Great to see you writing again! Looking forward to seeing where this goes!

Seconded.
Just where in the hell is this going? I want to know.

Okay, I am super intrigued right now. 

This also seems like the rare sort of setting where I may actually want to live. 

I am a bit surprised that among her very first questions wasn't 'who's paying for this Haley insurance thing?'

Flotsam
Chapter Three: Halley-2

“I bet you have some questions,” says the man who was once me.

I stifle a typsy, manic giggle. “Where do I even begin?”

Hank clears his throat, “Standing up when you pee is pretty convenient and more entertaining than you might think. Plus shaking instead of wiping is so much better. I don’t know why that doesn’t get talked about more...”

"Really?" I groan, "You start with peeing?"

Hank smirks, "Well, it's an obvious question. And I am kind of an expert on urination styles now."

I give Hank another burst of The Look, which since he is apparently an earlier clone of me has little effect. "The obvious question is why the fuck are you a guy!?”

“Well that is a bit complicated...” Hank takes a deep breath.

***

“I was confused when I first opened my eyes. The last thing I remembered was Clem and I fighting in the trailer park and that sudden, weird light. And then jump cut to me lying naked on an unfamiliar bed, a man sleeping next to me. I screamed, waking the man, who yelped in shock. Fortunately for me the man was Clem, still regular old skinny whiteboy Clem, with his scruffy hair and stupid goatee. But I was still a panicking mess.

Clem, meanwhile, was pretty freaked out too. Here he was on an alien planet and his girlfriend, Halley-prime, had disappeared weeks ago and now here she was in bed in the middle of the night screaming her head off. I was the first Halley clone and I had appeared without any warning so he had no clue what was happening. He thought I was the original Halley, returned from wherever it was she went, suddenly back and inexplicably losing her shit. He was startled and confused, but also elated to see me. Which all resulted in an unfortunate comedy routine: I didn't know that I was missing months of memories or that we were on an alien planet and Clem had no idea that I was a clone and not the original Halley.

Somewhere in our confusion we ended up having sex. I was using it as an emotional crutch to avoid dealing with whatever the fuck was happening and Clem was just desperately glad to see me alive. It wasn't until after we had fucked, cuddling together in that cramped bedroom of his, that we started to figure out what had happened. As Clem gently cupped my breasts he asked where I had disappeared to and whether I had figured out why we were abducted. As I nuzzled against him, enjoying his slick cock on my back, I realized that the seeming gap in my memories was significant. When I explained that the last thing I remembered was the trailer park, Clem finally figured out I wasn’t the genuine, or at least, the original Halley. And so Clem explained that we had been abducted by aliens and were stranded on a strange, alien planet.

Clem also filled me in about what I, or rather Halley-prime, had been doing since they arrived. When we first arrived Halley-prime had an anxiety driven breakdown and refused to leave her charity supplied room. We Halley’s have always struggled with our anxiety, but the combination of being kidnapped and appearing on a hostile, alien planet was too much for her. I imagine she worried that the anxiety would just go on and on, crippling her, or that she had somehow lost her mind and this was all some strange episode of psychosis. But eventually, at some point, Halley-prime turned a corner on her fear and resolved to find out why she and Clem had been abducted.  She decided she would leave no space junk unturned, would interrogate every terrifying alien until she knew who was responsible for what happened and find a way back home to Earth. And in doing so she could find a purpose on Flotsam and maybe take back control of her life. You know, fix one small problem at a time and work towards a goal, as our once therapist said.

By the time Halley had pulled herself together, Clem had managed to find a steady paycheque and a home for them. Through a combination of hustling small jobs, being an obvious charity case, and blind stupid luck, Clem had found he had a valuable, marketable skill. Clem was a Shaper... you know what? I should probably explain something...

Okay, this next part is going to be a bit hard to swallow, but, Humans aren’t native to Earth. Not really native to anywhere. Humans are a synthetic species made to be adaptable, self-replicating, sapient servants. No one seems to know who made us, but it was a long time ago and we have since mostly gone feral. Humans live on all kinds of planets with all kinds of aliens. In most places we are a tolerated minority species just living our lives, in other places humanity has managed to eke out its own self-governing polities, and in a few places humans are mostly kept as servants or even slaves. Earth, it turns out, is kind of a human nature preserve, an experiment to see what a native human society would look like if it developed organically. It’s part of a debate between some of the more prominent local aliens about whether or not humans should be considered a full sapient species. I  can’t help but feel we Earthlings are really cocking it up for the rest of humanity.

Anyway, Clementine, Clem, has a rare, valuable skill. She is what is known as a Shaper. Whoever created humans wanted the ability to customize their servants for a variety of tasks, to maybe make them mermaids to work on a water planet, or make them super strong and durable to serve as soldiers, or to make them horny and multibreasted and hyperfertile to be power breeders. To do this they invented some sort of nanomachines, which are so advanced and weird that no one really understands them. It’s science indistinguishable from magic stuff. Shapers can produce and interface with these machines to sculpt other humans to remake their body in all kinds of amazing ways. But it isn’t just anyone who can be a Shaper, it’s this rare innate ability that some tiny number of humans have. Clem, while hustling janitorial jobs for a Shaper, was exposed to the nanomachines and it became apparent that he was one of these rare Shapers. Which landed him a decent paying job learning how to Shape.

And it isn’t just that Clementine is a Shaper, it’s that she is a massively, hugely powerful Shaper. A freaking space wizard. Most people who can Shape, only have a tiny amount of talent. They can, say, change someone’s hair or eye colour, maybe make them a little slimmer or busty working a little bit at a time. Make minor cosmetic changes like Earthling plastic surgeons. People with enough talent to be professional Shapers, who are very few in number, have the ability to make larger changes, say, grow a new limb or give someone animal traits. But this is very taxing for them, and takes many hours and repeat sessions to do anything major. A tiny fraction of this small group are quite powerful, they can make big changes easily and with work, can alter bodies far from their human baseline. But these Shapers are very, very rare. Maybe 1 in a billion humans has this ability. Clem is among the most powerful group of Shapers who can rewrite a human almost completely in a single session, giving them physical and mental changes that defy the laws of biology. And she can do the very rarest of things: she can Shape aliens, albeit slowly, painstakingly over many sessions. This is such an enormously rare ability. Only a handful of people in the entire known universe are as talented at Shaping as Clementine is. Which makes her a very, very valuable commodity.

Halley-prime, all fired up to discover the reason for the abduction, initially thought that Clem's Shaper abilities were the reason they were abducted. Except... looking into it she found that it was pretty unlikely. Clem's boss, themselves a powerful Shaper, explained that the Shaping ability is completely dormant until someone is exposed to the Shaping nanobots. In civilized parts of space where Shaping is common this would typically happen when a young person first visits a shaper for a minor medical or cosmetic procedure. Or in many places parents routinely test their children at a very young age for ancient talents: Shaping, psychic abilities, telekinesis, prophecy. But on a place like Earth? The Shaping nanobots are strictly forbidden from the planet  meaning that any Shapers on the planet would be latent and nigh undetectable, especially from orbit. Which means that the abductors couldn't really have known that Clem is a nigh-omnipotent Shaper, and when you add in the very steep penalty for violating the Earthling preserve experiment.... it doesn't seem very plausible. Which, all together, was enough to convince Halley-prime that Clem and his Shaping abilities were not the driving force between their abduction. And no offence to Clem, but he wasn’t really remarkable enough to warrant a highly illegal abduction without that.

