirling in her belly.

So she'd picked up a stack of boxes, smirking inwardly that she could handle more than Hugh could, and marched out towards the van with his sulking, straining form in tow, glancing back at him struggling and marveling at the fact that he wasn't grousing and complaining every step of the way like he would have before. In fact, she couldn't recall him having said a word to her all day - not even now, just carrying his boxes in stone silence. If it was the old Hugh, she'd have thought it was weird for sure, but at that point his blankness hardly seemed surprising.

The van was about as uninteresting as you could get, just a white-panel job with the name of the dealership emblazoned on the side. Gianna set a couple of the boxes down on the asphalt, grumbling at being stuck with such a thing when she'd much rather be heading home and coming up with something to get her heat sorted. Looking up at the doors, balancing the other boxes in one hand as she reached for the door with the other, she grumbled again as she tugged on the obviously locked handle - in her haste to get the task over with, she hadn't bothered to grab the keys to unlock the damn thing.

She let go and started to turn back towards Hugh, to ask if he'd managed to grab them, but she stopped just as suddenly as the door handles seemed to click on their own accord. She froze, momentarily puzzled, but then the doors abruptly swung outward, squealing on un-oiled hinges. Beyond them, the interior lighting in the van's cargo compartment was on, clearly enough to show that there were several people already inside...

Something was wrong, very wrong, but before Gianna could properly react, throw the boxes at the shadowy figures or reach into her purse for whatever weapon she could find, she felt both of Hugh's hands slam into the small of her back, sending her stumbling forward. The force of his shove sent her hips slamming into the bumper, doubling her up and knocking the wind out of her for a moment. There was no time to get over the momentary daze, though, as hands were already grasping at her, pulling her bodily into the van and sending her tumbling along its bed, limbs flailing in a futile attempt to provide resistance or find purchase. For a moment the world was a tumble of light and darkness, the compartment reverberating from the metal-on-metal sound of the doors slamming shut.

The next seconds passed in dark, frantic struggle, unseen fingers latching onto her, palms pushing and knees shoving. Her own vain countermoves could do little to prevent her from being flipped over, and falling down heavily onto her back - not on the floor this time, but onto something softer and more yielding. One wrist, then the other, became locked in a strong grip, and it was only as her arms were being hauled upward, her own muscles struggling in vain to prevent it, that the overhead light of the van bed clicked on to bathe the scene in a sickly yellow glow.

She whipped her head about, trying to take in the maelstrom of the situation. Aside from the fallen boxes that had strewn papers around near the doors, the only other thing in the van's cargo compartment was the old, dingy-looking mattress that she was now lying on, and the men with whom she was struggling. There was at least one man behind her, one she couldn't quite see clearly, but could certainly feel - he was pinning her arms down above her head, although he didn't seem supremely confident in his ability to do so, considering it felt almost as though her were attempting to keep them pinned by sitting on them. What she could see of him was mainly black, which surely mirrored the appearance of the others that she could see: two of them, each one trying to get a solid hold on her flailing legs, both dressed in nondescript black pants, black t-shirts with what looked like obscure band logos on them, and black ski masks that concealed everything but their eyes and muzzles. Judging by the visible fur patterns, though, she guessed that the one on the left was most likely of Doberman ancestry. The one on the right, though, just had nondescript dark brown fur without any clearly identifiable features. Hugh, for his part, was standing back against the doors, watching her struggle with a rather dangerous expression on his face. Whatever this was, there was no doubt at all that he'd planned it.

Whoever the other guys were, they probably weren't professionals, probably not even actual criminals. Both of the visible ones, from what she could see, looked a little on the scrawny side, enough muscles to tell they were men, but nothing that either one would brag about. The sad fact, though, was even with their slight statures, any one of them would likely have been a match for Gianna one-on-one. Despite what was happening, she seethed at that notion for a moment - if she'd had Giancarlo's form, even against the three of them, she'd have likely stood a chance in a proper fistfight.

Wishing for that wouldn't change anything, though, and her moment of seething proved costly - it caused her struggle to slow just enough, and the one on the left managed to get a solid hold on her ankle, slamming it down hard into a corner of the mattress. With three of her limbs pinned, her anger rapidly spiked over into panic - however Giancarlo would have fared, as Gianna, she was truly in trouble. From that awkward position, all she could do was kick at the brown-furred mutt on the other side, but wasn't able to get enough extension to put any real force behind it. The few impacts she managed didn't even make the man wince, and the fourth attempt resulted in her other ankle getting caught, her leg yanked painfully to the other side.

And that was that - her struggle had lasted less than a minute, and now she was completely pinned, with little hope of freeing any of her limbs now that they all had people rather determinedly restraining them. Even worse, with both legs pinned to either side, her thighs were involuntarily spread, which combined with her stupid skirt meant that her heat-soaked panties were probably already on display. Not that such a humiliation mattered all that much, as it didn't take a genius to figure out what was going to happen next. Hugh was already stepping forward, that smug, shitheaded grin on his face, undoing the top button on his dress pants and slowly, deliberately unzipping his fly.

For a moment, though, he didn't do anything more than that, just standing there and gloating above her before speaking.

"Heh... you didn't really think I'd let what you did go unanswered, did you? That I'd just roll over and let you have your way forever? Well, too fucking bad, because that time ends now. From now on, it's time for me to be in power again, and it's your fucking turn to be the bitch!"

Despite the situation, Gianna couldn't quite help but smirk at his posturing - apparently, that side of Hugh had not, in fact, been obliterated after all. "What, this is supposed to be your big revenge? Round up some of your dorky friends up and... what? Like you'd actually have the balls to straight-up rape me..."

"S-shut up!" Hugh snapped back. Obviously his confidence wasn't back all that much, but it only took him a moment to regain his confident composure. "You know what? You call call it whatever you want, but it's about so much more than just simple revenge. It's about setting the world the right way round again. It's about putting everyone back in their proper places."

"And you're gonna do that by raping me? Yeah, right."

"Dammit, it's not about rape!" Hugh snarled. "I mean yeah, sure, you know what's gonna happen - not exactly a mystery there. But it's not gonna be rape, right? I've got a nose. I know you're in heat. And I know exactly what happened when you were in heat the last time. The way you tricked me, turned the tables, made everything all screwed up, made me all screwed up, turned the entire world upside-down. This time, though, it's gonna be different. You're gonna take on the role a woman in heat's supposed to take, even if we have to force you to take it until you actually want it. That's why these guys are here: I'm not taking any chances of you turning the tables again. You're going to lie there and get knotted like a good little bitch, just the way a woman's supposed to. And I'm gonna be on top this time, taking you the way that a man's supposed to. And then everything's going to be right again. Everything's going back to the way it was. I'm going to be a real man again, and you're going to know your place, and respond to me like the good little bitch you are. Or who you're going to be, at any rate, by the time we're done with you..."

Gianna couldn't help it - as soon as he finished speaking, all screwed up with delusion, she laughed right up at his face. True, it had something of a panicked, nervous cadence to it, but it was enough to make his eyes flash with fury.

"Heh... you're a real man? Yeah, right. If you were a real man, your knot would already be buried by now. A real man wouldn't be standing up there yapping and posturing, he'd be doing something about it. You're actually proving how pathetic you are with each minute your muzzle continues to flap." Okay, maybe not exactly the best thing to say, as it probably wasn't the best idea to actually convince him, or the others, to get down to business. Still, any dig that might hurt his standing in the eyes of his peers had to be useful somehow - unlikely, but if he got mad enough to do something really stupid, it might give her an opening.

In a way, it did, at least slightly - the man on the right turned to look at Hugh, his body tensed in impatience.

"Yeah, seriously, dude. She wronged you; we get it. We've heard you go on about it plenty. Good lord, we've fucking heard it, every single goddamn night since it happened. And seriously, you know we're not here to listen to your ego trip. The final showdown of the Maximum Poker League season's on in a couple of hours, and you know I'm not gonna miss seeing that live. I'm not missing my turn either, though, so stop yapping already." He nodded down at Gianna with his muzzle. "She's obviously ready, so let's get to it."

When Hugh didn't make a move, the guy let go of her ankle with one hand, and for a moment she tried to struggle against the somewhat lessened grip - at least until the guy went to his pocket, and came back with a slim pocketknife, folding the blade out with a flick of his thumb. Okay, maybe it wouldn't have been a good idea to challenge them - a knife had a way of quickly ending a fistfight, one way or another.

The guy reached down, shoving at the front of her skirt and causing the fabric to bunch up around her waist, although not enough to obscure her view of the pink, lacy strip of her panties stretched between her legs. The guy, knife in hand, moved down towards her crotch, bringing the knife blade down flat against her belly and sliding it underneath the fabric of her underwear, just above where it curved between her legs to cover her spade. Even through her fur, she could feel the cold metal of the blade as it slid along, the silver point of it emerging from the other side of the fabric a moment later. Then he pulled the blade up, the fabric stretching out from her along its length for a moment before the edge caught, neatly severing it. The crotch panel actually stayed in place for a moment, her own moisture making it cling lingeringly against her spade, but it didn't take long for it to fall away and leave it completely exposed, and her heated scent to permeate the air without restraint. Suddenly, both of the guys holding her legs were staring intently at her crotch, and while the brown-furred one's muzzle just seemed to smirk, judging by the wide-eyed expression of the Doberman-looking one, it might have been the first time he'd actually seen one before.

