Shards Ch. 01

Nancy let loose with a grumbling sigh. "Again, it's easier for you to mimic me, with access to my memories and telepathy. It's going to be harder for me to mimic Dan without making mistakes."

Cathy replied, "You are doing fine, so far. Other than his curiosity about the meteorite impact not being satisfied, Zack did not suspect a thing. He was not surprised by the dinner invitation, either."

'You read his mind,' I thought.

"Understand," Cathy said. "Once I unlocked the ability within this brain, it became part of its senses, just like hearing. It does not take conscious effort to sense his thoughts or yours. What takes focus is to block thoughts out, or to transmit my own."

Nancy pulled into the parking lot for our condo. We got out and went inside. Whatever balance problems Cathy had before were not noticeable now. Nancy crossed to our couch and sat, while Cathy sat on a nearby armchair.

"You said, 'unlocked the ability'," Nancy said. "Are you telling me the telepathic ability was already inside me?"

Cathy answered, "Partly. The crystals detected telepathic potential almost immediately, but saw that the neural connections to enable it had not developed on their own. The crystals made those connections in adjusting this brain for my consciousness. I would expect that is part of your species' next stage, if you let evolution take a natural course."

"Is the potential in Dan's brain, too?" Nancy asked.

Cathy replied, "Yes, but I could not preserve your personality and enable telepathy at the same time. It would have resulted in the two personalities melding together irreparably."

I thought, 'Not to mention that it would have been harder to keep your replacing Nancy a secret from me, if I could read your mind.'

Cathy said, "I realize you are still suspicious of my motives, both of you, but I was never going to keep that a secret. I chose to preserve Nancy's persona and to reveal myself to you at the first opportunity, when I could have stayed in hiding, pretending to be Nancy. The fact that we are even having this discussion ought to be evidence of my good intentions."

Nancy snorted. "You may have my memories, but you still don't understand mankind if you think that basically saying 'trust me' is sufficient. Most people who say that are actually lying. Trust is earned through acts, not words. I will not completely believe that you will return me to my body until it happens."

Cathy paused before saying, "Fair enough. I would likely feel the same way if the situation were reversed. I have invaded your lives, without permission. I have tried to minimize the disruption and make it temporary, but that is not the same as leaving you unaffected."

'So, how is this all supposed to happen?' I asked. 'You transfer your consciousness into our baby during the pregnancy? What kind of child will that make you? Fully conversational on day one?'

Cathy answered, "The transfer will occur just after birth, as Nancy and I cannot both be active in this body at the same time, again due to the telepathic ability causing the personalities to merge. As for speech, the muscles take time to mature and there is little I can do to speed that up. I will retain my Teclewt memories and Nancy's memory of English, allowing me to think and transmit telepathically, but vocalized speech would still take some time. I should accomplish that and other developmental milestones much sooner, but otherwise I will still be your child. A child you can come to love, I hope. Except, I will remember this other life I had a long time ago and a long distance away."

'You'll still be telepathic?' I asked.

Cathy grinned. "Why would I deprive my future self of that ability? Do not worry, I will not take the ability away from this body. Once Nancy has returned to it, it will also be safe to activate the telepathy in you as well, Dan. It will be easier to have a parent-child relationship if we are all equal in that regard."

I asked, 'You mentioned a while ago that rewiring this brain was the main reason for our comas. Were there others?'

Cathy said, "I was not sure if you are ready to hear this, but the crystals were also analyzing and modifying the genetics of your gamete cells, so that the child I occupy will be a functioning hermaphrodite, as my species is... or was, if it has gone extinct. I will still be human, but perhaps the next evolution of your species, come early. If it had not turned out to be possible, I would have accepted being either human gender. But it proved to be a fairly simple matter to modify the gene expressions to alter the genitals which develop to replace a clitoris with a functioning penis and move sperm production inside the body to keep testicles from blocking the vagina."

"What?!?" Nancy cried out. "You're going to turn my babies into freaks?"