But then again, what was special about us? About Halley-prime?

So Halley-prime set off on a quest to learn why she and Clem were taken by aliens. She learned who the information brokers were on Flotsam, those people and aliens that seemed to know a bit about everything. She started working for them, doing favours, paying for information when she had to. She insinuated herself into that world and became known as a broker herself and began to earn a modest living from facilitating deals. Halley made friends with the order-obsessed cyborgs who contract for security at the spaceport and in parts of the city. She started visiting the alien consulates in the nicer parts of the city, learning what other species knew. She cultivated contacts in the Syndicate that runs organized crime on the planet, sometimes even working for them a little to earn their trust. Halley-prime visited alien Oracles, had her own potential for ancient human talents checked, and ventured out into the Junk Deserts with Scavenger crews to chase leads. She even went to the Far Outlands, the quarantined zones, and prospected for forbidden artifacts that might give her new insights. Most impressive though, is she gained entry to the Forbidden Citadel of the Greys, the compound of the enigmatic administrators of Flotsam who typically forbid outsiders from entering their home, and learned what they knew. It took Halley-prime months, but if anyone actually knew anything about why we were abducted it was her.

Which is why it is so frustrating that she disappeared.

As Clementine tells it, it was just another day. Still Clem, he had another day of apprentice work for the Shapers, doing minor, boring changes, like removing unsightly blemishes to learn control of his new power. He had breakfast with Halley-prime who was excited about chasing down a new lead, but there was nothing remarkable about that, she was always excited about a new angle on the truth. She did say that if the lead panned out that she might be away for a few days, but that he shouldn’t worry. They kissed goodbye, I love youed, and went their separate ways. And that was the last time Clem, or anyone, remembers seeing Halley-prime.

Clem did search for her, of course. He hounded all of her contacts among the information brokers, but they didn’t know about the lead she was after. He asked the security folks, the consulate staffs, and the Scavenger crews that Halley most often worked with. But no one there had seen her either. Clem made a formal request to see what tracking data the Grey’s had on Halley, but they never responded. He even confronted one of the lieutenants of the Syndicate, fortunately one who respected Halley, who could only express ignorance and remorse at her disappearance. Without any leads Clem had to give up and hope she returned, there was just no other way forward. Clem still doesn’t know what happened to her, whether she is dead or still alive, whether she maybe was abducted again or escaped Flotsam, or whether she maybe found what she was looking for.

I personally hope she found her answers.

Weeks passed and then suddenly I appeared, naked and confused and having no memories of the two years Halley-prime spent on Flotsam.”

***

I sit and think about what Hank has just told me as he serves some customers. Customers who are a hardy looking group of men that I decide have an air of futuristic desperation; very motorcar, very dystopian. They sit on chairs fashioned from cleverly bent pipe around one of the repurposed cargo canisters tables and drink beer analogue. The background music alternates between 1950s Rockabilly and very cheesy 1970s disco, presumably the only authentic Earthling music on Flotsam. These roadwarriors wear armour studded coveralls plastered with dust and wide streaks of rust. One of the group wears a cybernetic looking monocle thing, which might actually just be his eye. All of them have thick tattoo like lines of something metallic running through their exposed skin. "Scavengers?" I ask Hank when he returns to where I sit at the enormous steel structural beam serving as a bar.

"Sort of," Hank answers. "Gauld and his boys are Salvagers, which are a bit more legit."

"And the difference is?"

"A Salvager stakes a claim on a particular plot of land within the Administered Zone, usually for something like a fairly intact derelict spacecraft. Their goal is to systematically strip the thing for everything its worth, reselling functioning parts, maybe scrapping any high value metals, and auctioning off any exciting technology. It's dirty, honest work; kind of like the mining industry of Flotsam. Scavengers, on the other hand, are more like prospectors, they are looking to find something valuable and strike it big all in one go. They essentially wander the Junk Deserts looking for rare artifacts or sexy tech, often without much regard for the official rules of Salvage or other sapients claims. They also have a tendency to enter the Outlands." Hank leans in, "Salvagers don't much like Scavengers, so try not to get them confused... or call my customers Scavengers, okay?"

I nod and try not roll my eyes. Wake up on an alien planet just to find out people are just as tribally petty as back home. It seems human nature transcends Earth.

Hank pours me another not-beer and asks, "Where were we?"

"You still haven't told me why you are a dude, oh formerly-known-as-Halley-two."

"Right...."

***

"So I wake up naked in Clem's bed, and we both flip out, like you do. After much confusion and some sex we figure out I am not the Halley-prime, or if I am, I am missing a ton of memories. So of course we try and figure out what the fuck is going on.

Which.. actually doesn't take all that much effort. It turns out the apparent resurrection of a loved one is a feat only a handful of groups on Flotsam can accomplish. Clem asked some of Halley-prime's info broker contacts and the next thing I know we are at the very swank law offices of Luminous Intergalactic, the front company of the mysterious Annunaki aliens. The Annunaki are a *very* advanced and reclusive species who definitely don't live on Flotsam or spend much time in this galaxy. They do have a company though, and it has offices on Flotsam to pay top dollar for any weird or interesting scavenged technology. Luminous Intergalactic has their offices in a handsome stone building with beautiful marble everything and staffed by a human man and woman who look suspiciously like Carl Sagan and Linda Salzman Sagan. They were very eager to help, to a point. The woman Sagan clone was able to confirm that I was a clone of Halley generated by one of their insurance policies. But the man-Sagan explained that they have strict client confidentiality and could not discuss the particulars of said policy. Clem asked if my presence meant that Halley-prime was dead. The Sagans told us they couldn't comment on this particular case, but that death is often the condition triggering the policy. Although, they added, the insurance policy could depend on other more nebulous conditions too. Which, since we are two real live Halleys sitting in a bar talking about this, I suspect death is not the main trigger. Anyway, Clem kept peppering the LI employees with questions about Halley that they politely rebuffed while I thought about the thing I wanted to know most. Who the fuck was paying for this?

I knew the Sagans would never tell me, so instead I asked how much a resurrection policy cost. The answer, converting from our local currency, is too much fucking money. The Annunaki charge an absolute fortune for this kind of insurance, enough that virtually no one on Flotsam could afford it, especially Halley-prime. I felt a tickle of anxiety in my stomach. What kind of sicko was I suddenly beholden to? A rich, anonymous weirdo or a soulless interstellar corporation or worse, maybe I was in hoc to the Syndicate. I was fending off a panic attack when Clem asked if the Annunaki accepted other forms of payment. The woman-Sagan pointed out that Luminous Industries was more interested in technology or interesting artifacts than money, since what did the Annunaki need with the local currency? The man-Sagan continued that an artifact of sufficient value could easily be used as barter for a resurrection insurance plan, although he of course couldn't comment on this particular policy. I was relieved to hear this, since it was at least possible that Halley-prime managed to find something really cool on one of her trips into the Junk Desert and traded it for insurance. But that was only a possibility and it didn't really explain what might have happened to Halley, or why I had such a big gap in my memory, or why Halley-prime felt she might need insurance in the first place. It really was still wide open.

We eventually left the offices of Luminous Industries almost right where we started out from: Halley-prime was still missing and I was a clone paid for by someone. Clem, lacking any new leads had to accept that Halley-prime was out of the picture, either dead or long gone, maybe off planet. But he did have me, Halley-two, wide-eyed and naive to this brave new alien world. So Clem decided it was time to stop chasing Halley-prime and focus on helping me.

