AgeArts 3D Comics

Continued from Chapter 9.

Melissa felt her mind pulled back together with her husband’s mind. They became one. The one felt its two bodies: one male and one female. So different despite all of their common features. The male was in tears. The female was feeling curious expectation. It was waiting for something. Shared memories bumped into each other in the mixture of that shared mind. The mind remembered the two bodies touching, and exploring, and fondling each other, giving each other pleasure. In the one mind, all that pleasure was circular, like revolving masturbation, one body pleausring the other and the other back in return. Sex was an act of physical unity between the two parts of the one mind. Then, the mind split in two again, and Mark found himself back alone in his male body, his mind feeling strangely lighter now.

There was a sense of absence. Mark struggled to figure out what was missing, though. He felt tears on his face, but he was not sure why he had been crying. He tried to remember what Katie had said she would transfer from his mind, but even that memory was gone. He felt he had lost something big, as if some invisible limb inside of him had been amputated. He could feel its ghostly shape still. Reaching for it in his mind, he searched his memories and found gaps in time that he could not account for. Big parts of his life were just gone now. He knew that discovery should terrify him, but he had no idea what he had lost and, therefore, had no reason to really miss it. However, it was uncomfortable to know that he was now somehow incomplete. That was deeply unnerving.

“How does it feel?” Katie asked Melissa. The woman was smiling.

Mark could hear Melissa panting in the other chamber. She sounded both exhausted and exhilarated.

“Amazing,” Melissa said. “Whoa, strange hearing a female voice coming out of my mouth… My head… I feel so heavy. No, that’s not what I mean exactly.” She closed her eyes. “I sense every inch of my body. Somehow, it feels more female now. A large chunk of my mind is expecting to feel a penis and testicles between my legs. That there’s nothing there but my vagina feels strange. These breasts seem odd. I know what my body feels like, but I also know another body intimately as well now. It’s like my sexuality has been multiplied.” She moaned pleasantly. “Feels good. There’s so much more of me now.”

“Tell me more,” Katie said. “What’s your first male memory?”

Mark listened intently, hoping to recover something of what he had lost to Melissa.

Melissa smiled. “Wow,” she said. “I’m a boy. I’m a little boy. I’m so small and hairless down there. I touch myself. I feel… something. It’s not much, but I want to feel it again. That goes on for a while. Years go by. I think about pretty girls and touch myself again and again.”

“Probably a bit different than your female memories I assume,” Katie said.

“Those memories are there too, yeah,” Melissa said. “I’m two different kids. Wow… that’s wild. I’m playing with dolls and playing with myself.”

“Hey, Mark?” Katie said. “Just a little test… for science. Tell me. Do you know what a penis is used for?”

“Um,” he said. “A ‘penis?’ Should I know that? I think I should know it. Wait, what’s a ‘penis?’”

“Oh boy,” Katie said. “Might have gone a little too deep with this one. Don’t worry. We’ll find someone to give you the birds and the bees speech again.”

“Do birds and bees have something to do with a penis?”

Katie smiled. “Uh,” she said. “I’m not going to touch that one. Just listen to what Melissa says. Try to figure it out. Melissa, give us more.”

“Okay,” Melissa said. “Let’s see. I grow up a bit. I feel myself getting stronger. I dream about being a man. One day, there’s some hair there now, and something happens. It’s amazing. My body explodes with pleasure. Something white and sticky comes out, like liquid joy, just pumping out of me. I’m almost scared when it happens. I think I broke myself or something. Then, when I calm down, I want to do it again.”

Mark tries to imagine what she means, but he can’t quite picture it. What does she mean by “down there,” he wonders silently.

“I start looking for things to make me hard,” she said. “Magazines, TV shows, movies… any place I can find pretty girls and women. So much porn! I build up a fantasy harem of women. I start to do it whenever I get a chance. I’m making a mess in my underwear sometimes. I start using tissues eventually. I get better at it. My mom catches me once. I’m so damn embarrassed, but we both just pretend that nothing happened. My dad gives me an equally embarrassing talk a little while later.”

