The Effect Ch. 01

Well, she couldn't really blame that all on Robin-her husband, Eric, had been distant for the past month. Tania and Eric were both bi, and loved each other too much to block each other from experimenting, so they decided early on that this was to be an open marriage (they'd had an orgy on their honeymoon, but that's another story...stay tuned?). The only problems they had were when one of them had a plaything and the other didn't, like now. Tania had spent more time with her vibrator this month than she had since she met Eric five years ago, and had decided last week it was time to find a new girl...but couldn't think of anyone but Robin, who wasn't interested. Or was she? You never really knew until you tried, but she didn't want to lose a friend being horny.

Still, she couldn't help but steal glances as they went through the aisles, picking out sundresses (and a few miniskirts). Robin had to have the best body in the world, her exotic face meshing perfectly with her abundant curves. Even the little gut she'd picked up worked perfectly, just another enticing curve.

"Robin, what nationality are you?"

Robin looked up, not expecting the question. "Um, I think it's something like Samoan-Japanese-African, but I'm sure there's more to it. Why?"

"Just curious. I never asked, and you never told me."

"Oh, I know you're curious. You a bit jealous?"

"Please. I don't know how you carry all that flesh around without breaking your legs!" That got the expected laugh, and Tania smiled. "See, me, I've got the body of a dancer, not a stripper."

Robin smiled again, a mischevious smirk, and cocked an eyebrow. "One, I did ballet and gymnastics my whole life, and you can barely salsa. Two, Your last girl-toy was a stripper, and her tits were bigger than mine-after you paid for 'em to be. And three..." Robin leaned in close, and her smile disappeared, leaving a cold, serious stare in it's wake. "...You know how bad you want me."

Tania's eyes locked with Robin's-and she froze, stunned. There was something...predatory behind Robin's eyes, the focused intensity a lioness has looking at a gazelle, coupled with a Police Interrogator's poker face. She looked dangerous-and sexy, so fucking sexy that Tania's insides quivered a bit, and she damn near moaned out loud. She felt like she was staring down the barrel of a shotgun...

...or into a lover's eyes...

The corner of Robin's mouth twitched, then trembled-then she broke out laughing, long and loud, and so hard that she had to grab Tania's shoulder for support. "Oh my god-ha ha ha-you should've seen your face!" she said, once she'd caught her breath. "You looked like I was gonna kill you or something... Come on, let's try some of this stuff on." With that, she turned and walked towards the dressing rooms. Tania stood there for a few seconds, confused, then hurried to catch up, casting a mean look at the old lady to the left, who was trying so hard not to laugh.

***

Robin smiled to herself as she waited for her dressing room key. She knew exactly what she had just done to Tania-she'd suspected her friend liked her a lot more than she let on, but had never bothered to actually see what would happen if she turned it on, was waiting for the funniest time to do it, and damn was she glad she had! She hadn't expected that Hard Time Tania, the one who loved so much to try and embarrass her whenever they were in public, who made jokes about her father disowning her after she'd slept with her stepmother (They'd met the night before, he came over the morning after-with flowers-but that's yet another story...Stay Tuned?), who got into bar fights and won regularly, would be a deer in the headlights as soon as she turned on the sexy.

She also hadn't expected her own reaction. There was something about Tania's expression-she'd looked so startled and timid...and sexy, so fucking sexy that Robin thought about kissing her, right there in the aisle. Not that she actually would have-she knew she was a bit bi, but had never worked up the nerve to do it with another girl, and wasn't gonna start with her best friend.

Plus, there was the matter of thegoddamn thingthat was now smushed, rock hard, up against the six-pack she worked so hard for, almost between her tits. She was definitely going to have to do something about it (getting it off, not getting it on...well, you know what I mean!), and soon. She could have it surgically removed, but they'd have to reposition her urethra (which had repositioned itself in thegoddamn thing), which also meant they'd have to cut into her gazzinta, and that took some getting ready for. Plus what if they messed up and she had scars and shit for her whole life? No, she'd wait until they were sure they couldn't reverse the Cause, then she would get it cut off...

...or keep it and jack off forever...

Her smile disappeared.Where did that come from?!?Okay, it was officially time to stop looking at internet porn, especially those weird anime websites that popped up from out of nowhere. This was what she'd been afraid of, of getting used to having a dick, of even admitting it to herself. That was why she'd held off even looking at mirrors, why she'd avoided everyone, why she hadn't sued Dr. Love for everything he had. Plus, she still loved Jake so much...