Hugh, for his part, actually looked a little flustered to be facing it again, even more so when the other guy put the knife back in his pocket and glanced over expectantly at him. "See? Definitely ready. We agreed that you got first dibs, for your so-called revenge and all, but I'm not waiting forever here. You wanted her, you got her, so take your turn and let the rest of us get at it."

"J-jeez, fr-"

"Hey, no names! You wanted her to see your face, but the rest of us, we only agreed to do this because hey, it'd be fun, but without anything coming down on our heads over it!"

"Yeah, I fucking know what I promised! Just... gimme a minute, okay?" Hugh glanced back down at Gianna, and while he was trying to keep a brave face, there was definitely some nervousness there. He let his pants down the rest of the way, kicking them off to reveal a nondescript pair of boxers, neither side of which seemed to be bulging out particularly much. He reached down, though, rubbing insistently at one side of them, his face screwed up with effort - apparently, he was trying to will himself to perform somehow.

"Seriously, dude?" the one with the knife - Freddie or Frankie, probably - scoffed. "The chick's in heat! How are you not ready to go? The rest of us sure are!" His statement was answered with a couple of affirmative grunts from the others. And they were probably right - while it was hard to see whether they were bulging or not from her perspective, they were all putting out more than enough musk - enough that she could feel feel herself getting even more wet, if that were actually possible, something that would surely be visible soon enough. Even now, in a situation that couldn't more imminently scream rape, her heated body was more than happy to oblige the whims of her attackers.

Hugh's, however, was not nearly as obliging - he certainly hadn't been lying before, then, about having a hard time getting it up in the aftermath. After a couple more angry looks, the boxers came down too, but what they revealed wasn't any more encouraging. Whatever she'd done to him psychologically, it had gone far deeper than she'd imagined, deep enough that even the siren scent of her heat hadn't managed to counteract it. Hugh was half-mast at best, his scrotum actually tucking his balls in tight against his crotch, more indicative of anxiety than the easy looseness of a guy getting ready to make use of them.

He looked down at himself despairingly for a moment, before looking back sharply at Gianna's pinned form, his face torn between determination and uncertainty. He wrapped his fist around his semi-erect cock and started pumping at it hard, all the while mumbling to himself. "Yeah... slut bitch... gonna get it... gonna give it to her... gonna be hard, rock hard, gonna be a man... gotta be a man..." The doberman-like one actually looked a little puzzled, while the other one continued to sneer as he eyeballed Hugh's attempt with slightly more intensity than seemed warranted. Even the one behind her, pinning her arms, was kind of squirming around, like he didn't know quite what he was supposed to be doing at that point. The minute stretched awkwardly into two, then three, Hugh looking progressively more uncertain and desperate. When he released his hand, though, actually panting from the exertion, his cock didn't look particularly more impressive, still pointing more at the floor then at her. His knot wasn't even properly swollen, looking sort of lumpy and barely there.

Hugh looked down for a moment in disappointment, then back at Gianna with a sudden flash of rage. "This is you! I don't know what you did to me, how you did it, but this is all you! This is all your fault! I never had problems, never didn't feel confident, until I had to deal with you! Oh, but I'll get it back, though. I'll definitely get it back. Because when the three of them get through with you, when I've watched them put you in your place, fuck you so hard that all you can do is moan and give in like the little bitch you are, then I'll be ready. You know I'll be ready."

"Yeah, right. It's gonna take a lot more than three of your dorky friends to make me into a bigger bitch than the one you are."

Hugh didn't respond. In fact, far from becoming more enraged in response to what she'd said, for a moment he actually looked frozen - well, except for his erection, which took the opportunity to peter out entirely. When he spoke again, though, it was with a clear sense of terror, his teeth actually chattering.

"W-w-what the f-f-fuck are you?"

The other two turned to look, somewhere behind her near the front of the van bed, the brown-furred one looking a little shocked, the other one actually shivering.

Even before the clattering sounded, though, Gianna could guess what had just been revealed to them. Although... it was odd, to say the least. She hadn't doubted that the boneheap would be somewhere around, invisibly gloating at and enjoying her predicament, but it made no sense for it to reveal itself - especially before it had had a chance to see anything done to her.

"h-ugh. thought more promising. anticipated delicious reversal. submission to domination. foiled machinations and forced submission of female in parTicular. however, bored. disappointed. get hard. penetrate spade. force knot in and take back control."

"I, I..."

"not talk. get hard. take back control. take back masCulinity. take by force."

"I, um, I..." Despite the sheer terror of the thing he had to be seeing, Hugh still had the slightest spark of defiance in him. "Hey, what do you think I'm trying to do, here? It's not my fault my stupid body isn't responding the way it's supposed to!"

"interesting words, those. thought, uttered by one on bed below, frequently enough. hmmm. wonder if lesson needed on tRue consequences of body not perforMing as intended or desired..."

"W-what, you're gonna make it so I can't get hard or something? Guess what, genius, that's already kinda where I am, isn't it? A-and what the fuck is some screwed-up bucket of bones gonna do about it? How'd you get in here, anyway? I don't know what the fuck you are, but I..." He trailed off as a bony arm swung in from the periphery of Gianna's view, clearly pointing in Hugh's direction.

"took intriguing situation, perFormed poorly, made boring. no passion. no excitement. not what was desired. so, as usual, have to create new intrigue. create new sceNario. not most original one, true. still, more than curious to see reAction of comrades, test limits of friendship and respect. yes, curious indeed. not as planned, still interesting enough. plus. even more curious to see limits of... comMiseration. enough talk, though. time for action, consequences."

This time, it was a bolt of red light that speared out from the bony hand and caught Hugh in the chest, freezing him like he was caught in the midst of an electric shock, his arms and legs spiking up and out to either side. His eyes seemed to go blank for a moment, probably leaving him mercifully insensate, but that was where the subtleness and compassion ended. All of a sudden, his cock just yanked up somehow into his body, like someone had actually reached down from his pelvis, grabbed hold of it, and pulled it forcefully back inside of him. His testicles quickly followed, leaving his scrotum weirdly deflated as they drew up within him with two sickening, fleshy pops. The empty scrotum pulled up between his legs, the flesh bulging and churning as the fur drew back against it, even as his dress shirt began to ripple and ruffle above. It took only a moment for his chest to bulge out, the buttons of his shirt straining to hold fast against the two obviously breastlike protrusions that had erupted forward, the nipples, already fully erect, pushing their contours out clearly against the fabric. Even as the rest of Hugh's body rippled and changed, hips canting and swelling and thighs filling out, he stayed in that bizarre, incongruous position, his arms and legs splayed out as though he was at the apex of a jumping jack. It certainly did give a good view, though, as things between his legs completed their rippling and properly resolved. As Hugh's arms and legs finished re-contouring, her new genitalia were clearly revealed: a large, puffy black spade, the pads of it bulging across her entire crotch from the edge of one thigh to the other, the center of it already glistening with a fine sheen of moisture.

Satisfied with its work, the hand retreated, the red beam quickly fading as Hugh stumbled back against the side of the van, shaking her head violently. "Hey, what the hell was that! Everything went blank, and..." She paused, obviously confused. "What the hell's wrong with my voice?" She cleared her throat, obviously to no avail. "It still sounds wrong, but... oh man, what am I doing? Whatever the fuck you think you are, you weird, bony fuck, I'm not gonna let even you stop me!"

Hugh reached down, like she was going to... what, try to get herself hard? Good luck with that. She tried, though, fumbling around in front of her for a moment for something that obviously wasn't there.

"What the hell? Where the fuck is my-" Hugh's voice abruptly came to a halt as she glanced down to see what was going on - only to have her view obscured by her brand-new pair of breasts. And just like that, Hugh's face went pale, even more than it had before. "What... what the fuck is going on?"

While Gianna, knowing the boneheap, wasn't exactly shocked by what it had just done, the other guys in the van seemed at least momentarily stunned. The doberman-patterned one was glancing back, ostensibly towards the boneheap, seeming more than a little nervous - an observation that was backed up by the fact Gianna could feel his hands shaking where they still held onto her ankle. The brown-furred one seemed to be looking at the boneheap more guardedly, but his eyes kept flicking away - not back towards her, Gianna noticed, but pointedly over at where the transformed Hugh was standing. Looking over... and stroking himself unobtrusively through his pants. Interesting.

Even the unseen one behind her seemed to be shifting about nervously. It was the doberman one, though, who was the first to actually do something. Gianna felt his hands release abruptly from around her ankle, and he backed away as quickly as he could, scooting on his butt until he ended up flat against the wall in the corner of the van, looking absolutely terrified. His voice, when he finally spoke, wasn't that much more than a whimper, his hands trembling as he tried to protectively cover his crotch.

"No! Please, Mr. Bone Thingy, you don't have to do me like that! We, we didn't mean it, really, not like the way you think! Frankie said that it was like totally legit, since she was gonna be in heat today and would probably want it anyway, and even though I said it didn't sound right, he said that's what women in heat wanted, that we just had to keep her from getting away the first time until she got into it, and then it'd all be totally legit. Honest, it wasn't supposed to be rape! We just wanted to have some fun, and maybe help Hugh humiliate her a little because of how she was keeping him down, but Hugh's the only one who actually wanted to r-rape her! I didn't realize it at first, and when I did, I couldn't just run away, I... I'm sorry! I screwed up and I'm sorry, but please, please let me keep my balls and stuff! I'll be good, I swear!"