“Ouch,” Katie said. “Sorry you had to recall that.”

“And, I really feel it,” Melissa said. “I think I’m even blushing right now because he got caught jerking off in middle school.”

Katie said, “More! More!”

“I get to kiss a girl. She’s cute. She’s got red hair and freckles. Her lips taste like strawberry lip balm. I’m too nervous to do anything else with her.”

Katie said, “How sweet.”

Melissa said, “Another girl lets me touch her breasts. We keep our clothes on, though. We make out. It’s awesome. Later on, she gives me a handjob. That blows my mind.”

Mark found himself starting to feel jealous of Melissa for having all of these exciting memories. It sounded like an adventure from the way she was describing it all, even though it made little sense to him.

“Another girl gets naked with me,” she said. “I come way too early on her leg. I apologize. We both get dressed. God, I’m embarrassed. I worry that she’ll tell people about me.”

Katie said, “Poor little Mark.”

“How can one boy feel this much embarrassment?” Melissa asked.

Now, Mark felt somewhat relieved. At least, he was free of some old lingering embarrassment.

“Does it get any better?” Katie asked.

Melissa declared, “I have sex. She makes me wear a condom. We’re both seniors in high school. She’s got wavy dark hair and a nice pair of breasts. I don’t know how I got her in bed with me, but I’m loving every minute of it. We’re sweaty and sticky and, then I’m inside of her, and it feels like heaven. Then, I come in her way too soon, but I don’t care. I did it. I finally did it. It feels amazing. I’m king of the fucking world. I don’t think she enjoyed it much. I don’t really care, though. We only do it a couple more times after that.”

Katie said, “Congratulations!”

“College leads me to more women. I get better at it. I make it last longer. I fall in love. I get my heart broken. I do it again. I have a scare with one girl, a missed period. Thankfully, the tests are negative. Then, I meet… myself?”

“Here we go,” Katie said.

Mark listened intently again. He had been wondering who Melissa was to him. He knew what her name was and that they were close somehow, but there were so many memory gaps relating to her. He hoped she would clarify what their relationship meant.

“These memories are weird,” Melissa said. “They’re, like, stereo memories. I get two perspectives at once. I get turned on by my bodies. I like how I look. Then, I get physical. It feels like I’m doing it all to myself. I kiss myself. I touch my breasts and suck my cock and eat my pussy. I penetrate and get penetrated. I love myself…” She paused. “I start to feel that love fading.”

Katie suggested, “His eyes start wandering.”

“Yeah,” Melissa said. “I’m checking out undergrad girls in my classes. I try not to leer, but I can’t help myself sometimes. They’re so beautiful at that age, and being a teacher means they never get older. Every year, there’s a new crop of young women waiting for me. I try to be faithful. Melissa starts to get on my nerves, though. What did I do? Where did it all go wrong? Did I just grow apart from myself?”

Mark thought back to teaching his classes. He could remember his lectures. He could remember grading assignments. He could even remember some of the individual male students well, yet he had trouble picturing more than a few of his female students. They seemed to be a mystery now.

“One girl stands out,” Melissa said. “She’s pretty and very smart. She starts staying after class some days to meet me in office hours. Then, we start meeting after my office hours.”

“That would be Julie, then?” Katie asked.

“Wait,” Melissa said. “No, her name is Amy.”

The baby perked up and looked over at Melissa and then at Mark with accusing eyes.

“The affair with Amy lasts only for a semester,” Melissa said. “After her, there is Rachel… then, Mary…”

Katie looked down at Julie and said, “Looks like you weren’t the only grad student to catch his eye.” Her tone was only mildly taunting. “Did he tell you you were first?”

Little Julie stared at Mark with a betrayal in her eyes, but Mark felt utterly clueless. He tried to figure out why the baby was mad at him, but he had no idea.

Julie moaned. She sounded so heartbroken.

“But,” Melissa said. “Julie is special. You are so damn smart. That you’re also incredibly sexy is a plus, but I love you, mind and body. We come together. We solve the problems with my machine. We take a great leap forward. I could never have done it without you. I love you. I truly do.”