Cathy calmly said, "Nancy, I know you are reacting to an accumulation of shocks, not because you would actually treat any child that way. The child's anatomy would not be the result of a sexual development disorder as most intersex humans are considered today. This is a redesign, replacing the X and Y chromosomes that determine human gender now with a new chromosome I will call Z for convenience. My analysis of your media told me that the San Francisco area is more accepting of those whose sexual orientation or gender identity differs from the norm. It is why I landed here, even before knowing for certain whether producing a human hermaphrodite who is fertile would even be possible. You do not have words for things you can't imagine. The Japanese term, futanari, even refers to a popular sub-genre of sexual entertainment about hermaphrodites. The main difference to hermaphrodites born due to malfunctions of the normal development is that my future self will be fertile with both males and females and the anatomy will breed true to following generations, producing only Z chromosomes in both eggs and sperm."

"You would be initiating a new branch of humanity, then," Nancy said. "Especially if this also applies to all other children Dan and I might have, since you said you modified all of my eggs and Dan's sperm. That's a lot of pressure to put on a child, even one with an alien personality inside."

"I can reverse the changes so that your other children are not affected." Cathy shocked both of us when she added, "Unless you would like to go first, so your children would have you both as role models."

'What did you say?' I thought, before Nancy could erupt.

Cathy answered, "The same crystals that healed your injuries in less than a minute are equally capable of modifying the tissues in your bodies over a period of weeks, resulting in the same sexual anatomy, fully fertile. The exterior anatomy would appear female, except for a functioning penis in place of the clitoris, with the urethra running through it. The interior portion of the penile shaft would divide around the vagina as the clitoral anatomy does in women. Once transformed, you could both give birth."

"You want us to become functioning futanari parents, in other words," Nancy said.

"Only if you agree to it," Cathy said. "I will not force that transformation upon you, but will not deny wanting to share this with my parents and siblings. Otherwise, I must wait for your grandchildren to be born to have others of my kind."

'How would the two of us transforming go along with avoiding detection by the government?' I asked. 'If I show up at work suddenly sporting breasts, people will ask questions. Never mind showing up pregnant.'

"That is certainly a factor to consider," Cathy said. "It is probably not going to be possible to remain a secret forever. My development as a hermaphrodite child is not going to escape notice, even before birth, although we could hope the doctors will keep it confidential, even after discovering that I would be fertile after puberty. If this were one of your alien invasion movies, the government would be all over the case. That they are not here investigating already gives us some time to adapt and plan. Maybe blame it all as an effect of something in the meteorite, without mentioning an alien intelligence? That would make my birth easier to explain as well."

"It's too big a decision for us to make right now," Nancy said. "I assume that there isn't a time limit on choosing this transformation? The crystals will remain in both bodies?"