And he really steered into it, making me feel like an absolute princess in my first weeks on Flotsam. He took some time off work and showed me around the city, taking me to all of his favourite places and introducing me to his exotic friends. He cooked me strange alien delicacies and bought me amazing futuristic gadgets and generally taught me what I needed to live here. And Halley, I was so in love. I mean, I never stopped loving Clem, having just been resurrected, but this was like it was when we were first together, everything new and fresh. And the sex! He was so grateful to see me alive and he tried so hard to please me. It was the second greatest whirlwind romance of my life.

And for a few months it was enough.

But... curiosity started to get the better of me....

For the sake of Clem I really did try to stay out of trouble.... but the mystery of Halley-prime disappearing and my cloned existence was just too juicy to ignore. So when Clem went to work with the Shapers, I tried to pick up where Halley had left off, introducing myself to her contacts and interviewing all her friends to figure out where she might have gone. And, unsurprisingly I didn’t learn much, except maybe something about the Syndicate and something about a journey deep into the Junk Desert. I couldn’t really act on either of those leads without putting myself into danger and I couldn’t do that to Clem. But I was invested in solving the mystery. What was I going to do?

It turns out I didn’t have to worry about it, because that’s when it happened...

I came home from a jog to find a woman crying in our bedroom. She wasn’t anyone I’d met, a lanky brown haired gal wearing too large clothes, awkwardly hugging herself on our bed. She looked up at the sound of me entering the room and our eyes met, and I suddenly realized I was looking at Clem. I must have looked shocked, because blushing the woman whimpered “It’s me, it’s Clem.”  I had no idea what was going on, but my good person module kicked in and I went straight to poor Clem and gathered her thin body into my arms and held as she cried.

‘What happened,” I eventually asked. “Why are you a girl?”

Clem sniffled and I combed her newly long hair out of her eyes and mouth. “It... it was an accident,” she sniffed, “sort of...” Clem explained that another Shaper had dared her into transforming herself into a woman. Clem had balked at this, he wasn’t trans and didn’t harbour any secret fantasies about being a woman. But the other Shaper kept after him, calling him chicken, questioning whether he could even do it. The bullying didn’t really get to Clem, you know he has had much worse, but the challenge intrigued him. Could he make that big a change all at once? He knew he was powerful, but he was still learning and a complete gender swap was a substantial transformation. And, well, maybe it would be fun? He could surprise me and we could spend the evening like gal pals, maybe do something silly and girly like paint our nails or go shopping. And maybe we could fool around or even have sex. With the option on the table, the idea of trying out sex as a woman, if only once, was actually kind of intriguing. So Clem decided to go for it. He reached out to the Shaping nano machines that lived in his blood and pushed them with his mind, reshaping his body, not into the weird space princess she is now, but just a baseline female version of himself. He, now she, had succeeded.

At first Clem had been elated, she had just accomplished something incredible. But then he felt something different about his nanites and his body. He touched them and tried to Shift his body back.... and couldn’t. Something had gone wrong. “I’m stuck!” Clem cried in my arms before breaking out in sobs again.

What no one had told Clem was that when a Shaper transformed themself, the change was permanent. No one was entirely sure why things worked this way. One theory is that it’s a safety feature: Shaping takes a physical toll on both the Shaper and the person being shaped, a shared cellular burden that leaves both parties exhausted by the experience. When a Shaper works on themselves, that burden falls entirely on their own body and if they had the ability to make multiple changes to themselves they would risk serious injury or death. Another idea people have is that it’s a security element, a purposefully designed limitation to prevent Shapers from altering their shapes and acting as doppelgängers and stealing other peoples identities. Regardless of the underlying reason, someone had really needed to inform Clem of this rule, but everyone had just assumed he had known since it was common knowledge. The Shaper who had goaded him was jealous of his power and when they noticed his ignorance decided to use it against him and so now Clem is stuck being mostly female.

As I held Clem, trying to soothe her, an idea came to me. “Clem,” I said, “I want you to make me a man.”

I don’t know where exactly the idea came from, but I knew it was the right thing to do. If Clem was going be stuck with a new sex and gender, then I could too. This way I would be going through the same dysmorphic roller coaster as Clem, giving us a chance to support each other. Part of me thought we could even make it into an adventure, that we could teach each other about our new genders and make a game of it. Besides, for me it would only be a temporary change since Clem could change me back when we were ready. Worst case scenario I suffer through a few months of body hair and sat on balls to make Clem feel a little better. “Clem, I’m completely serious. Make me a man.”

Clem looked at me, her wide eyes shining with admiration and tears. “Okay,” Clem said, pushing herself out of my arms and sitting up on the bed. “First, you’ll need to take off your clothes and lie down.” I did as instructed, touching my Key to command my clothes to relax. I slipped out of everything and dutifully laid down on the bed. My skin prickled in the cool air and I felt a wave of nervousness wash over me. I stroked my stomach and cupped my breasts in a goodbye gesture. What the fuck was I volunteering for? What did Shaping even feel like? “Last chance...” Clem told me as she kneeled over me, a concerned, but excited look on her face. “Just get on with it,” I growled, worried that I would try and chicken out of it. Clem leaned down and kissed me hard on the mouth....

...and I felt a jolt; an electric tingle ran through my body radiating from where our lips touched and out through my limbs. My body began to warm, taking on a feverish quality as the Shaping nanomachines that had invaded my body powered up. The heat concentrated like a welt in my breasts and I gasped as I watched them recede into my chest. This was, this was actually happening. My chest reshaped itself, gaining muscular pecs, as the sculpting heat marched along my now washboard stomach and down to my hips which squeezed, narrowed, and reformed trading fat for muscle. These changes rippled out over my limbs which bulked up and lengthened, gaining muscle and strength. Waves of heat crawled over my head and face and I felt it reshape like putty, gaining rugged masculine features. Finally I felt a sharp burst of heat in my vagina, alerting me to the largest change. I moaned, a new deep, male sounding moan, as my clitoris and vulva began to push out and merge into a phallus. I gasped as my vaginal cleft fused and sealed before ballooning out into a scrotum. I felt my guts writhe as my mutating ovaries migrated out of my body and became my new testicles. I had grown a cock and balls and ohhhh, my cock was so hard and...

And I realized that Clem had pulled off her shirt and had grasped my new cock in her dainty hand and was jacking me off. I writhed at the alien sensations of my engorged hard cock being held in a tight, pistoning hand. I was panting, feeling a new pressure building, myself narrowing to a point. Clem saw me look at her, and held my eyes a moment before ducking forward and popping the head of my penis into her mouth. The warm moisture of her mouth coupled with the kinky visual of my femininzed boyfriend sucking my cock pushed me over the edge and I came, ejaculating. Clem, inexperienced as she was, sputtered and chocked on my cum and slipped off my cock giggling a little. I had only been a man for a few minutes and I had already had my first male orgasm.

And as I basked there on the bed, I realized I liked it.

What followed was a strange and kind of wonderful phase of our relationship. Clem made a game of steering into gender norms, experimenting with being a ‘stereotypical’ woman. Clem had her hair styled in ringlets and bought a very girly wardrobe of dresses and rompers and other very femme clothing. She insisted that among my lessons about feminine hygiene that I also teach her how to do makeup, and she adopted lipstick and nail polish into her life. We went on dates, holding hands as she tottered uncertainly in heels, where we ate dinner while she played with her hair and giggled. When we went to watch the gladiators, she pressed herself into my strong arms and squealed at the violence. She was being, for all the weird heteronormativity, super cute. And I was finding myself falling into the game. I enjoyed how she relied on me for strength and comfort, and I started to look for ways to touch her protectively or clutch her posessively. I started to lift her up, not for any practical reason really, but as a macho display of strength and because she always cooed appreciatively. Performing being a man was, I was finding, fun.