It was hard to tell, as one weird clattering sound was much like any other, but Gianna could almost swear the boneheap sounded like it was sighing.

"panic irrelevant. failure to understand point. transformed not because violated ethics, moRals. transformed because ruined drama of siTuation. new one created. new drama between male friends, those currently female. two of one, three of other, many possibilities. if others transformed, no one to peNetrate, no drama, no excitement. so. no other transform needed... unless disappointed further."

"I... don't even know what that means..." the one in the corner stammered, tugging uncomfortably at the edge of his ski mask. The brown-furred one, though, seemed to get the message, at least after some fashion. He let go of her ankle and stood, grinning down with a confidence that made Gianna more than a little uncomfortable, even with that measure of additional freedom. She took the opportunity to bring her legs back together, for what good that would do - the man already had more than enough opportunity to stare at her naked vulnerability, more than enough to know her readiness, and she didn't doubt his ability to haul her legs back open if he wanted to.

While Hugh's other friends didn't seem particularly more brave than he was, this one was definitely a different story. He wasn't even bothering to look back at the boneheap any more. In fact, he didn't seem to give a crap about whether Gianna saw his face or not, doffing the ski mask and tossing it aside before casually kicking off his shoes, then doffing his pants and underwear in one single motion.

Unlike Hugh's wavering arousal, he was more than erect, his shaft crimson with impatience, knot fully swelled. If anything, he was probably even bigger than Jonah, and to her chagrin, just the sight of it in her current state opened the floodgates even further. If he did act as he seemed to be intending, at least she was fairly sure it wouldn't hurt physically, although if it did come to that, with him on top of her, she was sure that the pride left over from Giancarlo would die even more amidst yet another wave of powerless humiliation.

He looked her over, a clearly predatory grin on his face, and as he leaned down for a moment, Gianna tried to steel herself for the horrible inevitability of his presence inside her. Somewhat to her surprise, though, he straightened up, shaking his head dismissively. "Nah... those other chumps can have you. Fact of the matter is, I don't care much about you either way. Wasn't my idea to grab you, after all. No, if this is how things are gonna be, I've got someone far more interesting in mind."

He turned around, his gaze obviously fixated on Hugh, who was still mumbling incoherently as she pawed around at the base of her belly, yet to recover from the shocked disbelief from a penis gone missing. Hugh, it appeared, hadn't yet figured out just how much her new form made the current situation perilous. If she was still so dazed by the transition, she probably hadn't yet come to terms with what her new body actually entailed - or how desirable it would be to a van full of frustrated, horny guys, at least one with the immediate wherewithal to act on those impulses. In fact, Hugh still seemed so unaware of it that she hadn't tried to retrieve her pants or underwear, hadn't even try to move a hand down to cover herself. Her spade was still visible, wet and puffy and completely unobscured. Giancarlo, certainly, wouldn't have been able to pass that sight up, and Frankie appeared fixated in a similar way.

It wasn't until he'd taken a couple of steps forward, though, that Hugh seemed to catch onto his movement, and another moment after that before she reacted to the expression on his face, shrinking back as the realization seemed to finally hit her that not only was he aroused, but that she was, to her complete and utter consternation, the target of it.

"H-hey, what the hell are you thinking? There's a chick in heat right fucking there!"

"Yeah, I guess. But you see, that chick over there didn't make me wait because of her drama. Didn't make me sit around getting blue-balled. No, you're the one who had to sit there and grandstand, had to make that freaky thing show up. You're the one who got me frustrated, and now, thanks to this way-beyond-fubar situation, you're now someone who I can relieve that frustration with. Plus, you're still frustrated too, even if you don't know it - one glance between your legs is enough to let any guy know that. So, what's gonna happen between us, it sure seems like a win-win to me."

"What! Are you out of your mind? I'm not-" Hugh paused, her face falling as shock and delusion were no longer enough to keep her mind from perceiving the truth. "T-that doesn't even matter! I'm your friend! You can't want to, to do something like t-that..." Hugh didn't really seem to believe that, though, taking a step back and pressing herself up against the van's doors, sliding along them away from Frankie until she all but tripped over her other friend in the corner. She glanced down, even as she noticed him looking up, right between her legs... and it was only then, for the first time, that she darted her hands down to cover herself as she tried to navigate around him. Frankie, though, just kept moving forward, slowly but confidently, casually stroking himself in a way that he surely knew drew attention to his length.

"Um... a-are we okay with this? Is this actually happening?" For the first time, a voice sounded from behind her, not sounding particularly more confident than his doberman friend still cowering in the corner. His hands fidgeted against her wrists before pulling away to do something - judging by the sound of fabric rustling in a particular if halting motion, he was trying to decide whether or not what was happening was erotic enough to touch himself to. He was still sort of half-sitting on Gianna's arms, though, half-pinning them, but there was finally enough leeway for her to wriggle them somewhat. If he stayed distracted, maybe it would even be enough to get free - and then, she could make some attempt to impose her will on the situation, or escape it at the very least.

True enough, only the one behind her seemed to be focusing on her at all anymore. The one cowering in the corner looked a little less terrified now, a little more interested at what was playing out beside him. Frankie, now, was more than close enough, and Hugh's progress was halted when Frankie's hand slammed into the wall of the van beside him, his outstretched arm preventing Hugh from trying to slide further away along it.

He leaned down from where he towered over Hugh, sniffing at her as she attempted to shrink away from him as far as the wall would allow. "Mmm... damn, I don't know how, but you even smell as cute as you look. Heh... you know, that's the thing that actually bothered me about you, for so long. How you looked all cute and soft, kinda just right. How I'd actually get kinda turned on just looking at you. But you just had to be a guy, had to act like a man's man, had to be so damn confusing about it. Had to kindle those feelings in me that I couldn't act on, because I ain't gay, ain't gonna be with someone who can't take a knot once in a while. All those times lying in bed, feeling all conflicted, wishing that I didn't have to be, wishing that you were the woman that you halfway looked like so I could feel how I wanted and wouldn't have to be confused any more. And now, somehow, here we are, and all of a sudden there really is no more confusion. You're a woman, the way I imagined it, the way you're supposed to be, and now we can be together, just like that, the way we're supposed to. Heh... now that I think about it, kind of like what you said earlier, right?"

"You're n-nuts!" Hugh stammered. "I- I thought you were my friend!"

"Yeah, I'm your friend. Have been since we met. Maybe not for the reasons you thought, or even that I thought, but we're still friends, of course. It's just that now, we're gonna be friends with benefits."

"T-that's insane! Are you even listening to yourself? Dammit, stop looking at me like that! S-so what if I look like this? The reason we're here is because of Gianna! We're here for my fucking revenge, to put her in her place! S-so stop focusing on me and go do her instead!"

Frankie just shook his head. "Heh... maybe you're here for revenge or whatever, but the rest of us, we couldn't care less about it. The only reason we're here is because you promised to bring some chick for us to do it with. Like I said from the start, the whole point of being here was for all of us to get some. And yeah, sure, it's been a while, so I was willing to wait, take my one turn out of four. The way I see it, though, this situation's really the same, just a little improved, right? We all still get some, even you, but this way, only one of us at a time's gotta wait, and you don't even have to wait between turns at all..."

"Except one of the women you're talking about i-is me! I, I don't want to have sex, not like a woman, not with things going inside me!"

"Eh, sex is sex, right? I mean, yeah, I sure wouldn't wanna be in your shoes, but I figure it's gotta feel good either way, somehow. I mean, maybe you're not gonna get off the way you thought you were when this all started, but I figure you'll get off somehow, seeing as how that's one part of sex I've never heard canine chicks complaining about, once they get into it at least. Heck, given what we all saw before, it's probably easier for you now anyway - after all, now you don't have to worry about getting it up first." Frankie moved his other hand down to gesture in front of himself, and Gianna could certainly guess what he was pointing to. "See? That's already taken care of..."

"What, seriously?" There was still a little indignation, but Hugh's new, higher voice was trembling with panic. "You know there's no way I could possibly want that, you cruel, sick son of a... hey! What the fuck are you doing?"

The last part came out as a surprised squeak, as Frankie's hands wrapped around her waist and hauled her into the air, sliding her at least a couple of feet up along the side of the van. Hugh, in her current state, didn't manage to do much at all in reaction, certainly nothing that could be considered fighting back. She hadn't even bothered to try to bring her legs together, to kick back or make some last-ditch effort to protect herself. Instead, they just flailed apart in the air, which allowed Frankie to move his own hips in between them before she could bring them back in.

Just like that, Frankie's body obscured most of her, his bare ass between her thighs. All that was visible of Hugh was her arms trying ineffectually to break Frankie's grasp, her calves dangling to either side, and maybe the top half of her face, shocked eyes glancing out from above where her muzzle was suddenly tucked in against Frankie's shoulder.