"Correct, there is no time limit," Cathy responded. "It can be accomplished even if this body is pregnant. Take your time to reach the decision that is right for you. I will give you time to yourselves and sleep in your guest room for now. Good night."

~~~~~

Nancy and I retreated to our bedroom where she flopped onto our bed and looked at the ceiling. She asked, "How the hell do we make this work, Dan? How do I get Cathy pregnant, so I can get my body back? I have no experience having sex as a man."

I thought, 'You and every virgin male in human history. So, we just treat you like a reborn virgin and teach you how to have a male orgasm, instead of a female one, however different those actually are. It's not like you have to become Don Juan here, you just need to be able to ejaculate into her.'

'So, where do we start?' Nancy asked in my head.

'Masturbation is almost universally self-taught,' I answered. 'You know how to give me a hand job already, except you'll be using my hand now and feeling the results. Or maybe we should think of these body parts as ours, for now. As you learn how stroking our cock feels, you can adjust methods to increase the pleasure until you simply can't help but cum. Of course, I don't know exactly how Cathy's crystals wired you into my nervous system. You could perceive it just like you're stroking your clit instead. Whether that would make it easier or harder to reach orgasm, we'll find out."

'Let's give it a try,' she said, beginning to take my clothes off. She went into the bathroom to grab the tube of Astroglide that she used whenever she wanted to give me a hand job, usually during her periods. Looking at my face in the mirror, she asked, 'What am I supposed to envision, to get this cock hard? Men or women?'

I answered, 'I think the first step is to adjust to the physical sensation of stroking the cock. If you can achieve an erection without employing any imagery at all, that would probably be best. Let's not create a dependence on a male image, if we can, so it doesn't then get short circuited by being with Cathy. If we wind up with you jacking off and just inserting the tip into her as you start to cum, that's what we'll do. Hell, even squirting into a cup and using a turkey baster to inject her could work. But let's try to keep it as natural as we can.'

Nancy lay our body out on our bed and started to run her hands over my skin, from chest downward. 'It's funny, my head keeps telling me your body has shrunk, when it's really that your hands are bigger than mine,' she thought, as she drew closer to my cock, which I felt twitch slightly.

'Feel that?' I asked. 'It's already responding to your caresses.'

'I know,' Nancy replied, as her hands reached the shaft. 'Good sign, right? I touched you the way I like you to touch me. I imagined my nipples crinkling and yours did. It's kinda freaky. This doesn't feel just like stroking my clit, either. Similar at the glans, but less intense, decreasing further along the shaft.'

She moved our fingers along the edge of my/our cock and I couldn't figure out whether it felt like a memory of touching myself or of Nancy giving me a handjob. The utter lack of any control on my part made it feel very dream-like. I felt our cock respond, with the instinctual clench of the PC muscles that usually went along with gaining an erection, except I had nothing to do with that response. I could only observe. I decided to mostly stay quiet and see if Nancy got there on her own, rather than try to talk dirty to her or otherwise encourage her.

She reached over to the tube of Astroglide and squeezed out a large dollop onto our finger tips. She transferred that to the shaft of our cock and I felt the reaction as she spread it out. She stroked and squeezed and I could tell she was combining her experience of past hand jobs with learning which moves felt best to her. Before I really knew it, the cock was stiffening between our greasy fingers, as they started to slide up and down the shaft. I would have been clenching my toes, if I could.

"God damn, Dan," she said out loud. "It gets more sensitive as it gets stiffer."

The sense of unreality swelled as I could not anticipate what Nancy would do next or react in any way. Nancy was moaning softly and I wondered if I even could, anymore.

I thought to her, 'As the pleasure rises, semen will start to gather at the base of our cock. When you reach the point of no return, you'll have no choice but to shoot it out. A lot of guys imagine that it's the balls doing the shooting, but it's not, it's muscle tissue at the base and along the urethra.'

'Don't make me think, right now, Dan,' she responded. 'This feels so different, but so good at the same time.'

'You're doing amazing,' I said, then went back to silent observation as Nancy stroked faster and slower, squeezed softer and harder, learning how the pleasure changed.

Her other hand clasped my testicles and squeezed a little too hard, then backed off to a better pressure. If she reacted like I did to the combination of having my balls fondled and my cock stroked, I knew she wouldn't last much longer.

Whether or not it was instinct, Nancy slowed down her stroking just before I thought she was definitely going to reach an orgasm. I desperately wanted to clench the muscles and push us over the edge, but couldn't.

'Oh, god, how close was I?' she asked, panting.

'Pretty close, babe. Why didn't you let yourself cum?'

'You don't want us to last?' she countered.