And then there was the sex, which was actually fairly complicated. Despite Clem being gung-ho about playing with my cock when she changed me, she was actually quite shy about her new genitals. For weeks all we did was make out like horny teenagers, grinding crotches while she took off her top and let me play with her small, high tits. I would gently push for more, offering to teach her how great a female orgasm was, but she would keep her pants or underwear on and demur. To distract me, I think, she steered into giving me oral sex, performing awkward, but improving, blowjobs to keep me happy and away from her strange new vagina. Eventually, and it took a bottle of berry wine to get us sufficiently relaxed, I got Clem out of her pants and onto my face. I went slowly that first time, lazily caressing Clem’s vulva with my tongue and raining her cute little clitoris with kisses, before slowly, slowly ramping up my licks and finally slipping a finger into her snatch to stroke her. She writhed and gasped and panted and swore, her thighs boxing my ears and shoulders, before finally with a whoop she squeezed my head and bucked through her first orgasm. As she lay panting I asked if she wanted me to keep going and breathlessly she nodded.

Three days later we finally fucked.

And after that our sex life was launched like a rocket, both of us addicted to our new sexual experiences like a couple of dumbass horny teens. Clem was and is an absolute whore in the sack. It was really, really fun and was absolutely the greatest whirlwind romance of my life.

This isn’t to say it was all sex and gender fantasy roleplaying. It wasn’t unusual to find Clem sitting sadly at night, maybe clutching a sheaf screen with an old picture of her male self on it. And when she had her first period, she broke down completely, fingers bloody wailing at the unfairness of it all. She even cried when I grew my first beard, jealous of my display of masculinity. Clementine really did struggle with adapting to her forced new gender.

I knew Clem had finally reconciled herself to her new body the day she told me to call her Clementine. I mean, it was kind of already obvious. The crying jags were gone, or at least about other things when they happened. Clementine had also stopped trying so hard to be girly and had settled into a new persona. She still was more femme than before, but gone was the elaborate makeup and styling and pink frilly clothes and in its place was a more mature and comfortable palette of simple, muted modern womenswear. Clementine had really grown into herself and seemed ready to carry on with her adjusted life.

Which was the beginning of the end of our relationship.

You see, while Clementine was willing to experiment with a dude and will still occasionally take a man to bed, she is still mostly attracted to women, be they all-natural or the penis-having kind. I noticed she started to check out girls when we were out on the town, and her enthusiasm for our sex life started to cool a little. But I, maybe foolishly, didn't think too much of it until the day when she asked me if I was ready to turn back, to be Shaped back into a woman. And well...

I balked, I didn't want to change back.

I like being a man, I like being Hank. Some of it is the body itself; just like Clem, I had grown into being Hank and learned to enjoy my male body. The size, the strength, sex, the works, being a dude was great. But it was more than that. I liked that I was someone different, that I was Hank, a new identity that I owned, instead of Halley-two, an insurance clone of another woman. I finally felt like I was a real person and not just a redo. So I really didn’t want to change back into plain old Halley.

Which meant that there was only one thing to do.

I wrote Clementine a letter, explaining our impasse and then joined a Salvager crew headed into the Junk Desert. I know it was kind of a shitty thing to do, running away like that, but I’m still pretty sure it was the right thing. We couldn’t stay together and both be happy. Rather than drag things out, I decided to do the bandaid thing and get it over with at once. This way we would both get to move on and live our new lives, me having macho adventures in the Junk Desert and Clementine would get to move on and find a nice new girlfriend and get past all the Halley nonsense.

Little did I know a month after I disappeared into the Junk Desert that a new Halley would appear.”

***

Hank smiles apologetically at me, “and that is the sordid tale of why I am a dude.”

***

(A double long chapter also known as "The Backstory" or "The Never Ending Exposition". Next up "World Building" or "Yet More Exposition". Enjoy!)

I have to admit, this last installment was a bit to get through, but it's worth it!

It's very rare to see gender change tackled so... well, sensibly, in this sort of literature.  I'm actually looking forward to Yet More Exposition.  You've left me interested in this world and these characters.

Very high quality writing! I'm impressed.

Flotsam
Chapter Four: Goodnight Moons

I am drinking something wickedly alcoholic called Rocket and staring at an evening sky with two moons.

My drinking companion, Hank the bartender, is another clone of Halley who swapped his gender by choice. It’s a lot to take in. I mean, I just learned that one version of me went full on trans. Did I secretly want to be a dude too? I give Hank a good long look. He is sprawled in a lawn chair here on the rooftop garden of his bar, casually sipping his booze. He is certainly handsome, suspiciously so with his access to a body sculpting Shaper. Chiselled jaw, dark curly hair, a muscular body that bespeaks too much gym time, a cute smile. He looks good. But I’m definitely more in the camp of wanting to be with him than actually be him. Although, no, nope, definitely no fucking your male doppelgänger. Can he guess what I’m thinking? And now I blush...

Another drink of Rocket, short for Rocket Fuel. Burns down my throat, takes me to the moon. Moons. Fuck.

New topic. Hank's rooftop garden is surprisingly nice. The 'second floor' of Hank's Hideaway bar is split between Hank's apartment and his garden, meaning that he has space for a patio for getting hammered on Rocket, and room for plants. And it seems the good barkeep also has a green thumb. The edges of the patio have wide planter boxes bursting with bright and exotic looking flowers, most of which I don't recognize but smell kind of amazing. Around this, Hank has garden beds filled with vegetables, some climbing up metal frames, others in sprawling vines. I think I see zucchini and English peas, which is comforting. Although, I doubt they call them English peas here... Hank even built a small greenhouse and seems to be growing purple tomatoes in it. I had always wanted to have a proper garden, and it seems that Hank realized that dream. I'm a little jealous. Of the garden, not the penis.

After Hank's customers left for the evening he closed the bar, fetched a bottle of Rocket, and led me up to the roof. He explained that today was the First Night of Shift Change, the five day Flotsam weekend for the human community, and people by custom spend First Night visiting family or close friends. And so he always closes the bar to enjoy some quiet before a hectic bar crowd descends for the rest of the holiday. Plus he added, pouring Rocket into a couple glasses and directing me to a lawn chair, it isn't everyday you get to drink with new family. We toasted, drank, and have been enjoying some companionable silence since.

I take another sip of my drink and enjoy the city views from the rooftop. The city, imaginatively named Flotsam City, is built onto a large, almost cylindrical mesa of red stone. Thie city perched on its mesa sticks right out of the Junk Desert and is surrounded as far as the horizon with twisting piles of mostly metallic space junk debris. The only other feature that breaks through the trash heap is a second, shorter but wide-topped mesa that serves as the city's spaceport. I secretly hope it's called Jetsam. Jet...sam. Like an airplane. I'm hilarious.

From my vantage point on the roof I can see the city seems like it has three parts. The top of the mesa is dominated by a single structure, some sort of large, reflectively silver building that is separated from the rest of the city by a sheer drop of naked cliff. Next there are a series of terraces cut into the mesa like steps, home to an attractive assortment of stone buildings that seems to perch possessively over the lower city. Finally, where the mesa transitions from vertical to sloped, is the random looking warren of improvised buildings that make up the rest of the city. Which is where Hank’s Hideaway lives and where our heroine, me, is getting drunk on Rocket.