"Ah! Let me go! Seriously, Frankie, this isn't funny anymore! Just let me down, please let me down, just don't- nngh!" The panic on her face seemed to flare up as what was visible of her thighs suddenly squirmed, her hands giving up on releasing Frankie's grasp and instead darting down towards her belly. "No! Don't touch me down there! N-not with, with that!"

"Damn, your spade feels good..." Frankie, apparently, wasn't paying much attention to Hugh's protestations. "Just the way I imagined, all warm, and wet, and so fuckin' tight. I haven't even pushed in at all, just let the tip get in there, and already you're hugging it. Oh man, I can't wait to feel you wrapped around me. I just know we're gonna fit together oh so perfectly..."

"You crazy fuckface! Get the hell off of me!" She was actually batting at him with her fists now, at his shoulders, at his sides, almost like some female cartoon caricature from a bygone age trying to fight off the caveman intent on swinging her over his shoulder. Gianna couldn't help but smirk, somehow, watching how ineffectual it was. Of course, for all his posturing, Hugh wasn't a fighter at all - even a woman would surely have known to do something more useful, like claw at his eyes, or his throat. Then again, for all of Frankie's posturing, he hardly knew what he was doing, either, not even bothering to restrain her arms and prevent even that level of struggle. By Giancarlo's standards, both of them were kind of pathetic, but at the same time, it was still worth watching; for all that Gianna's situation was different now, seeing a woman on the verge of being taken, her struggles soon to be for naught, was certainly getting her going in a certain way. No matter that her own situation at the moment was similar enough, but none of the others seemed at all capable of taking her now that she was otherwise unoccupied. The only one who seemed an actual threat was Frankie, and there was no question that he wouldn't even bother thinking about her, not with someone he seemed far more interested with literally at hand.

Even now, he was tilting his head over to lick at one of Hugh's ears, and when he spoke again, his tone was filled with aroused, masculine confidence.

"You know that's not gonna happen. Not when we're so close. After all, you know the rule, don't you? Heck, it was one you made up when we were on the prowl one night, when you were trying to show off how tough you were, how much women were gonna be your bitches. You remember how it goes... how no doesn't count once your tip touches her spade, and once it does, it doesn't pull away until you're both good and satisfied. Heh... or until I am, at least that's the way I usually say it. Considering it's you, though, I'm gonna make extra sure that you enjoy it. Thing is, while I got no idea how this actually works, I kinda want you to stay this way, so I'm gonna show you exactly how good a woman can be made to feel..."

"W-what? No! I don't want to feel that way! Dammit, I'm supposed to be a guy, this isn't supposed to- aaaggnnnnnngghhhhhuuuhhhhhhh!"

As Hugh had begun her sentence, Frankie's hips had begun to pull back, not too much, but just enough to get them properly cocked, to get his weight behind them. As soon as he did, he'd slammed them forward, hard enough to make Hugh's whole body buck in response, her legs and arms flapping to either side, her eyes going beyond wide as she cried out. Hugh was suddenly completely mad with panic, his arms seeming to scrabble like she was trying to push herself away from him, although her legs just hung there for the most part, trembling slightly. She screamed out, her voice shrill, desperate, and to Gianna's ears, perfectly delicious.

"Aaaahhh! I can feel it inside me! No, no, oh fuck no, it's so wrong, it feels so fucking wrong! It's not supposed to be in there, nothing is! I'm supposed to be a guy, I- ngaah! No, don't move, don't push it in more! Take it out take it out take it out!" For a moment, Frankie's hips rolled back, and for an even briefer one a flicker of hope actually flashed across Hugh's face. "Oh thank god you're actually taking it out, I thought you ngghhh-" Which was about the point where Frankie, unsurprisingly, slammed his hips back home, causing Hugh to grimace from the impact - although, as far as Gianna could tell, not from pain.

"N-no, please! Aaahh! Stop! Nnngh... please, just don't, don't do this... don't make me... nngh! Don't make me feel, don't make me feel this, make me feel like this..." Frankie, of course, ignored Hugh's plea entirely, silencing her with another hard, merciless, thrust, even as a certain, unambiguous sense of arousal began to tinge the look of panic plastered across her face.

Hugh's arms kept scrabbling at him, though, even as he settled into a steady rhythm, if not a gentle one: he'd pull his hips back, cock them fully, and then slam back into her as hard as he could. He was surely hilting himself inside as far as her petite spade would let him, and after every thrust he seemed to just push his whole body in against her for a few seconds, long enough to make sure that she absolutely felt every inch of him that he could cram inside her, before pulling out and doing it all over again. Every time he did, it cut off Hugh's shrill protestations for a moment, turning her words into something gasping and incoherent. Each thrust seemed harder and more pronounced, hard enough that Gianna could feel the whole van rocking with each impact, the creaking of the suspension adding another shrieking counterpoint to his rhythm.

Gianna just watched, transfixed by the sight, and the one in the corner seemed just as frozen by it - too afraid to masturbate, but too enthralled to look away. Even the other one, she realized, was visible in the corner of her vision, gawping at the way Hugh's body was rocking with each thrust, pawing at the sizable bulge in his pants. Had she really been so obsessed with watching it that she hadn't even noticed her arms being freed? Sure enough, she brought them back down in front of her, rubbing at her wrists as she pulled herself into a sitting position.

It was at about that point that Frankie's rhythm changed, moving less forcefully but far more quickly, humping Hugh roughly up against the side of the van in the frantic, staccato pattern more typical of a canine. Just as quickly, Hugh's expression changed as well - a few strokes into the rhythm, her eyes went even wider than they had before, and her muzzle cracked open to let out, not a gasp or a strangled, tortured sound like before, but a deep, throaty, excruciatingly feminine moan. She stopped flailing at him, her fingers instead grasping tightly at the fabric of the T-shirt around his shoulders, her eyes screwed up in the familiar look of aroused enthrallment that Giancarlo had seen of the faces of scores of women once he'd turned their bodies against them. There like that against the wall, the very view of her dominated by the man fucking her into a steady, compliant response to his thrusts, forced into the most feminine role and expression of it possible... to Gianna, or at least to the remnants of Giancarlo's perceptions that still resided within her, she couldn't think of anything more beautiful.

She watched it for a few moments more, Hugh rocking to that perfect, compelling rhythm, before the feeling of the copious juices, cooling on her thighs now that they were again flowing steadily downward, snapped her out of her compulsion and back to the situation at hand. Yes, the sights and sounds of Hugh receiving his ultimate comeuppance were alluring, and there was certainly a part of her, a very heated part, that would have been more than happy to curl up against the mattress, tuck a hand between her legs to pet herself while it played out to its conclusion, and then wait to receive some of that directed male attention and relief.

Then again, though, the more sensible part of her still didn't want to undergo the surely traumatic experience of being raped by Hugh's erstwhile friends, and she certainly didn't relish the notion of Hugh being on hand, in any form, to witness that level of humiliation. And from that sensible point of view, with the most dangerous of the trio occupied and the other two sufficiently transfixed or confused enough not to be paying her any heed, there really couldn't have been a more perfect time to escape.

Gianna ripped the tattered remains of the panties off of her, making sure that they wouldn't end up falling, tangling, or otherwise hindering her movement, and smoothed her skirt back into place to retain some modesty once she was outside. It was a mess, and her blouse certainly was as well - there'd certainly be some signs of what she'd been through, but then again, at the moment she didn't really care how she looked.

She moved slowly, gradually, crawling across the mattress and flinching when it squeaked under her weight, but the sound was mostly drowned out by the squealing suspension and Hugh's regular moans. Her purse had spilled in the corner, its contents intermingled with those of the ruined boxes, but most of the stuff in there could be easily replaced. Her too-girly wallet was visible enough in the mess, though, her keys somehow tangled up in it, so she shoved the tangled, jingling mess back into her purse, made sure the noise hadn't attracted any undue attention, made sure everything was securely slung over her shoulder, and moved to pull gently on the van's interior release.

The door swung open quietly enough, but as soon as it did, it brought with it the relatively obvious outside sunlight to much more brightly illuminate the van's interior. She heard someone's voice sound behind her, startled and shrill, and knew there wasn't any time to waste. She jumped down, her hand already finding purchase on the door's edge, and she was already swinging it shut as she took her first step forward.

It slammed behind her as she moved away as briskly as she could - not flat-out running, of course, as with a heat-swollen spade between her legs doing so would probably ended up with her crouched on wobbly knees atop a growing puddle on the ground. Still, once the door slammed, she didn't hear it open again, and when she glanced back over her shoulder after managing to get a fair distance away, she could see that it had remained closed, with no one following. The van itself, though, was still rocking visibly, and as she walked away she continued to hear the steady creaking of the suspension.

Midway back to her own car, though, another sound echoed loud enough to be more than clear enough in her canine ears. It was another loud, feminine moan, only higher and and far more forceful, climbing in pitch and then freezing in a weird vibrato for several seconds before fading away in a series of barking exclamations. She knew, of course, what it signified: like it or not, Hugh had just experienced what it felt like to have a cock relentlessly thrust an unwanted, alien female orgasm through his body.

It was, in a weird sort of way, something of a triumph, enough that it put a grin on her face. She knew it shouldn't have, knew that she should have felt some sympathy for someone who'd been forced into nearly her exact same situation, but... it was Hugh, and it was his own stupid scheme that had put him in the place where he'd planned for her to be. Fuck him, then. Well, fuck her - but then again, that was already happening.