"Ma'am?" the voice pulled Robin out of her thoughts, and she looked up. The bitch behind the counter, a passive-aggressive former high school cheerleader going nowhere in life and mad at everybody else for it, was holding a key a bit too close to her nose, waving it slightly like a toy in a cat's face.

"Here's your key! Need anything else?" she said, her singsong voice making every word as condescending as possible.

Robin took the keys from her calmly, fighting the urge to snatch them-and slap her.Don't get kicked out untilafteryou buy what you want, she told herself, and gave the bitch back her smile. "No, thank you. I'm fine."

Once in the dressing room, she took off everything but the leotard (never know who was looking), and tried on her first outfit, a yellow sundress with big red flowers and an empire waist, coming back out to show off to Tania. "How do I look?" she asked, doing her best model pose.

"About a month pregnant," Tania said, after a brief look.

Robin dropped the pose to give Tania her dirtiest look. "No, I don't! You're just mad about earlier!"

Tania smiled. "First off, I don't get mad, I get even. Second, like I told you earlier, empire waists aren't good on a pear shape, even one with those tits. Plus, that little pot belly isn't helping. Matter of fact, how did you get that gut if your job is to work out every day?"

"Tania, don't-"

"Don't 'Tania, don't' me!"Tania stood, suddenly angry, and walked closer to Robin. "Now, I'm trying to be accepting and everything, but something isn't adding up here. Three months ago, you're a young, hip, hot, fun-loving chick in the cool part of town who's engaged to one of the nicest guys in the world and never misses a night out. Now you're a young, hip, hot hermit in the cool part of town who sits in the house, alone, lonely and hurting, and gets fat. You don't want to tell me everything, fine, you don't have to. But just tell me something!" She put her hand on her friend's shoulder. "You'll feel better, I promise. Just open up a bit. Please?"

Robin closed her eyes, sighing. Tania wasn't going to let up, she saw-and she was right. Robin hated not being able to commiserate, but just like before, talking about it was admitting it happened, and she wanted to just wake up tomorrow and have the last few months of her life just be a bad dream. Still, this was a friend. "Remember that Dr. Love Guy?"

"Who? Oh, that nutcase on the news who was..." Tania said, frowning. Then her eyes widened. "Oh my God! You were one of his guinea pigs?! What did he do?" she exclained, looking Robin over, then stopping at the gut. "Oh."

"Yeah. And that's the least of what he did. I don't want to go into details, but I may even have to have surgery to undo the damage." Well, that was true, at least.

"Surgery?" Robin nodded. "Ouch. And is that why Jake left?"

Robin's eyes watered a bit. "No...well, kinda. I did something to him that wouldn't have happened before...Either way, I can't blame him..." Robin sniffed, her eyes watering.

Tania quickly hugged her friend, rubbing her back up and down, trying to keep her hand from going too low. This wasn't the time or the place. "Feel better?"

"Yeah, I do." Robin sniffed, then leaned back, smiling. "Thanks for listening."

"What are friends for? Now, get out of that mess-oh, I mean dress. We got more to try on!"

Robin walked back into the dressing room, and was quickly flying through clothes, just like always. It was nice to have friends.

***

Once they both had bought all the clothes they could afford, Robin and Tania left the store for the food court.

"So, can you eat the same stuff? Or is it some kind of metabolism thing?" Tania asked.

"No, I can eat and everything, but I have to be careful going to the bathroom."

"The bathroom? Piss or shit?"

"Piss-and don't curse so loud, there's kids here!" Robin said, looking around nervously.

"Come on, Robin! Nobody cares about these FUCKING LITTLE PIECES OF SHIT!" Tania yelled suddenly, turning heads.

"Tania!" Robin said, her face going red (really kind of orange, with her golden-brown skin), as she saw two security guards coming their way. "See?! Now they're gonna kick us out!"

No they're not, it was one word. Watch this," Tania said, rounding on the security guards. "You guys, if any kid's ears are bleeding from my swear words, I'm ever so sorry. Can you forgive me?" she said in a little girl's voice, blinking innocently.

The guards' expressions never even faltered. "Ma'am, we don't kick people out for screaming fuck." one guard, tall and brawny, said.