Under a two moon sky.

Hank sees me looking at the towering mesa and points at the silver structure on the top.  “That,” Hank says dramatically, “is the Greys Citadel, the forbidden enclave of the administrators of Flotsam.” I give it a long look and realize it is a perfect sphere sprouting from the flat top of the mesa, smooth and reflective, like a bead of mercury glinting in the evening sunlight. It definitely looks forbidding and futuristic and chillingly alien.

“Our alien overlords?” I ask.

Hank laughs. “Hardly. The Greys are a pretty hands off bunch.” He pauses and looks thoughtful. “The Greys are the most technologically advanced, powerful species on Flotsam and probably in our galaxy. They have the best tech, control the most space, and have won every war with an upstart species that thinks they can...” and he switches to a cartoon voice, “Conquer the Galaxy! But they mostly want to be left alone to do their thing... which is, well, kind of mysterious. They're a private bunch. Their Spawning Worlds, their homeworlds, are completely off limits to outsiders, and on shared planets their huge arcology cities are private. That isn’t to say the Greys are xenophobic, they are super cool with aliens living on the majority of their planets and Grey Space was one of the first places that tolerated free humans. Aliens just have to follow their laws and respect their boundaries.”

“So they are more like our alien landlords?”

“Yeah, kinda. And also kind of like the galactic cops. The Greys have an Enclave on Flotsam mostly to keep an eye on it. Since the Nexus wormhole network dumps trash into the star system, the Greys have decided to administer Flotsam to watch out for any strange, dangerous technology that shows up and confiscate it. They aren’t really interested in governing Flotsam, so all of us are pretty much free to do as we want as long as we don’t kill, harm, or enslave sapients or do anything that interferes with their mission to interdict dangerous space relics. It’s basically a free port.”

“Cool” I say, for lack of anything more intelligent. ‘What do they look like?”

Hank snorts, “Right, duh, okay. The Greys looks like stereotypical aliens. You know Roswell aliens? Like that. Big, bald, teardrop heads with huge black eyes, slit mouths, and nostrils without a nose. They are short, like four feet tall and almost always wear sequin jumpsuits when you see them in public.”

I do my best little alien voice, “Take me to your leader! Prepare the anal probes!”

Hank laughs, which I decide somehow makes him more handsome. “They don’t actually talk.” He touches his head with a finger. “They are psychic. Also they are weird. They don’t seem to have like, a cognitive model like us humans.” Hank makes his thoughtful face, "I’ve hear that talking to the Greys is like being a deaf person trying to describe colour to a blind person who only wants to talk about music. It is equal parts trippy and frustrating. But they mostly keep to their enclave, so you probably will never see one, let alone try and talk with one. You are way more likely to interact with their drones and AI officials.” Hank points at a silver sphere flying lazily over the city.

I suppress a shudder. I’m not sure I like the idea of being spied on by little aliens and their robots. I drink another mouthful of Rocket. At least drone surveillance isn't anal probes.

I point at the terraces with the fancy stone buildings, “Is that where the fancy people live?”

Hank nods, “Some wealthy sapients live up there, yeah. But it’s mostly corporate offices and consulates.” Hank makes a very Halley frowny face as he organizes his thoughts. “Most of what makes the local economy work is collecting the valuable salvage the Nexus spits out. A bunch of that comes from mining the Junk Desert here on Flotsam, and the rest comes from crews that scour the debris fields in space. The salvage generally breaks down into three types: valuable metals and materials that get collected in bulk and shipped to other planets for recycling; functioning tech, especially slightly illegal weapons, which mostly get sent to blackmarket shipyards that do shady refits; and advanced, unique alien artifacts that get sold to tech companies for reverse engineering. Up on the terraces are the corporate offices of salvage brokers that buy scrap from the Salvagers and ship it to other planets. There are also offices of most of the big tech companies, since a single cool tech artifact can be a huge, wildly profitable discovery. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s enough of a game changer to make having staff on Flotsam a necessity.”

That all makes a kind of sense to me. ‘Why the alien governments? Looking for cool tech too?”

Hank nods, “That’s part of it, the first consulates opened on Flotsam just to buy cool tech directly from Salvagers. Any tech advantage, especially military stuff, is worth a lot to some species. But the main reason there are so many consulates here has to do with diplomacy and the Nexus. The Nexus is a weird kind of travel network. Different locations that access the Nexus have different... potentials? Which means that it’s very easy to make certain trips and difficult and very time consuming to travel to other places. In kind of a random way? Because Flotsam is the trash heap of the Nexus, it has a really convenient potential. Basically you can get to Flotsam quickly and easily from pretty much everywhere in the galaxy. There are other Hubs, other common convenient places to travel, but they tend to be nice places with strict governments. Flotsam is a free port with administrators who don’t really care what the locals get up to, so Flotsam has become a place where different governments can meet on the downlow, and have backchannel communication. So pretty much everyone started to keep consulates here. Flotsam is the best secret diplomatic hotspot that every knows about.”

“Cool,” I say, because this time it actually is cool.

Hank nods, “Yeah, there is a lot cloak and dagger spy stuff. The ease of getting to Flotsam also makes it a hotspot for crime and smuggling too. It’s an interesting place to live.”

Says the guy who is another clone of the woman I am also a clone of. “So alien landlords up top, then the fancy people, then the rest?”

Hank fiddles with a glowing wristband. A hightech smartwatch? After a moment he looks up and nods. “Basically, yeah. Below the Terraces are the main neighbourhoods of the city, spread out in a ring around the mesa. The lower city breaks down into a few districts, based mostly on the main species that live there." Hank points at the spaceport Mesa in the distance. I look and see an arrowhead shaped spacecraft cruise in toward the mesa, execute a smart little turn, and then gracefully drift toward a landing space. I also notice that the spaceport is linked to the main city by a suspended rail system that supports large cargo trams that shuttle between the two mesas. "The part of the city closest to the spaceport is the Port District," Hank explains, "and its pretty much what you'd expect. Lots of bars and hotels and boarding houses that cater to visitors and the hardcore Spacers that spend months in the black between port calls. It's home to the main entertainment district on Flotsam with most of the clubs, taverns, bordellos, casinos, and theatres in the city. It's also where you'll find the Arena. You should definitely make a trip out that way soon, but make sure you bring a grownup, it can be a pretty rough neighbourhood."

"Aye, aye," I say. "I wouldn't want to get shanghaied"

Hank makes an uncharacteristically serious face. "That's not really a joking matter. The Greys might forbid slavery, but enforcement of their rules ends at orbit. Seriously, be careful around the Port."

Fuck. "Noted."

"Next to the Port District we have The Human district. Humans make up more than a third of the population of Flotsam and are a mixed bunch coming from all over the place. Most humans are from other Grey territories, here to try their fortunes on Flotsam, but there are members of all kinds of interesting human subcultures. You get escaped human slaves, members of weird cults exiled from their home systems, and members of splinter groups that really challenge what can be defined as human." Hank winks, "Rumour has it there are even a few Earthlings here."

Hank points off the roof to the footpath right in front of the bar. I crane my neck to see a troop of four armoured humanoid shaped beings. They are wearing what looks a lot like combat gear: armour plates on their torso, nylon-esque webbing, so very many pouches, and heavy rucksacks. Under their gear they are coated in a dull, gunmetal grey substance that looks skintight. The substance covers their heads too, forming a smooth metallic shell that completely hides their faces. “Those are Ürnauts,” Hank says. “They are one of the more extreme human groups on Flotsam.”