Driving back, though, her heat flaring and her resolve fading, she wondered again about that compassion. Not that she had any qualms about rape, of course. At the same time, though, even as she drove, she could only imagine what had to be happening to Hugh, trapped in that van with three guys who surely wouldn't just let her go once Frankie was done with her. A good, proper go of it, intimate, one on one, that was one thing, a thing that Giancarlo had lusted for unquestionably. But a woman just laid out on a mattress and fucked by a bunch of guys, laid out like a fucking animal, for hours and hours and hours...

Maybe, she thought, she could just call the police, leave some anonymous message, have someone head over and at least break it up or something. And yet... the more vengeful part of her, of course, thought Hugh should pay for all that collective arrogance with every single thrust his friends could provide. And for that Giancarlo part of her, just knowing that it might still be going on, knowing that she could fantasize about the things that they might be doing to her...

Ultimately, though, the thing that decided it was the fact that she hadn't managed to grab her cellphone in the escape - it wouldn't be until some time after she got home that she realized that, in fact, she had, as she'd for some reason zipped it up in the purse's side pocket instead of just dumping it in like she usually did. Well, that and the fact it was rapidly taking more than all of her concentration to keep her feelings, and her heat-addled mind, under control enough to drive safely the rest of the way.

Somehow, though, she managed to hold it together. In fact, it wasn't until she got home, parked the car, and bolted the door behind her, wasn't until she felt halfway safe, that her legs started to tremble. She sank down into a chair by the kitchen table, breathing heavily as her nerves, and everything else, finally caught up with her.

She wouldn't thank the boneheap, not exactly, for its intervention, but at the same time, she was more than well aware of just how close she had been to to an even more complete humiliation. What had happened with Jonah... it had been bad, no question, but she hadn't felt quite as trapped, and it had still been in a somehow familiar bed, with the body, at least, of someone she'd known. She also hadn't been trapped quite that completely, not so horribly pinned and spread out like that, showcasing her vulnerability. Strangely, in the van, she hadn't felt quite as humiliated, but that was because she'd been focused so much on vexing Hugh, and because the others had been mostly clueless enough not to really press the issue. If they had, though, if they'd taken her right there on that dingy mattress, one after the other, taking away every single avenue of action and just... using her, it would have been beyond horrible. Could she have taken it? Maybe. Probably, if the gynecologist had been right about how her insides were set up. Mentally, though...

And yet, she knew, it wasn't even over yet. Whatever else she was feeling, one thing was clear enough: within minutes, certainly not hours, those feelings would all be overtaken by the predominant sensation of heat building inside her. It was a cruel paradox, to be sure - by avoiding what was sure to be a an awful, if potentially inept, gang-rape, she knew she'd left herself more frustrated than if she'd actually been forced to submit to it. As it was, she'd been trapped in a tiny space with a bunch of guys, subjected to their presence and their musk, and even when she should be feeling relief, instead her entire torso was screaming with frustration, and a relative torrent was still flowing from her spade. With her ruined panties gone, there was nothing to staunch it, and she could feel it soaking into her rumpled skirt and pooling on the surface of the chair beneath her.

Grimacing, she got up and walked into the bedroom, each step rubbing her thighs against her spade, which seemed to grow more sensitive with every brush. By the time she actually got there, her hips were squirming uncomfortably after every step, making her gait more of a wobble, as the fire of heat ached raw in her belly. She tried to pull on another pair of her heat panties, but even the slightest touch of the fabric against her spade set her squirming with discomfort. She collapsed onto the bed, yowling in frustration, hating heat with a fiery intensity even as her fingers stabbed unconsciously between her legs, their desperate and immediate efforts providing next to nothing in terms of relief. Grrrah! How was it that, having narrowly avoided getting raped, all she wanted to do was find some guy to pound his knot into her?

She knew, for sure, that no matter May's enthusiasm, her toy would do just about nothing at all, as worked up as she was. Jonah, of course, was off at his meeting, or out drinking with his colleagues after, and Hugh... well, Hugh, or whatever her female name would be, was probably still pinned on that mattress beneath one of her erstwhile friends. Even if the boneheap changed him back afterwards, there wasn't a chance in the world that he'd be of any help - or that she'd accept it.

What else could she do, though? If she just lay there and tried to grind through it, she was sure enough that she'd actually go insane - and if she got desperate enough to do something crazy, like wandering outside naked and sex-crazed, who knew what would happen. And going to some club, getting some stranger to help her... after what had happened, a situation that conjured up in any way those feelings of powerlessness, of vulnerability, the notion of a guy holding and invading her like that... no, there was no way that could happen. Not after the van. And yet, there didn't seem to be any other options, really.

She glared around the room, growling - until her eyes settled on the underwear drawer, and she remembered something - not a wonderful option, but a potential one. She pulled herself up, stalked over to pull the drawer open, and there they were: folded and tucked neatly into a corner, perfectly feminine and pink, decorated with purple hearts and stars, fairies whose wands sparkled glitter along the edges of the bra, and an actual embroidered and detailed unicorn plastered proudly across the posterior of the panties.

Gianna looked down at them without much enthusiasm. She knew what the boneheap had said: that if she wore them, she'd be given a day's respite from her heat. She also knew that they came with a catch, one that was probably even more dangerous, more insidious than what the other ones were inflicted with. If she wore them, in some subtle way, she'd end up enjoying being a woman just a bit more, become just a little more comfortable with it - and, in turn, some part of that memory, that persona of Giancarlo inside of her would begin to slip away.

And yet, the thought of continuing to feel the way that she did, and the notion of being forced to submit as a woman after winning out so narrowly against that powerlessness... what other choice did she have?

Grudgingly, Gianna settled the bra over sensitive nipples, which tingled for a moment before becoming decidedly less sensitive; after wiping it clean, her spade did the same for a moment after she pulled the panties into place against it, the ache between her legs rapidly fading into the background. At least, for that part of it, the boneheap had kept its word; more troublingly, though, the other part of the bargain would surely come just as true.

Still, for the moment, she was more than happy to ignore that. Hard to complain about a quiet, heat-free night, a decent dinner of delivery Chinese in its vaguely pagoda-like paper boxes, the kind that was spicy and savory and filled with generous hunks of meat. That, plus a cold beer and a mindless action movie on television, seemed sufficient for the moment to blot out the notion of what had happened earlier. Not that she particularly minded the boneheap's apparently serendipitous actions that led to her salvation, or Hugh being literally screwed by his own stupid plot, but the part where she was pinned onto a mattress, had her underwear cut off, and was just about raped while being completely, utterly helpless to stop it... yeah, that part she would be more than happy to forget. Which was why, of course, the moment she crawled into bed and closed her eyes, she got to go right back there, and feel that powerlessness unfold, with wavering dreamlike uncertainty, from a hundred slightly different perspectives during what hours of fitful sleep she managed. At the very least, when she awoke feeling not exactly rested, everything was still cool and dry - her heat, indeed, was still at bay, and thankfully the screwy female bit that now seemed to be part of her unconscious hadn't managed to get turned on by it, like she had when it'd actually happened. Fucking heat... which, for the moment at least, she was glad to be done with.

When Gianna, fueled by far more coffee than normal, managed to make her way into work mostly on time, she wondered whether Hugh would show up at all - and if he did, just what condition, or for that matter form, he'd be in. The kiosk was still shuttered, so it was possible he might be lurking inside, licking his wounds, and Gianna wasn't particularly eager to confront him. Whatever it was that had happened to him, it was hard to feel all that sorry about it - after all, he was the one who'd actively recruited his own friends to, heat or not, basically gang-rape her in the back of a fucking van, so there was no question he'd had it coming to him. Of course, if Gianna really went down that particular route, the argument could have been made that after what she'd done as Giancarlo, she'd deserved to be gang-raped right there alongside Hugh, and probably several more dozen times after that. Soooo... better not to go too far down that particular line of reasoning.

Still, Gianna knew she couldn't ignore Hugh completely. It was Amanda, though, who was the one who came up to her a few minutes later, as she was setting up her workstation for the day ahead.

"Hey, Gianna, you have a minute?"

"Um, sure. What can I help you with?"

"Oh, it's probably nothing, but... Heather just doesn't seem quite herself today, and I can't seem to get her to tell me what's got her so worked up."

"Heather?"

Amanda looked at her a little strangely. "You know, Heather! I mean, even though we work together, I think you're actually closer to her than I am. Unless there's some other Heather you thought I was talking about..."

Ah, so that was it. Hugh, just like Giancarlo, had apparently gotten the full boneheap treatment - new name, new identity, relationships automatically rearranged with everyone who wasn't in the know to make it seem like they'd always been that way.

In a certain way, Giancarlo was... not happy about it, exactly, but it did seem sort of fitting that Hugh would finally get to be on the receiving end of the chauvinistic treatment he'd liked to dish out. At the same time, though... well, Gianna knew more than well enough how fucked-up trying to live like that was, and in comparison, she'd gotten off easy. She'd been able to take control, keep herself safe, and have an evening to at least come partially to terms with it before Jonah had cornered her in the storeroom. "Heather," though, had already been messed up and apparently traumatized, and she hadn't even had a few minutes to acclimate before her brown-furred friend had pushed her up against the wall of the van and all but fucked her senseless, or at least that's where it had seemed to be heading when Gianna had made her escape. And after that, with all of the other guys joining in... yeah, it actually was amazing that Hugh had made it into work at all.