The baby started to cry silently. Mark felt sad as well. He was confused as to why, but some deep part of him finally recognized his loss.

Katie began typing again at the console. “I’m setting up one more transference, the big one.”

“You’re giving me his scientific knowledge?” Melissa guessed. “Am I right?”

Katie nodded. “If you did get divorced, it’s likely he would owe you alimony,” Katie said. “Instead of taking his money, why not take the knowledge that lets him make it?”

Mark recognized the futility of fighting what was about to happen, but he had to at least make some statement before he lost what he had left. “I know I probably deserve this,” he said. “I can’t remember exactly why now, but I doubt I would have ended up here by some random mishap. Despite what I have done, whatever it was, please… I beg you. Please, don’t take everything from me.”

Katie said, “I’m giving your wife your education from high school to now, including what you’ve learned as a researcher. I’ll leave you the duplicate skills, like driving. If your wife already knows it, then you get to keep it. I imagine you’ll probably lose some maturity along with the education. I suppose you could find some consolation in the understanding that you won’t really even know what it is you’ve lost. That’s something, I suppose.”

“I see,” he said. There was nothing else to say. He took a moment to admire the machine he had built, knowing that he would soon have no understanding of it anymore. He was proud. It was a great accomplishment. Unfortunately, it had gotten away from him. “Goodbye,” he said.

“Final transference,” Katie said. She pressed a button, and the machine hummed to full power.

Mark and Melissa were pulled together. Though their minds mixed completely, there was a feeling of separation there now. The love that had united two people felt withered. The marriage that the mind remembered was over emotionally, even though it may continue in practice. The two minds pulled apart, and they felt more separate than ever before.

Melissa lay in her chamber alone and looked around at the machine she was in. She knew what every part did. She knew how they worked down to the smallest screw. This was her machine now. She remembered building it. She remembered dreaming it up. She knew how the mind worked like no one else, now. She knew it all.

She smiled.

“Katie?” she said.

“Yes?”

“Set the machine to power down,” Melissa said. “I think I’m done. I feel… How do I put it? Complete? Yes, I feel complete now.”

“Are you sure?” Katie asked. “I was thinking you might like to try out his body. You know, take it for a spin. It would be easy to swap your minds if you wanted.”

Melissa considered having that male body she remembered. She wanted to explore the penis that she knew so well now. It was tempting. “No,” she said. “I want to, but not today. We can try that some other time. We’ll have to keep Mark around since he’s the one with the position at the university. I suppose I can borrow his body now and then when we need to do some work there. We can enjoy it together later on. Not today, though. I’m feeling a bit worn out.”

“What if he resists?”

“He’s a boy. We can handle him,” Melissa said.

Katie nodded. “Sounds good. Powering down.” She pressed some keys to start the automatic shutdown sequence.

Melissa tried to get comfortable, in spite of being bound up. It would be an hour before they could be sure that the transference had settled completely. She would be trapped in the machine until then.

Katie looked over at the other chamber and said, “I think he’s gone to sleep. I don’t blame him. His mind has a lot of holes to deal with now. Might take him a little while to reorganize his thoughts.”

Melissa asked, “What about us?”

“Is there an ‘us?’” Katie replied.

“I remember us,” Melissa said. “I remember you in so many ways. I remember the baby that you were, how I nurtured you and loved you. I remember the woman you look like now. I remember loving that body. I remember loving the ideas in that mind you possess now. You aren’t Julie. You aren’t Katie either. I don’t think there was much of a Katie to begin with, only the sketch of a person. Am I wrong?”

“No,” Katie said. “I was feeling that way, but I needed you to be in my place to understand. I’m neither of them now. I’m not a mixture of two people.”

“You are a new person,” Melissa said. “Yes, I feel it. I feel like someone else now. Not Mark and not Melissa. I know of them both, but they are not me. They’re like characters in a story I read. I feel who they were… what they were… but there’s so much more when you put them together. The old definitions don’t fit anymore. I’m not one or the other, not male or female, but both… and more.”