“What makes them extreme?” I ask.

“The Ürnauts are heavily into cybernetic body modification. That grey coating on their bodies is their actual skin; those helmets are their heads. And inside of that skin their body is riddled with implants and enhancements. Many of the Ürnauts you see are more machine than man.”

I giggle, and say lustily “I always love meeting people who are more machine than man.” Fuck, what? I gotta slow down on this Rocket.

Hank chuckles, “Hale’s you outta ease up on the Rocket throttle there.” Dork. “Another serious bit of advice is to maybe give them a wide berth.”

“Why? Will they assimilate me?”

“No. The Ürnauts are extremely lawful people. But in a lot of Flotsam they are also The Law, being in charge of security in the human district, at the port, in the terraces, and in many businesses around town. They are basically fair, but they take order very seriously, and will absolutely punish anyone they catch breaking pretty much any rule. No exceptions, no second chances, no nuanced leniency. And their justice can be... well, it can be pretty harsh and a bit disturbing. I wouldn’t want to experience it firsthand. Often the easiest way to stay on their good side is just to keep out of their way.”

“Okay,” I say.

"Anyway, the diversity of humanity on Flotsam makes the human district into more of a collection of smaller neighbourhoods that each cater to a certain flavour of humanity. Hanks Hideaway and Clementine's place are in The Purple Quarter, which is the neighbourhood furthest from the Port."

"Purple District?"

Hank stands up, a little unsteadily, and waves me over to one side of the roof. He points at a plaza covered in outdoor restaurant seating, which I realize is actually the roof of a downslope building that must be a cafe. I look at the patrons and notice something odd about them: they're aliens. "Those are Blues," Hank explains. I take a longer, harder look at the alien patrons and immediately notice that they have blue skin. Hence Blues I guess. Otherwise they are humanoid enough to almost but not quite pass for human. They are taller and thinner, with angular lanky bodies that look kind of like someone took a picture of a human and stretched it vertically. They have narrow, elongated faces with striking cheekbones; thin, almost lipless mouths; big crescent nostrils on thin noses, and large dark eyes. They don’t look like they have any hair on their bodies or heads and instead wear shawls or amusingly pointy Sci-if hats. The Blues don’t seem, at least from this collection of them, to have more than one sex or gender: no breasts or curves or size differences.

“Just one sex?” I ask.

“Blues have females and males just like humans, but they don’t really have secondary sexual characteristics or dimorphism. Male and female Blues basically look the same, even when they're naked. Their genitals are internal, unless in use, so they have closed slits that only open to show a penis-like or vagina-like organ when they couple.”

“Sounds confusing...”

“Not to them, Blues use scent cues and pheromones to convey gender and sex signals. For them it’s not how they look, it’s all about how they smell.”

“So we just sniff them?” Gross.

Hank laughs and shakes his head, “Humans can’t process their signals, so it’s mostly polite to just use neutral pronouns when speaking to them. Blues only refer to each other by gender for sexy times and courting, so calling them “they” or whatever actually matches their custom.”

"That's very PC of you."

"Well, it wouldn't do to insult the neighbours." Hank points off in the opposite direction of The Port, "Because the next district over is the Blue District. Blues make up another third of the city and have a much more unified culture than Flotsam's humans. Their part of the city is centred on their Congregation Hall, which you can just make out the top of..." Hank points and yeah, I can see a tall spire sticking out of an onion shaped dome painted in a mute, aquamarine. "That's the centre of Blue life, with pretty much everything organized around it. The most important shared buildings and wealthiest neighbourhoods are built right next to the Hall, and the poorest or most uncouth are hidden on the edges of the district."

I frown. "That sounds kind of shitty."

Hank does a kind of shrug sway, "Well no more so than anyone else in the galaxy. Blues are generally pretty good sapients. I mean, individually they are like anyone, some good sapients, some assholes, but as a species they are tolerant, peaceful, and socially minded. They really do make an effort to look out for every member of their species, it's part of their Contract of Social Responsibility... which, fuck," Hank takes a drink of Rocket, "I am both too drunk and too sober to get into it. But basically, the Blues are alright. They also get along great with us humans. So much so that this neighbourhood, The Purple Quarter, is a mixed one that is shared pretty equally by humans and Blues."

"Purple because Blue and Red... for humans?"

"Exactly! The Purple Quarter is the squishy interface between Human and Blue districts and caters to both species. There are marketplaces that swap cultural items between species, restaurants with human and Blue dishes, and clothing printers who carry designs for both species, and a bunch of other businesses that cater to everybody. The Purple Quarter also gathers a bunch of weirdos, outsiders, and artists from either species which means the neighbourhood also features a bunch of galleries and experimental theatres and giving everything a bit of a bohemian vibe."

"I've always been a sucker for that kind of twee shit."

Hank ignores my barb and I pout a little. "The Purple Quarter, probably because of its inclusivity, also attracts other aliens. Most of the more gregarious and human-friendly species make their homes in the Purple Quarter. They may only make a tiny fraction of the sapients on Flotsam, but there are some remarkable aliens living here among us."

Hank's smart watch thing beeps at him and he walks over to the side of the roof. A kind of shitty looking quadcopter drone buzzes into view and hovers above Hank. Emblazoned on the drone is the logo of a centauress wearing a cowboy hat who looks a little too much like me, like Halley. I try not to read too much into this. The drone seems to scrutinize Hank for a moment before releasing a plastic cargo pod from its underside and lowering it on a cable into Hank's waiting arms. Hank unhooks the cartoon, and the drone flies away, spooling its cable as it goes. Hank pops open the cargo pod and a rich food smell hits me. My stomach growls, I realize that I, this clone iteration, has never eaten a meal. Me hungry.

Hank pulls out a few of small, plastic cartoons and hands me one, along with a utensil that resembles a cross between chop sticks and tongs, a kind of hinged food pincer. Eagerly I open the carton to find a box full of noodles smothered in sauce with cubes of some sort of meat. I scoop up some noodles with my pincer and lift them to my mouth. Hesitantly I take a nibble and am rewarded with a burst of savoury and spice, something like cinnamon/peanut with tamarind. I take a bigger bite and it definitely reminds me of Thai food. "This is good," I say before jamming a larger pincerful of noodles into my mouth.

Hank smiles, "I thought you'd like it. It's from a Blue noodle shop a few blocks away, and is kind of Blue/Human fusion joint. The meat is Vat Meat, in case you were wondering. Flotsam has greenhouses out by the ocean, but we don't have a lot of livestock, so we eat a lot of vat grown meat. It's a bit bland on its own, but it works just like chicken in things." I could only agree as I continued to wolf down my noodles. Food food food food! Say one thing about Halley, say she has a healthy appetite. Especially when she is drunk.

I finally come up for air. "The Port, Humans, Blue District... what's left?"

Hank hands me another carton with something like pickled cucumbers in it. "There is only one major district left and it belongs to the Reptilians."

"Reptilians?" I ask, mouth full. "Like... the lizard people aliens who are secretly the British Royal Family or the rich people who run the world?"

Hank smirks, "Actually kind of, although they never ran the Earth. And the only Reptilian to have anything to do with the Royal Family was a defector who had infiltrated Earth to make a deal with the Nazis but instead fell in love with a duchess."

"You're fucking with me!" Right!?