Gianna still didn't feel exactly sorry, but there was no question that of all the other people around, there was certainly no one better qualified to talk to Hugh - er, Heather - about what she was going through. And considering that Gianna would still have to work with her, even after everything that happened... well, sorting things out now would probably save her from a whole heap of trouble in the future. Hugh, when left to fester, had much to her surprise managed to cook up a rather seriously coordinated revenge, as ultimately inept as it had been - she didn't really want to think of what an even more screwed-up Heather might be capable of.

There was no question now, though, that as far as her own plotting was concerned, she'd played Hugh completely wrong. Maybe she'd been too direct, or too arrogant, too sure in her control over his perceived weaknesses. True, she'd been flying somewhat blind - Giancarlo hadn't had much need to overly manipulate other men, so there had certainly been less experience for her to draw on.

Well, that and the fact Giancarlo's manipulations had all been designed as quick gambits in the service of an immediate goal, ones that could be dispensed with once that goal was within reach. Gaining control over someone more subtly, and then carrying it out over potentially weeks or months, was something she'd never really attempted before. Flying blind like that, there were sure to be some misjudgments and setbacks, so she couldn't really beat herself up too much over it. After all, it wasn't like Hugh's attempt had caused her all that much grief - no, Hugh had taken most of that on herself.

There were still a whole lot of open questions about that encounter, to be sure - it certainly wasn't every day that the boneheap intervened in a way that didn't encourage her imminent rape. True, the boneheap's rationale certainly fit with what she knew of its personality. She'd fallen victim to one of its similar fits of disappointment - it wasn't until Giancarlo's gender-swapped victim had refused to rape Gianna in revenge, after all, that the boneheap had hatched the plan to change her entire life and implant its insidious curse. So, it was certainly plausible, but the boneheap's ultimate motives still seemed more than opaque. Perhaps it had intervened to create its own entertainment - or perhaps it had intervened once it knew her heat was riled up, engineered a situation where she would naturally attempt to escape and ultimately succeed, leaving her with no options to satiate her heat other than the one that would tie her even closer to her inflicted femininity.

And that, she realized, was the true impetus behind any potential attempt to reconcile things with Hugh. As of that moment, she was the only one, save from his unknown, anonymous friends, that had any awareness of the boneheap and its capabilities. Before, she only had her own observations and interactions with it, but if it was now inflicting things on Hugh as well, perhaps its interactions would be subtly different with her - perhaps it might even let another useful revelation slip that Gianna wouldn't otherwise hear. From a tactical perspective, then, it seemed reasonably important to, if not to precisely get back into Hugh's good graces, at least get to a point where she'd be open enough to reveal what Gianna needed to know. Plus, having someone to talk to honestly, who wouldn't laugh off her secret as insane... well, that might not be all bad, even if it was with Hugh. Then again, it was always possible that Hugh would be at least somewhat more bearable as a woman...

Determined enough in her resolve, Gianna went over to the kiosk's side door - this time, interestingly enough, it was unlocked and swung open easily.

The kiosk itself wasn't that big, of course, so Hugh was easy enough to spot, sitting on a swivel chair and leaning her elbows on the desk towards the back of it, her head in her hands. She looked, almost unbelievably, even more petite than Hugh's original, underwhelming stature, perhaps light enough that Gianna's female form might have been able to lift her without exerting extraordinary effort. She was wearing a blouse that from the back at least seemed similar in design to Gianna's, albeit in a shade of subtle pink that that the cocky, faux-masculine previous version of Hugh wouldn't have been caught dead in. It was paired with navy-blue dress slacks cut and tailored in the feminine fashion, but still not exactly form-fitting - Hugh, at least, apparently hadn't been saddled with the same ridiculous clothing preferences that Gianna had.

She looked up as Gianna approached, and as soon as she recognized who it was, Hugh's, or rather Heather's, face flashed momentarily with anger.

"What, are you here to gloat or something? Here to bask in this, this absurdity?"

Gianna pulled up one of the nearby chairs and sat down next to Heather, trying her best to keep her expression as neutral as possible.

"No, I'm not here to gloat. Why would I? Hell, what I ought to be feeling is angry, if you think about it - hasn't even been a day, after all, since you arranged an attempt to get me gang-raped in the back of a van. If I was one of those assholes who spent their time moaning about karma and other such nonsense, I'd probably be going on about how you got exactly what you deserved. But the fact of it is... I don't feel that way. What happened to you sucks, and believe me, I understand that more than you know..."

Heather looked at her incredulously. "Know? How could you know?"

"Because I'm more than familiar with the particular sack of bones that popped up back there. Let me put it this way - less that a week ago, my name was Giancarlo, I was one of the mechanics working in the service bay, and I was absolutely one hundred percent a guy, a far sight from my current status as a ditz in a short skirt who goes into heat every damn week. Between then and now, I've been raped a whole bunch of times, and compelled by this crazy body into having sex I didn't really want several times more. So, yeah, I know what it fucking feels like."

That certainly got her attention, although she still looked halfway skeptical. "But that... that doesn't make any sense. I've known you for months and months, ever since I started working here, and you've always looked like you do now..."

"Right - that's your perception. And yet... I'm betting that when you came in today, Amanda reacted like you've always been a woman, like you've had some totally different relationship that's been going on for as long as she can remember. That your female face and name are on your ID, your car registration, everywhere that matters, that when you began to realize how messed up that was and went back to look at pictures from your childhood, they're all of that female version of you. That even your own parents are wholeheartedly convinced that you've always been their little girl. That's one of the things the boneheap can do, apparently - change every little thing so that the whole damn world never knew the male version of yourself even existed. When all that happened to me, it did that exact same thing to you, changed your perception so that you thought I'd always been a woman. Now that you've been through it, though... I'm sure you can recognize what happened."

It was definitely beginning to sink in, now. "So you, you've seen it, you've seen what it does... damn. If that's true, if you've been going through all of this... I guess it makes what I did that much worse, huh?"

"Honestly? It'd probably have been far worse if you'd arranged to have Amanda raped or something. I don't know exactly what that bony bastard's deal is, but for me, it seems like it just wants me to get raped for some reason, so like I said, I've already endured plenty from it. If you had succeeded, well... it would have sucked, but I would have gotten over it eventually, most likely. I mean, I was a guy up until last week. I'm not some girl who's trained from birth to be a crying, miserably wreck if a guy has their way with them. Maybe that sounds blunt, or heartless, but... at this point, it's water under the bridge. You made a move, and you ended up paying for it. You screwed me, I screwed you, you tried to screw me back even worse, the boneheap screwed us both, and now here we are, in the same fucking boat. So the way I figure it, we're basically even at this point, and since we've both got to deal with this now, maybe we should just start over. Fair enough?"

Heather hesitated for a moment, still looking at her guardedly, before the mask finally fell. "Yeah... shit, I guess we kinda have to, now. Partners in the most messed-up thing in the entire fucking world..."

She placed her hands in her lap, glancing down dejectedly at them for a moment, and when she looked back up, there was the beginning of a tear welling up in the corner of her eye.

"And yet... messed up doesn't even begin to describe it, does it? I don't even know where to begin. It's just... alien, like all the context of your life is just gone, bled out, and things are suddenly happening for reasons you can't even understand, everyone reacting in ways you couldn't even have imagined. I mean... I was a guy. Except for some kind of crazy, extreme situation that I couldn't even see myself in, rape's just not something you think about. Not with you, or other guys, or even really with women, and when you do think about it, it's just some random thing that happens to chicks, something that they've gotta deal with, not even relevant to you. All you know is the little bits you see in movies, and it's just some hurtful, miserable thing, but still something you can't even... can't even conceptualize what it would feel like. And then suddenly you're a woman, there are these alien parts of your body you don't even know what to do with, and before you can even think about it, it's happening to you - you're there, a guy is on you, in you, and it's just..."

She paused, letting out a gentle sob as she pawed away the tear before it had a chance to fall. "You know what the craziest part of it was? After you left, when it was just me alone with them, they all took a turn, at least once - but only the first one was really rape. The only time I struggled, put up really any kind of fight at all, was when Frankie had me pinned up against that wall. I didn't even know, until I felt it, but when you're a woman there's this part inside, this little spot, and it's like all the sensation you'd feel along your entire cock all rolled up into that one point. I read about it online, after, and It's deep in there somewhere, supposed to be kind of protected so that a woman feels something, but not too much, unless things are really stretched out. Except that I'm a corgi, and so my thing's probably corgi-sized too, but the other guys, they... they're not. When he put it in the first time, it was so big, so much, I couldn't stand it, but when he started moving... that part was right there against him, and every time he moved, he just ground directly against it, so hard that it almost hurt, so much that I couldn't not feel it. And I was just there, stretched around him, and I couldn't move it away, couldn't make it stop, all I could do was just sit there and feel him against me, harder and harder, more and more. The more I felt it the more I hated it, but no matter what I wanted, it just kept feeling better, tighter, hotter, and then there was this surreal moment when I just knew. Knew that I was being raped, violated, knew how absurd it was to somehow, impossibly, be enjoying it. And knew, most of all, that he wasn't going to stop, the sensation of him grinding against me wasn't going to stop, and that within a few moments, no matter what I wanted, I was going to cum, cum from being raped, and that it was completely inevitable. And in that moment, in that horrible moment when I realized I was powerless, my body just... let go, and I couldn't feel bad about it any more, there wasn't any good or bad at all, just that thrusting, and when I came, when I felt it flowing through every part of me, it was just... over.