"Yeah, we'd have no customers around Christmas," said the other, smirking. His partner gave him a dirty look.

Tania smiled smugly at Robin. "See? Thanks, guys. I won't do it again." She turned to leave-and were immediately held by one shoulder.

"We do kick people out for shoplifting, though." the second guard, shorter and less serious, said. "You ladies wanna come with me? We can sort this out somewhere private."

Robin, who always half-expected this from Tania, gave her friend an accusing glance. Tania met her glance just long enough to shake her head, confused but not panicking, then smiled at the guards. "Sure!" she said, a lot more sweetly than Robin had expected her to even be capable of acting. "Come on, Robin."

'Somewhere Private' turned out to be the security guards' office, a dark, kind of hot room with a single flourescent bulb on the cieling and a fairly huge wall of cameras. Robin was sitting, bouncing her leg nervously, while Tania stood against the wall, smoking a cigarette and humming patiently. Her eyes darted through the security monitors, stopping on a particularly cute guy in the sporting goods store. "How do they see anything happening if they've got to watch all of these cameras at once?"

Robin looked at her, then back at the floor, not even answering.

Tania sighed, a brief, breathless huff of frustration and laughed. "Look, I swear I didn't take anything! I'm just saying, that's a hell of a lot of cameras, you'd have to be lucky just to catch someone."

"Not really," said the second security guard, walking in. " We're not the only ones looking, we're the backups. We just make sure the cameras are working."

"That," said the first, walking in with a tape in his hand, "And record the broadcast. Oh yeah, we also do the interrogations, so I'd be nice with us if I were you."

Tania rolled her eyes. "Wow, good cop bad cop, that's new. Do we have a car chase later? 'Cause I'm not a good driver, I may crash into a gas station and explode."

"Or go off a cliff and explode." Robin added, cracking a smile. "By the way, you know one of you is gonna die two days before you retire, right?"

"Yeah, someone's gonna club you with a Magic 8-Ball in Spencer's!" Tania finished, and both women broke into fits of laughter.

The first security guard grinned at the second, who smiled without humor. "Funny girls," he said to his partner.

"Yeah, I guess." the second guard said. "Well, laughing time's over. Ladies, My name's Bad Cop, he's Worse Cop, and you-" he pointed at Robin- "were shoplifting in Macy's twenty minutes ago."

Robin's mouth dropped. Tania, who had sobered a bit, again burst into laughter. "WHAT?!?" both said in unison.

"I haven't stolen anything since I was fifteen!" said Robin, pointing at herself, then Tania. "She stole something the last time we were here!"

Tania immediately stopped laughing, and gave her former best friend an unholy glare. "SNITCH!" she yelled, with the wide-eyed fervor of an old lady in a horror movie.

"I didn't say what, and you just self-incriminated," Robin said, smiling sweetly at her friend with murder in her eyes.

"No, I didn't, I just called you a snitch." she retorted calmly, murder in her own eyes. "Besides, I'm sure the tape'll just show that neither of us-" she turned her glare towards the guards- "stole anything."

That's what we're here to see," said the first guard, popping the tape into a VCR. The monitors immediately switched to an all-screen image Robin recognized as her dressing room.

"Well, that's not too illegal!" said Robin, glaring at the guards.

"I just told you we only tape these." the second guard replied, "Someone else monitors them, in this case, the nice lady behind the counter at the changing station."

"She was a damn bitch if you ask me." Robin grumbled, watching another girl try on a green one piece.

"I agree," said the first guard. "She's been making my life a living hell ever since I got her that damn job. Either of you know a good divorce lawyer, give me the number. Oh, here we go." He paused the tape on a shot of Robin between changings. "This is the problem. We have to verify that you were wearing this leotard when you entered the premises."

Tania turned to Robin, grinning. "You're wearing a fucking leotard? What is this,Flashdance? Wait-" she looked at the monitors, and laughed. "Isn't that your old Gymnastics uniform? Why the hell wear that?"

"Yes! Yes, I was, so can we just go?" Robin said, panicking a bit now. Sure, her costume held while she was in clothes, but anyone looking at just that would immediately realize her gut was just a towel.

The second gard shook his head. "I'm sorry, but mall policy is, a store employee has to eyeball it. Now, like he said, his wife works at the store-"

"Fuck store policy!" Robin hadn't realized she had stood until the first guard held up a hand. "I have a right to myfucking privacy and you can't do this!"