Hank shakes his head. "The Reptilians are one of the only alien species that still keep humans as slaves or indentured servants. They thought WW2 and the invention of atomic weapons would end the Earth experiment, which would end the protected status of Earthlings, opening up the planet to be exploited. So they sent an agent to Earth to try and trade alien technology to the Nazis for slaves. But he fell hopelessly in love with some minor royal and went native. And then the war ended and the Earth experiment was allowed to continue, either in peace or in an anthropologically interesting mushroom cloud."

"Wild," I manage with a mouth full of pickled-whatever.

"You'll know a Reptilian when you see one," Hank continues, "they look almost exactly like you would imagine: big crocodile looking people with green scales, fangs, tails, and stocky, bulging muscles. They are big and mean, fairly technologically advanced, and very xenophobic. The Snakes think they are a superior species and that other sapients, particularly humans, are inferior and deserve to be subjugated. Hence, I guess, the human slavery. The Reptilians believe they should be running the galaxy and even waged a war against the Greys to display their dominion. A war that fortunately they lost: the Greys totally, completely kicked their ass. So now here they are, another client species to the Greys, rooting around on Flotsam with the rest of us." Hank and I both shovel a tong-load of noodles into our mouths, synchronized eating style. He chews, swallows, continues: "The Reptilian's claim to fame is running the Syndicate, the organized crime on Flotsam. Most of the drugs, vice, and smuggling on Flotsam run through the Syndicate and basically every Snake on the planet works for them in one way or another." Hank gives me smouldering serious eyes, "I cannot emphasize enough that these are bad, violent sapients who will jack you the fuck up if you cross them." Dramatic pause. "They are forbidden by the Greys from taking Slaves on Flotsam, but they will indenture anyone they can. Do. Not. Make. A. Deal. With. Them." Smoulder. "Ever!"

"Okay" I say. "Reptiles equal bad."

Hank nods. "The Reptilian District is also home to a few other alien species. The Reptilian Empire remains vast and contains a bunch of vassal species, some of which live with their rulers here on Flotsam. And, since the Reptilian District is quiet, some of the more private alien species have compounds there too. It's definitely not the friendliest part of town for humans." Hank gestures broadly, encompassing the entire city, "And thus concludes my oral tour of Flotsam City."

And seemingly right on cue a voice shouts, "Hail! Barkeep!"

What the fuck? I Follow Hank over to the edge of the roof and look down. Standing on the ground in front of the bar stands a remarkably massive woman of some sort. The first most obvious thing about her is that she is very tall and very muscular, easily a seven foot tall amazon. The second most obvious thing about her is that she has four arms and four very impressive breasts.  The woman is blonde and beautiful in a vital, handsome kind of way, and smirks at us roguishly. "I have travelled far to slake my thirst!" She thunders. "I shall not be denied!"

Hanks smiles and rolls his eyes. "Freya, you know the door recognizes you," he calls to her.

"What? I shall have to take your castle by force?" She booms a jovial and slightly frightening laugh and runs towards the bar door. "I shall take no prisoners!"

Hank looks at me and blushes. "So, uh, that's Steadfast Freya. She's kind of my... lover?"

Woah! "Your girlfriend is an Amazonian Alien!? Kinky!”

Hank blushes darker. "First of all, she isn't an alien. She's a Nordic, which is kind of like a breed of Human. Second, she isn't my girlfriend because Nordics don't really do the whole monogamous relationship thing."

"That is because Pair Bonding is for the fearful," Freya says grinning as she bounds into the rooftop garden. "Fear of being alone and fear of competition with romantic rivals. The Courageous live in the moment and take what succour fortune provides. Life is too short." She smiles broadly as she takes me in. "Oh-ho! Another Halley!" She is suddenly hugging me, crushing me to her large breasts with a fearsome amount of strength. "What number are you?"

"Twenty-four," I gasp into her chest.

"Well, 24th, it is a pleasure to meet you. I always enjoy meeting a new Halley," she releases me from her four-armed embrace. "Fair Hank, do I need to be jealous?"  Hank blushes darker still. I worry he might faint.

Freya booms another laugh and sweeps up the smaller man into her arms, kissing him hungrily, her extra arms roaming his body. Hank returns the kiss, the world falling away from him as gives into her passion, hands clutching her muscular, but somehow still soft ass. Freya starts to stroke the front of Hanks pants and reaches up with another hand to unclip the coils of her tightly braided hair, letting it fall over her shoulder. Hank makes a kind of growling noise deep in his throat. There is frankly something primal there, a wild abandon to a hunger that I’m finding intimidating but more than a little hot. Maybe i should start taking notes?

This tangle of kissing and fondling goes on longer than I am comfortable with starts to seem like it might be about to level up to full blown sex. I make a kind of coughing sound and then, when that's ignored, I make a louder almost retching noise. Which does the trick, the two lovers pull apart and blink at me. Hi I'm Halley, time displaced clone? Hank grins sheepishly at me and blushes and Freya just smirks happily, unembarrassed.

“Sorry....” Hank says a bit breathlessly. “We, uh, having some catching up to do...”

“Dont be weak!” Freya booms merrily and slaps Hank playfully on the back making him stumble. “We are going to fuck! I have been in the cold embrace of space since last Shift Change, with naught but my greasy, stupid crewmates for company.” Freya licks her generous lips and I get the message. Girl is gonna get hers.

I paste on a forced smile, trying to be cool and not maybe a little jealous. Which is stupid because it's not like I was planning to have sex with my male clone or the muscular not-actually-an-alien woman. That would be a stupid decision. Not least because Hank is one of the only people I know on a strange planet and I don’t really have any other place to go... I cough a little, “I’d tell you to get a room, but, well, I think I might need to find a room of my own...”

Hank smiles easily, “I have an extra bedroom you can crash in tonight. It isn’t much, but it’s a room with a bed. Sound good?”

I realize that I am both quite drunk and very sleepy and that bed sounds like a wise solution. "Yes please."

I am shown to what would generously be called a closet with a cot in it. But fuck it. I crawl in and lay down and close my eyes on an alien world with two moons and try to ignore sounds of loud, athletic sex.

Goodnight moons.

***

(And here is "So Much Worldbuilding Exposition!" Thanks for all of the kind words! I'm glad people are digging my attempt at writing something a bit more substantial. Don't worry though: there will be smuttier chapters and weirder TFs ahead.)

Oh I get it, the condition for spawning a new clone is "current version can't continue her relationship with Clem anymore", right?

That could be it too, then. Though we'll have to see what happened to the other clones before we'll know for sure either way, methinks.

Flotsam
Chapter 6: Halley-23

This was a terrible idea...

l am sitting awkwardly in a strippers dressing room trying not to freak out. Halley-23, the woman who I am a backup clone of, the closest version of me on this planet, decided to become an exotic pole dancer in space. With extras. Fuuuuuck.

And now I am planning to have a nice sit down talk with her. Deep breathes Halley.