"When it was done, and I fell down onto the mattress, and Matty came over and climbed on top of me, I... I let it happen, without lifting a finger, without even trying to tell him otherwise. It felt good right from the start, and midway through, that's when it began to feel... right, just horribly right, like that was the way sex was supposed to feel. And it felt good, but when it was over, it was like... like I'd died inside, somehow. Like with that, Hugh was just fucking dead, and I was this... thing that had replaced him. Like I was really, truly, in someone else's body, like it wasn't quite me that everything was happening to. And then it's all just a blur, a climax-studded blur, and... I got home, just crawled into bed, hoped this entire thing was just some elaborate, fucked-up dream. But when I woke up this morning, the first thing I saw were my boobs sitting there right in front of my face, and the second thing I saw was that creepy sack of bones just sort of hunched over in the corner of the room, and I knew that it wasn't. And then it talked, showed me my ID, told me this is who I was going to be from now on. And then I just... cried for a little, and went into work, and now I'm just numb, still trying to believe that it's real, that it really happened, and everyone I see, everyone I talk to, just cements it a little more..."

She smiled at that, for some reason, although her expression definitely had a strange, tense edge to it.

"You know what? Now that I think about it, there's something even weirder about it, something so damn ironic I just want to scream, but it's staring me in the face so hard I can't even deny it. In some weird, fucked up way, now that this has happened, now that I'm like this, all of a sudden I have just about everything I dreamed of. Guys don't think I'm a fucking joke now - instead, they smile at me, want to talk to me, don't say snide remarks when they think I'm out of earshot. Women think I'm actually a friend, somehow, instead of just a pest for them to dismiss. Before, when I was short and kinda cute-looking, it brought nothing but derision, but now that I'm a woman, all of a sudden it's something to be praised, something that only makes me more attractive. Everyone actually, genuinely seems to like me now, now that I can't actually take advantage of any of it. All of a sudden I have access to the women I was attracted to, but in the wrong kind of way, and in a way I couldn't take advantage of in any case, not with this weird fucking spade between my legs. And now there's no problem getting guys to see me favorably, but it comes along with the kind of comments and attention that I'm supposed to be the one dishing out. Hell, now I probably have no problem at all, you know, getting some from any number of interesting parties, except that now I have to be on the receiving end, out of control, feeling so right and so phenomenally wrong at the same fucking time, and I just don't know what I'm supposed to do. It's so perversely perfect, and yet, every time I think of what I am now, I know I'd give just about anything to go back to the way things were before, miserable as they were..."

Gianna just sat there for a moment, letting Heather paw at her eyes a bit more as she tried to process it all. Gianna hadn't quite known what to expect, but at the same time, she hadn't expected the floodgates to just burst open like that. Obviously, Heather was still rapidly trying to come to terms with what had happened, and combined with hormones she wasn't yet used to and a sympathetic ear, that had been enough. It did seem unwise, though, to point out that Heather's outburst really was the most stereotypically feminine way to respond to the situation. Still, she had to find something to say that was at least halfway reassuring.

"Well... it's a trip to be sure, and it makes sense that it feels wrong - I mean, if you're a guy most of your life, and then this stuff just happens, of course it's all gonna feel messed up. But that doesn't mean everything's completely awful - you've basically admitted that much. And who says it had to be permanent?"

"Huh? What do you mean?" Heather glanced up, the fur on her cheeks wet, but a glimmer of hope in her eyes.

"Well, think about it. The boneheap obviously has some kind of crazy power, the kind of power that can change someone, change their entire life, from male to female. Stands to reason that it can do the opposite, right? Yeah, you've gotta jump through its miserable, rapey hoops, but there has to be some light at the end of the tunnel. That you can change back, that it isn't some permanent thing. So, what's it got you doing? What stupid game is it having you play to get your manhood back?"

"Game? What game?" Heather seemed confused.

"You know, the game... wait, you're telling me it didn't offer you one? Didn't make some stupid pact, set up crazy points or challenges or things like that?"

"No, it just... sat there in the corner for a while, and when I finally confronted it, it said... it said that it liked me that way, and not only that, it said that it was surprised, that I just seemed right like this somehow. It said that now that I was changed, if it went back on its decision, it would just lead to trouble. And then it said that would't even be a problem, because before long I wouldn't even mind the change - that every time I have sex it's going to feel a little more right, that I'm going to feel a little more used to this body, that every time it's going to feel more like what I want to be. That it'll just get easier and easier, and pretty soon I won't want to be anything else, won't want to be a guy, won't want to be dominant. And then I'll be just right, just the way it wants me to be, and then it'll leave me alone completely. Except... I don't want that to happen. I want to be a guy again. I mean... don't I? I have to, right?"

"I... yeah? That... would make sense..."

"The thing is, though... I think it's already happening. I thought I wanted to be dominant, but... after what happened, I don't even know what to think. I mean, I've never been with anyone before, not before you, and that just felt... weird, scary, somehow actually more scary than what I just went through. In the van, though, I don't even know why exactly, maybe because the others were a little closer than Frankie was, but... being with them, feeling them on top of me, feeling their fur in so close, their weight pressing down on me, feeling them hold me tight and stretch me even tighter... it felt so damn good to submit to that, to feel something so close and so passionate, and to know that it was impossible for me to screw it up because all I had to do was lie there and let it happen. And when it finally stopped, when one of them was just there, deep inside and not going anywhere, when I could just feel him pressing in and knowing he was going to stay right there, that there was nothing at all that could pry him away, nothing at all that could stop what he was about to do... I don't know why, but it turned me on in the strangest way, in a way I never felt as a guy, a way guys aren't supposed to feel. And each time one of them erupted inside me, it felt so bizarre, but as soon as it started happening all I wanted to do was relax and feel myself take it in, feel them enjoying me, accepting me, claiming me..."

All of a sudden, her expression fell, replaced with a look of renewed panic. "Oh no, I didn't even think of that! I felt them cum inside me, all of them, one after another. I just turned into a woman, I'm probably not even on any birth control yet! What if, what if they knocked me up? I can't, I can't deal with that, not with being pregnant, not with having something growing inside me! I don't even know how to handle all the crazy stuff that's already happening, and if I have to deal with that too, I'm just gonna-"

"Hey, hey, calm down!" Gianna reached out and put her hand on Heather's shoulder. She didn't flinch back, at least, although the gesture didn't seem to be doing much to reassure her.

"Remember, we're both canines. You know about heat, right?"

"Yeah, it makes women kinda crazy, but..."

"But that heat also means fertility - that it's the only time when a canine women actually carries any risk of getting pregnant, which is why women go all nuts about making sure their birth control is current before it happens. You're not in heat, though - if you were, it would be obvious enough, wouldn't it? Which means that you're not going to get pregnant from what happened. And as for the boneheap, well... it likes to play mindgames. Likes to toy with people to see how they'll react. Hell, it's fucked with me any number of times. So keep in mind that maybe it's just saying what it wants you to hear, wants you to think. That's it's telling you that to see if you'll despair, to see if you'll succumb to its wishes. There's no reason, after all, for it to let me try to get my manhood back, and not to let you. So if you ask me, I'd say don't let it get in your head. Don't believe that you're doomed to this irrevocably. Chances are, if you keep yourself together and call its bluff, it'll probably do an about-face and offer you a way to get your male form back. Or, you know, if you really do like this so much, then you can just do whatever you want with your new form, and who cares what it thinks? There's no reason to just give it what it wants, though. Not unless you're getting something in return."

"I, I guess..." Heather didn't seem hopeful, exactly, but at least the panic seemed to be subsiding. "It's just that before... things weren't perfect, but at least they made sense. I knew how I was supposed to act, what I was supposed to do. Even when it didn't work out the way it was supposed to, like when I was with you, there was something to fall back on. Sure, what you did shook all that, and that's why my stupid plan happened, to put the world back to a way that I understood it, where I could at least play at being confident and dominant. But now... I don't even know, don't even understand how this stupid situation can feel so really, really, wrong, but somehow just as right at the same time. I'm not sure I even know how I feel any more. Part of me wants to hide, part of me wants to enjoy people being attracted to me, part of me is terrified of what's gonna happen to me, what guys are gonna do to me, and another part of me is actively looking forward to having it happen again. I mean... what the fuck do I do?"

"Well, ultimately, you've gotta figure it out on your own. For me, I hate this, and I just want to be a guy again, so I try to fight it as much as I can until I can get that back. Even then, it's still fucking confusing, and heat multiplies that by a thousand. If you want to fight it, then fight it - the boneheap doesn't seem to be fucking with you as much, at least not yet, so you'll probably have an easier time taking that path. If you want to embrace it, Amanda can probably help you a lot more with that, especially since she seems to actually like the female version of you. Whatever you decide, though, if you want to talk... I'm not great at sympathy, but since we're the only ones who can talk to each other about this without looking like lunatics... I'll try. Not because I like you or anything, which I don't, but because the only thing that sucks more than going through this is only having that monstrous sack of femurs to talk to about it. All right?"

