Andy gaped. "Wh-what? You can't mean this is normal!? How am I supposed to...?"
The doctor made a so-so gesture. "Elevated sex drive does seem to be normal for rabbit-type transformees - in that sense, it's something you're just going to have to deal with. However, it's not the same thing as clinical hypersexuality; that's a serious issue, completely unrelated to species change. What you would be dealing with is merely a somewhat stronger version of normal urges."
That was a perfectly clear answer, the rabbit-woman had to admit, but not at all what she wanted to hear. "But...how am I supposed to 'deal with it!?'" she asked. She didn't want to have to - she wanted it to stop! If she had to deal with it herself...her track record for self-control wasn't very good. This was all so...so...
The centipede-woman shrugged. "I'm afraid that's not really my field. I'd suggest dealing with it as you always have, for a start. If you find you're having trouble controlling it, you'll want to see an expert. Although there is a similarly-transformed woman in the area - she might be able to give you some advice."
"Yeah...she's my neighbor..." Andy murmured. She felt a knot forming in her stomach as she thought about going to Maple for help...after everything she'd said, would her neighbor even speak to her!?
After a little further discussion, Andy was released, and Susan gave a call to Nina, the changed woman who handled the day-side operations for the shop he co-ran, to get a ride home. It was going to be interesting adapting to driving without any feet...
As the Thompsons sat waiting by the front desk, Susan put his hand on Andy's; she didn't flinch, and the sigh she gave...sounded more wistful than upset. "How are you feeling?" he asked.
She shivered a little. "S...scared." She hated to admit that to anyone, but...it felt worse to try and hide it. Who could she fool, anyway? It seemed like all her suppressed emotions were pouring back out, and there was nothing she could do about it... "I...there's all these feelings in me, and I'm supposed to just control them...I don't think I can..."
She sighed again, this time clearly upset. "I don't think I can...I'm just going to be a...a worthless little..."
She stopped as she felt the naga-man's hand grip hers tightly. "Don't ever say that, Andy!" Susan insisted. She...she couldn't help but listen to that voice... "You're my...my spouse, my love," he said. "There is nothing worthless about you, and you shouldn't talk about yourself like that."
Andy choked back a sob. "But...I'm...you won't be saying that when I wind up in bed with some..."
Susan shook his head. "Andy, love, we both know you've said things you're not proud of, and fallen into a very destructive habit...but you know what you've never done? You've never been unfaithful to me. Not even fall-down drunk in a bar full of cheap floozies, you haven't. That says more than any of your worries could."
The bunny-girl couldn't help but smile a little at that. "Sue...th-thanks...I..." She started crying again in spite of herself. "God, Sue, you're...too good for me...I don't know what I could ever do to make it up to..."
The snake-man smiled and put a hand on her shoulder. She tensed up, but not in a rigid, don't-touch-me way like she had. She drew a sharp breath, her heart rate jumping...and then slowly exhaled, calming a bit. "You don't have to do anything, Andy," Susan said. "I'm just glad you're still with me..."
The rabbit-woman sighed. "...me too..."
Steve sighed as she took care of some of the chores for her sleeping mother. She thought of the phone call with Ben...how could she explain this to him? How could she explain it to anyone? Even if she didn't mention that she'd actually been a girl for two weeks now and hiding it the whole time, the idea of facing any of her friends like this...
What was she supposed to do? Just walk into the arcade and go "Hi, it's me, I'm a flower-girl now, let's pretend that nothing has changed and get back to relating to each other exactly as we always have?" Like that could ever happen. This was going to have real repercussions on her social life as well as her life in general...but what? She didn't know.
But...she couldn't just ditch her friends completely, either. Even if she could, when it came to making new ones...she'd have to give them the truth - the embarrassing truth, that she used to be a boy. It wasn't like she could hide it, anyway - she knew nothing at all about being a girl, how convincing could she possibly be?
No, if she was going to have to share the truth, she'd share it with her real friends...but that still left her facing the awkward prospect of actually breaking it to them.
And then what? What would she do if things changed between them as a result? What if they didn't want to be friends with someone who had changed gender? Or...what if one of them liked her? She couldn't even begin to think of how she'd react to that.
She didn't know. What she would do, what lay ahead, how she would feel about it, she just...didn't know.
Anneza arrived at the police station, wondering how in the Heavens she was going to confess to something when she didn't even speak the same language as the police. She drifted inside to see the harpy-woman who'd kept tabs on her yesterday. It still felt weird to watch her carry on with business using her talons, as if it wasn't even worth bothering over...
The harpy looked up at her. "Oh, uh, hello, Ms. Collins," she said. "I'm sorry, but we still don't have anybody who can translate for you..."
Anneza didn't understand a word of that, but her attention was elsewhere anyways. The harpy-woman had pens and paper on her desk...maybe, if the space-girl could still understand Earth people's pictures, they could understand hers? She pointed to the yellow-pad and made scribbling motions against the palm of her hand.
Lt. Jameson frowned for a moment, then realized what she was asking. "Oh, uh, sure!" She shoved the notepad over towards the strange floating woman. She didn't know if this was going to help much, but that simple gesture was the first real communication they'd had with her - a pleasant surprise, considering that they were still trying to figure yesterday's events out.
Anneza stared at the blank page in front of her. How to do this? She thought...maybe if she did it like a comic strip, to convey the whole story...she couldn't pretend she was innocent any more, but maybe if they knew what had lead up to this they'd judge her more kindly.
She spent the better part of half an hour scribbling out her pictorial confession. The end result was hardly good, as stick figures were the extent of her drawing ability, but she thought it at least got the message across - at least as far as she could tell.
There was a first panel of her (a stick-figure in a dress, with antennae) floating around doing nothing, for a starting point. Then she had the voice speaking to her out of what she drew like a tear in the paper - she'd just put squiggles in the word balloons, as she was sure they'd have no more luck with her writing than they did with her speech. Then it was her carrying a box to the school building.
After that she'd drawn a panel of the box unfolding into her best recollection of what the bomb had looked like. She'd drawn herself with little shock lines emanating from her head, hoping to give the impression that she was distressed. Next was her flying away, then coming back and pressing the fire alarm, then lying down on the roof by the bomb. She'd left off there, as she was pretty sure the police knew the rest.
The harpy stared at it for a minute or two, first confused, then with a dawning realization as she looked at the picture of the bomb. She stared wide-eyed at Anneza, who did her best to look back without flinching, though she didn't hide her sorrow at what she'd done. The harpy grabbed the phone and dialed an extension.
"Boss?" she said. "Come here. You need to see this."
Lt. Jameson hung up and watched Anneza intently, ready to move if she were to run...but she didn't. Had this woman really been the bomber? Why would she be coming back here if she was? Or did that word-balloon signify someone else coercing her...?
Anneza reached for the pad again after the harpy had torn off the top page; as long as she was giving them excuses to put her in jail...if she was really serious about taking responsibility...she was going to try and explain what had happened to Toby, too.