“Welcome to the new world,” Katie said.

“I need a new name,” Melissa announced. “How about… Marlissa?”

“Not bad,” Katie said. “You sure you want to put him first like that.”

“There’s no him or me,” Melissa said. “‘Mark’ is as much my name as his.”

“All right,” Katie said. “Marlissa it is.”

“How about you?” Marlissa asked.

“‘Kalie’ I suppose.”

“That sounds natural… Kalie.”

“It does,” Kalie said.

There was a sniffle from the chair nearby, and Marlissa and Kalie remembered there was a fourth person in the room. Kalie walked over to the baby and crouched before her to look her eye to eye.

“What will we do about her?” Kalie asked.

“Nothing,” Marlissa said, looking at the baby who was her daughter but remembered being her lover. The child cried quietly and stared off into the distance. “For now, there’s nothing she can do to get in our way.”

“She’s not going to enjoy this,” Kalie said.

“No,” Marlissa said. “I want to say that she deserves this, but then I would need to blame myself as well. I let her push us into this. It was my place to refuse her. Unfortunate that it worked out this way, but there’s nothing that can be done about it now. We can’t just wipe her mind. The machine needs a lot more development before that would be possible. For now, she’ll just have to get used to it.”

Kalie nodded and stood up. Then, she turned her back on the baby.

“Kalie?” Marlissa said.

“Yes?”

“Could you…?” Marlissa began to ask but paused. She could feel her heart racing. “Could you love me like this?”

Kalie smiled and nodded, and Marlissa knew that everything would be fine between them.

“Good,” Marlissa said. “I was a little worried.”

“We still need to get to know each other,” Kalie said. “We still need to get to know ourselves, to be honest. But, once we do, I think we’ll find something to love in each other.”

Marlissa smiled. “I feel wonderful.”

“You are.”

“You are too!”

They smiled and began to chuckle and then full out laughed. Then, after they settled down. They started making plans for the future. They discussed how they would market the machine and how they would deal with Mark and his part in all of this. They brainstormed new ideas for how to use the technology. The future was blindingly bright with possibilities for both of the new people.

***

Meanwhile, Julie sat on the chair in her baby body, feeling her face wet with tears and snot and drool and berry juice. She had wet her diaper who knows how long ago, but she did not care. She sat there as a soggy, pathetic mess and knew that it was all over. There was no going back now. Her life as she knew it was over. This was her life now.

Some part of her mind wondered how it had all gone so wrong. She looked over at the machine she had helped create, the one that had so ungratefully destroyed her. She hated it, but she could not help but feel proud of its power. That was their creation, their monster, and it had overpowered them both. Soon enough, it might even eat the whole world. Inside of its belly was the unconscious body of Mark. She wanted to blame him. Surely, this was all his fault, she decided. He had fucked it all up. He had fed them to their own pet. She tried to hate him, but she realized that there was no Mark left to hate. There was just the shell of who he was. The rest was gone, swallowed by the monster and stolen away by his wife.

Julie was alone. No one knew her secret now except for the people who wanted the secret kept quiet. There would be no rescue. No one else even knew she needed rescuing.

She wanted to scream, but she was out of screams. There would be screams later, but for now she only wanted to be held, and to be safe, and to try to forget everything. She might focus on waiting a few years until she could have some autonomy again to try to make an escape, but she doubted her captors would let her go that easily. Besides, by then, they would have changed the world. They would probably have changed her as well.

Unexpectedly, she felt a wry smile form on her face. She realized, that, in spite of all she had lost, she had succeeded. The fortune, the fame, it would be hers, maybe not directly, but through her “Mother” and her assistant. Transference, their monstrous creation, would change the world. There would be no stopping it now. In fact, it was already doing it. The four people in this basement were ground zero for the change. They were the first footsteps on the moon. Of course, when the history of the transference machine is written, this week would be left out of it, but they would remember. Someone would remember.

And, a memory is a powerful thing.

The End