"Yeah, all right. Dunno why, but... it's already a load off my mind just to talk about it, just to find a little perspective... still, it's so fucked up, though. I mean, say what you want about it, but what kind of a woman actually gets off from being raped?"

"A canine one. Trust me on that." After all, Gianna knew better than most just how true that was - now, depressingly, from both sides of such an encounter. There was a part of her that wanted to just leave it at that, and let Heather suffer through the rest of the emotions surrounding it - but on the other hand, having her reasonably functional was a lot better than having to deal with anything more in the way of emotional outbursts. "Think of it this way. Let's say the person you absolutely hated most in the world kidnapped you, tied your male form to a chair, and started jacking it off nonstop. This is the person who turns you off the most, the person you'd never let arouse you, the person you'd never have sex with. And yet, after a few minutes of them doing that, it's all but guaranteed that you'd still cum anyway. It's the exact same with this. Someone stimulated your body in a particular way until it provoked an unavoidable biological response. You can attach to that whatever perspective or emotion that you want, but it didn't happen because you wanted it, it happened because you were made to feel something, and surprise, that's in fact exactly what you felt. You want to feel bad about that, it's up to you. But when some guy gets you again, and trust me, that is going to happen, you're going to have to deal with those sensations and responses being triggered in you whether you like it or not, so you'd better come up with some mental plan for dealing with it. Enjoy it, resist it, whatever. But think of it this way: if you initiated it, the repercussions are on you. If it's something that a guy did to you, all it is is something that happened, and you deal with it and move on." All right, maybe it wasn't quite as easy as all that, but it was a better plan than the alternative. "All right? We've both gotta deal with this now, we both have to find ways to keep it together and make it through, and right now, we've both got a job to do. So, as crazy as it sounds, you might as well take the man-code you purported to live by before to heart: suck it up, get things done, and deal with the fallout on your own time. Good enough?"

"Y-yeah. Just gotta get through it. Guess it doesn't matter what's between my legs if I'm sitting in here crunching numbers, anyway..."

"Right. If anything comes up, you know where I'll be, at the stupid service counter. Hey, look at it this way - at least you get to keep your normal job. You could have been made to switch jobs with Amanda and become the new receptionist, with guys trying to stare down your blouse every minute of every working day..."

Gianna didn't wait to see if Heather had a riposte for that, turning on her heel and heading back out of the kiosk, satisfied enough that things were handled. After taking a moment to reassure Amanda that nothing was wrong with her "friend," it still left a few minutes for Gianna to get ready for the work day, and to gather her thoughts.

She couldn't help but wonder, though, about the things the transformed Hugh had said. In a weird sort of way, it really would be a delicious irony if such a disturbing transformation actually gave Hugh what he'd wanted, deep down. The more she thought about it, the more she was convinced that Hugh's general nature had probably always been submissive - but that due to his cuteness, which led to accusations of being soft, he'd fought back by embracing that extreme, almost delusional portrayal of masculinity. Such masculinity required the male to be the dominant party, though, and giving in to that hidden submissive streak would have brought his whole delusional construct crashing down. It certainly explained some things: why, despite his apparent terror, her forcing him into a submissive position had caused him to respond vigorously, while being placed in the dominant position, even to exact his own revenge, had led to him not even being able to get it up. Probably the same reason that, despite all his come-ons, he'd never actually been with a woman - couldn't actually practice what he preached. And therein lied the irony of the boneheap's decision to transform him: while it wasn't exactly mandatory for a woman, taking a submissive sexual role wasn't just socially sanctioned, but actively encouraged. It was perverse to think that such a transformation could actually bring someone happiness, but to Hugh's twisted-up mind, her current situation might actually be a relief.

Still, something about that didn't ring quite right. The boneheap, after all, was hardly known for its altruistic impulses. Maybe it had set up the whole thing to get Gianna to play further into its hands with its underwear gambit, but at the same time, the thing really hadn't seemed all that forward-thinking in its machinations. Because of that, it was hard to believe that it had extrapolated far enough ahead to be able to reliably tie its actions to that outcome.

No, it was more likely that its reason was a far more obvious one. Gianna, at that point, was more than well enough aware of what the boneheap seemed to want to see out of her, and thus far, her resistance to it had proven decent enough - she'd lost some battles, to be sure, but she'd still avoided far more sexual encounters than she'd succumbed to, especially those of the involuntary sort. That meant the boneheap was probably feeling frustrated to have its perversions so regularly foiled. And that, in turn, meant that when the opportunity had presented itself, it had transformed someone that it knew already had submissive predilections, someone who would be far more likely to readily fall into the behaviors it desired from her. That was probably why the boneheap wasn't toying with "Heather" more directly - it knew that it would get what it wanted just by waiting for those behaviors to exert themselves. It had probably gotten off mightily, in its own inexplicable fashion, to Heather's swift submission in the van, and would certainly be looking towards her for more entertainment to come. At the very least, it meant the thing would be preoccupied more with someone other than Gianna, which meant its active meddling might decrease. Of course, that was only half the battle - even if the boneheap kept out of it, the combination of heat, the boneheap's curse, and all their attendant symptoms would still be a daunting enough combination to deal with.

Speaking of that, if the thing's pronouncements about its provided undergarments were true, later that afternoon her heat would, depressingly, stage a resurgence for its second day. As for the cost incurred by dodging the first one, that was still unclear, although Gianna certainly had her suspicions - her patience in dealing with Heather, in accepting her feminine confessions without derision, surely wasn't a byproduct of Giancarlo's personality, and couldn't accurately be attributed only to her scheming.

Cost or not, though, heat alone would still put her in enough of a predicament. True, having dealt with the aftermath of Hugh's failed assault, largely through experiencing the schadenfreude inspired by its outcome, the notion of having to succumb to sex wasn't quite as troubling at the moment as it had been.

That being said, though, she was still mostly without a solid plan for dealing with its resumption. Hugh, obviously, was out of the question now, as for all practical purposes "he" no longer existed. Jonah was still... dubious, at best, and her memory of the demon was still fresh enough that she hardly relished that option. May could maybe help for an evening, but the morning after would be another story. Despite all her planning, all her progress, she'd ended up neglecting the one thing that should have been her first priority, and now here it was, coming back to bite her.

The one thing she had gotten together in the interim, though, was the projection of just how much more knotted suffering she'd have to endure before her challenge against the boneheap was finally at hand, and adding it all up, heats and likely knottings and all, and it probably came to...

Nineteen weeks. Nineteen more weeks to get through, and at least nineteen more heats. Depressing and daunting as that was, at least the number was finite. The real problem though, was that as much as she absolutely hated it, the only damn thing that seemed to work, to reasonably get through those days, was to get knotted by some guy, and more than just once. At the moment, though, her considerations had also revealed that the number of guys she trusted to do it without any issues could be counted on... zero hands.

It was a problem, unfortunately, that her considerations had failed to provide an adequate solution for. And beyond those inadequate plans, well... what else was left? True, there were technically those clubs that Amanda had mentioned, but as far as Gianna could tell, the only difference between that and getting cornered by a bunch of guys in a dark alley is that you walked into the first one voluntarily. Come to think of it, Amanda had also mentioned some guys that might be interested, although they were still just question marks, albeit somewhat promising ones - Amanda seemed a good enough judge of character that the guys probably wouldn't end up being like Hugh, or for that matter, like Giancarlo. Just about as big of a question mark was that derp of a rookie cop, whose card she probably still had in her purse - she'd mostly ruled him out before, but at the moment, he still seemed like the option that was the least far-fetched.

She reached into her purse, tracking down the cop's card and fidgeting with it between her fingers. Plenty of potential decisions, and none of them good. Maybe another evening with May, and just toughing it out through the rest until it subsided, really was the best idea. Certainly, it was the most palatable one up front, but she knew it represented the biggest question mark of all. If it wasn't enough, if the next day her heat did flare up to beyond what she could handle, beyond the point where she could consciously and coherently make decisions about important things like partners and consent, she really could end up bedded by just about anyone.

The decision, unfortunately, ended up lingering, as the doors opened to a mostly steady stream of customers. By the time things slowed down a little, in the afternoon, she could feel her heat building back up again - not quite to the point of being obviously wet, but it was surely a symptom that would soon follow. She took a break, swapping the stupid, decorated panties for a pair of proper heat-absorbing ones in her purse - at least she couldn't recall having to bend over, and betraying the ridiculous girliness that the panties had all but stenciled across her butt. She returned and grimaced through its initial stages, enduring the hour or so of sniffing and leering and groping until the office closed down, and soon enough she was back at her apartment, alone with her heat and a roster of options that she for the most part loathed. Rrrgh, why the fuck couldn't she just be a guy again! And yet... that was what enduring all of the nonsense was in service of. Just get through it, and keep planning, keep enduring, until she could challenge that fucking thing for real.

Nineteen more weeks. Nineteen more heats. Surely that couldn't break her... could it?

(Note: you might also be interested in reading the bonus content for this chapter, in which portions of it are told from Hugh's own perspective.)