'That's not the point, right now,' I responded. 'We first need to prove ejaculation is possible and I have little doubt now that it is. I'm not sure stamina would be a goal when having sex with Cathy, either. We need to cum in her to conceive, but do we owe her a good time in the process? I'm fine with cumming quickly just to get the job done. Make another run towards the edge and this time let yourself go over it. Cum like your life depends on it.'

'Funny guy,' she replied.

She squeezed a little more lube onto our hand and resumed stroking the shaft and fondling our balls and soon I knew that we were getting closer but I didn't want to interrupt by saying so. Nancy was making small grunts that were a lot like she made when about to orgasm, but which sounded a bit weird coming from my throat.

When the moment arrived, I felt a distinct sensation of blissful orgasm that had nothing to do with the pulses traveling though the urethra, shooting sperm up into the air, landing on our chest and stomach. For about ten seconds, I accessed a memory recorded by Nancy's eyes, of her seeing me similarly shoot into the air during a past hand-job, the grimace on my face a clear sign of the orgasm's ferocity.

When she stopped panting, I asked, 'When you were cumming, were you thinking of watching me cum that way in the past? I swear I just saw it through your eyes.'

She answered, 'No, I wasn't thinking that. But I was seeing a memory you must have of shooting onto my tits from some past hand-job, but seen with your eyes. Did we just breach whatever barrier was placed between the two sets of memories in this brain?'

'Looks like it,' I thought. 'But I can't sense that memory now that the orgasm's over, just my observation of it. I doubt Cathy anticipated orgasm having that effect, either. She makes it sound like she has this all figured out, but I think she's clearly winging some of this. Her thinking that we can transform into futanari without anyone noticing, for example.'

Nancy nervously asked, 'What do you actually think of that idea? Of our having both sets of parts?'

I answered, 'If I understand correctly, we'd be a hybrid. Particularly with the penis taking the clitoris's place. That's the main different from the female form, at least. This body would undergo more dramatic changes, mostly internal. Anyway, Cathy's being naive if she thinks nobody would question it, though. Even if I wind up relatively flat-chested and could hide that, there would be no way for me to hide a pregnancy and no reason to do if I weren't going to conceive. You might more easily hide a new cock, since you wouldn't have to also hide testicles. Who knows, it might even fit between the labia. But I can't imagine either of us being able to shower at the gym ever again, if we're supposed to hide this.'

Nancy rebutted, 'Nor would it make sense for me to be the only one to change, if you don't have a vagina for for my new cock to go into. Unless you're wanting me to fuck your asshole or open our marriage so I can go out chasing women to fuck? I'm sure Cathy would love it if I impregnated a few more women to birth her new species. Although, I suppose this body could already do that now, since she's already altered its sperm.'

I answered, 'Either we both do it or neither of us should. There is also the fact that I would have no chance to directly experience having any female parts before deciding, unless I get glimpses into your memories of sex that are more oriented to your orgasms than mine. You're at least getting some experience having a penis first.'

'True. I'm not sure yet whether I would want to trade a clit for a cock. But we won't really know how sex in the hybrid form will feel, just from having experience as the two separate genders. Will the penis still get stimulated during vaginal sex, in the clit's place? Will there still be a g-spot or an equivalent inside the vagina? Will it be possible to get into some kind of reversed position where we could both be inside the other at the same time? It's a bit crazy just trying to visualize it.'

I thought, 'This whole situation ought to be a lot crazy. I have to wonder whether we're being manipulated into being calm about all this. Cathy might say she's giving us a choice, but is she, really?'

Nancy said, 'It's not like she needs to give us a choice at all, so why give us a false one? She has clearly had all the power to do as she wished from the moment those crystal shards crashed into us. She really only needed one body to survive being impaled but she saved both of us. She didn't need my personality to survive but she saved it. She could have fully transformed both of us without asking but didn't. She could stay in my body permanently but is agreeing to let herself become dependent on us by transferring her self into our first baby. I have to believe that she's trying to be as moral as she can be, while preserving her own life, and giving us a legitimate choice is part of that.'

'A low impact outcome starting from a high impact collision?' I asked.

'Only in comparison to how bad it could have been for us, I suppose,' Nancy said. 'I love you, Dan, but being stuffed together into the same brain and body for nine or more months isn't exactly the kind of closeness I ever had in mind. But I know what you mean, we ought to be having a screaming fit, yet we're not. And it's not just a degree of acceptance from being science fiction fans or having watched futanari videos on the web, either. Could it be an effect of sharing one brain? I don't know. I doubt Cathy would know, either. But now I'm even more concerned about being able to impersonate you. Coming across as emotionless won't help. There's only so long that telling people I'm still fatigued by the ordeal can last as an excuse.'

That was accompanied by a huge yawn that seemed to catch Nancy off guard. "Damn, cumming as a man does make you sleepy," she joked.