"She won't do anything to you. She'll just look over the leotard, and say no, we don't sell those, and you'll be home free. She won't tell us how you look or anything-"

"That's not good enough!" She yelled, crying, horrified. "YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!!!"

Tania rushed forward, and led Robin back to her seat. "No dispare, chica. I'll handle this, okay? I'll take care of it, just relax. No-" she cut Robin off, "You don't have to say anything.I'll handle this." She knew her friend was going through some body troubles, but hadn't realized it was that serious. She wasn't gonna let anyone make this worse, though. After she got Robin relatively calm, Tania turned to the guards. "Can we talk outside, please?" she asked politely, her eyes pleading.

The guards nodded, and they walked into the hallway outside. Tania took a deep breath, then started her sell. "Look, guys, is there anything I can do to stop this from happening? I can't get into details, but she's going through a-a problem right now, and doesn't want to be seen. What if-matter of fact, look. I'll pay for anything you think she took, okay?"

"Ma'am, we have to be sure-"

"Please, sir, she didn't even tell me what happened, and I'm her best friend! This is killing her right now, you see that-"

"Okay, where is she?" the lady from the dressing room said. "Oh, are you her friend? I want to search her, too."

"Bitch, who-" Tania said, incensed. The first guard gave her a quelling look, and she stopped, realizing she had to convince this bitch before everyone else. "Sorry. Please, my friend is-"

"I don't want to hear any of your excuses," the woman said, eyeing Tania coldly. "I know what I saw on that monitor. I know a lot of things about...your friend."

"If you know so much, why the hell are you still working at Macy's?" Tania knew she shouldn't have said it, but she couldn't help it. "Sir, this woman obviously is trying to carry out some kind of vendetta, this is ridiculous! Why can't I just pay for whatever you think she took-"

"Becausesheshould have paid for itbeforeshe walked outwearingit!" the woman retorted. "I don't have a vendetta-but I bet you have a reason to protect your accompilace...or should I say lover?"

SMACK! The woman stumbled back into a wall as Tania's hand connected, hard, with her cheek. The two guards grabbed Tania's wrists, and she fought them. "Don't you ever in your life insult my friend like that, you little bitch! I'll rip your fucking hair out! You-" She stopped suddenly, realizing what she'd done. "Oh no..." she said, her eyes watering.

The woman, holding her cheek, walked back over, scowling. "Either I search them both or I report both of you-" she eyed both guards in turn- "to management! I swear I will!"

"Please..." Tania said, crying herself now. "Please don't do this..."

"I'll start with the other one," she said, walking away, and Tania closed her eyes, defeated.

***

Robin heard the door open, and looked up. The bitch from the changing room was standing there, trying to look authoritive with a hand on her cheek. "Either I search you now of the cops search you at the station." she said, calmly.

"look, I got this leotard from high school. I was in gymnastics, I was team captain, please don't do this to me!"

The woman smiled, a thin, humorless smile. "Oh, I knew that. I voted you in, remember? You won by a single vote, and I was the last voter. And the first thing you did was get me cut from the team!" The smile dropped. "You don't even remember my name, do you?"

Robin froze. "A-Allison?"

"Ashley. Well, at least you were close!" The smile came back, this time with a bit of malice. "Well, anyway, I figure I don't owe you any more breaks, so just let me see it and make sure it's not that one, then you can go, okay?"

Robin scowled at her, sincerely hoping she died right there and then, and stood, turning and removing her shirt, revealing the back of the one piece. "There, you see it? Can I go now?"

Ashley smiled at the tone, enjoying her little revenge. She knew Robin was telling the truth, she just wanted her to squirm a bit. "I don't know what's more amazing, that you still wear that thing or that it still fits. Turn around, please?"

"Do-do I have to?"

"I said please, didn't I?" Ashley said smoothly, her smile widening. Had the dumbass actually taken something? Oh, wasn't that just great! "I also said no more breaks, so turn or I call the cops."

"No, I'm not turning towards the door, come around." Robin said, suddenly numb.

Ashley huffed. "Whatever." she said, walking around. "Like anyone really wants to see..." She stopped, immediately seeing the wadded-up cloth, and grinning. "Mind taking that out?"

"Yes I mind!Look, I just had surgery and it's not healing right, I need to keep it compressed!" The words flew from Robin's mouth, desperation making her mind work overtime.