As I sit here waiting, my mind runs back to the club, back to Halley-23s dance routine again. The horns of Gonna Fly Now, the red Carmen San Diego outfit, the brass pole, and her naked body. Her weird, altered naked body. Take another deep breath. Eye of the Tiger plays and Halley Comet, the exotic Earthling stripper, throws open her red coat and bares her six breasts. Six! Six perfect double D tits in three rows. The human men in the crowd cheer and I feel very uncomfortable. Stripper Halley elegantly shrugs out of her coat, and stretches her six arms. Six! Again!  She arches her back, standing up on the tips of her go-go boots, all projected curves and lithe limbs. She does a little spin showing off her perfectly toned body, her heart shaped ass. She looks so fucking good. And now she's standing in front of the pole, posing with two arms above her head on the brass, four hands tracing her over her cluster of breasts. She leans forward, the stripper pole nestled in the crack of her ass, until her long, teased-out blonde hair pools on the stage. The men in the audience are now suspiciously, intensely quiet. It is the sound of boners. Boners directed at an idealized version of me. And then Halley Comet is off the ground and on the pole, spinning with her limbs extended. As Eye of the Tiger grinds on, stripper-me works that pole, sliding up and down it, rotating in athletic and elaborate eight-limbed configurations, grinding her naked crotch against the metal in a way that communicates directly with every human male in the room, until finally, as final riffs of the song fade out, Halley-23 is doing the horizontal splits, six-breasted torso pressed to the floor, panting. Halley Comet is a very talented pole dancer and very, very sexy. And I find that I am distressed.

How the fuck did a version of me become a six-titted space stripper?

The dancing thing I can kind of understand. I, or I guess Halley-Prime, knew her way around a brass pole, at least a bit. Privately, behind closed doors. For fun.

It was a few years ago, right after I had dropped out of college and moved into the trailer park with Clem. I had always struggled with anxiety, but this was when it really blossomed, changing from something manageable to a life destroying miasma. My agoraphobia got so bad I couldn't leave the trailer for days at a time, and even on good days I panicked as soon as I left the familiar confines of the park. Clem was there for me as much as he could, but he had to work long hours at his shitty jobs to support us. So I ended up making friends with Maureen, a trailer park neighbour who stripped under the name Topaz. She was a beautiful, sweet young woman running from a broken home and supporting dental hygienist school and a mostly recreational coke habit by dancing. One night we got drunk and a bit stoned and Maureen thought it would be fun for me to take a spin on her practice pole, a length of galvanized pipe a handy ex-boyfriend had installed in her trailer. It was fun and something new to do within the safe confines of the trailer park. So I kept at it and practiced and listened to Maureen and by the time I sorted out my agoraphobia enough to leave the park, I had gotten pretty good. Not as good as Topaz or as good as Halley Comet, but passable. Good enough to tease Clem with my skills in the bedroom. Good enough that Maureen tried to talk me into going on stage myself. But... I couldn't do it. The idea of being up there, being stared at by so many people, being that vulnerable made me panic, made me want to puke. So I gave it up before it even started. Maureen finished school, moved out of the park, and moved on with life. And I got abducted by aliens and cloned.

So, yeah, I knew where Halley-23 learned the basics of the exotic art of Earthling pole dancing. But how did she get over the stage fright? And why did she decide to grow those extra tits?

I fidget nervously in the folding chair I'm sitting in and drum my fingers on the hard laminate vanity counter. I wish Halley-23 would stop glad handing her fans and show up already. I just want to get this over with.

"Look who decided to finally, like, show up!" Says my voice brightly from behind me. Shocked I whirl in my seat and see Halley-23 who giggles happily at my surprise. "Like, hi," she says.

"Hi," I manage lamely.

Halley-23 is still completely nude, her red jacket and hat clutched to her side. Up close she is even more beautiful, more of a spectacle.  Her six breasts are large and weightless and too perfect to be real, but still hang and move in a perfectly natural way. Her six arms, the ones not involved in the mundane business of holding clothes, hang casually, with a natural ease. Her face is still essentially mine, but a bit leaner with lips that are fuller and a nose thats just a little thinner and sharper. And it's all framed by a golden cascade of ass-length, shampoo model platinum blonde hair. I spare a glance in the vanity mirror and with my pale face and messy, shoulder length black hair, I look more like her sister than her clone. Her uglier sister. And her skin, it's tanned in a way my pale-ass flesh could never manage, and it seems to glow and sparkle. I realize that's because it actually, literally, glows and sparkles. What I first thought was body glitter I now see is a constellation of tiny, mirrored scales. And that healthy glow? It's really a faint bioluminescence that's not bright enough to light up a room, but draws attention to Halley and makes her visually pop. The combined effect is that Halley-23 looks like an airbrushed centrefold... in a really different fetish magazine. She sees me staring, rolls her eyes, grins, and starts hanging her costume on the back of a chair.

Halley pulls on a g string, slips a silken robe on, and turns a chair to face me and drops gracefully into it. She folds two pairs of hands in her lap, smooths her hair behind her shoulders with the other two, and leans toward me a bit, "I bet, you like, totally have some questions for me."

I nod, trying not to stare at her still exposed breasts.

"Well I learned to dance on, like, Earth in the trailer park..."

"From Maureen. I remember."

Halley giggles. "Obviously! Sorry, like, it's totally my first time meeting a new me."

"You're doing fine."

She beams, "You're a sweetie!" Holy crap she is sunny. Is this what being super hot does to a person?

How the fuck did you go from being me, new on Flotsam, to a six-titted naked pole dancer? How do I ask this delicately? "Why did you decide to become a stripper?"

Halley-23 chews her lip cutely. "Wellllll.... Like, the last thing I remembered was like, being in the trailer park? And then I woke up in a weird space bedroom? And Clem was a girl and like he had a naked catgirl slave me and then I totally fainted. So Clementine took me to a bar where I met Hank, who is like, really Halley-2  and he explained the whole, like, Flotsam thing and offered me a job working in his shitty bar and like, whatever." Six simultaneous yadda-yadda-yadda hands.

"That is pretty much my entire Flotsam experience so far," I interject.

"Oh, like you're brand new!" Halley giggles, "I bet like, Hank's huge girlfriend dragged you here."

I nod, getting another giggle.

"Sooo, like, I'm doing the new Halley thing, meeting other clones and like, maybe looking for Halley-prime? And also doing the waitress thing. But like, Hank is a sweetheart, but his bar kind of sucks? And he can't really pay much." Great my new job is terrible. "And he had this way cool girlfriend Aleese, who was a waitress here and she would, like, invite me to come hang out. Which turned into getting a shift sometimes when like, someone no-showed. Which turned into a regular gig and became like, my main job." She smiles wistfully. "That's when I met my bitches.” She giggles, “The like, other dancers."

"What like, drew me to the dancers was that they were all kinda outsiders. Like, Ssslaine our Reptilain dancer. She is like, a runt, okay? And Reptilian females all get raised together in like, a way competitive style where they like, try and kill each other. To prove who is best? And like Ssslaine is little so she was like, a natural target. But one of the males that looked after her clutch like, felt way bad for her and smuggled her out to a free human colony? So she like, survived to adulthood as like a weird Reptilian surrounded by humans. And then she had her first adult moult and grew her feathers. And they were totally beautiful in a way that made her pretty to humans. And maybe sexy to humans. And when she danced the way she like, instinctually wanted to, people liked it, so she became a dancer. But she still felt like an outsider so she came to Flotsam, 'cause it's a whole planet of outsiders. And here she started to take drugs to like, keep the feathers around longer, and danced for money and for other Reptilians. But the Matriachs still totally hate her, so she spends her time around humans and like, avoids Syndicate clubs. Ssslaine’s still kind of a Snake bitch, all stuck up and shit about being like, a superior life form, but she also like, loves us and would do anything to protect us.

“And then there is Sissilliss, the ovipard... the egg laying one. Okay? Her parents were like, indentured to the Reptilians and to like, get out of their debt contracts they sold their daughter to the Snakes. And like, her new owners started to like groom her and Shape her into a lizard-hybrid to make her a pleasure slave. And like, by the time she was grown she already had her scales, and tail, and could lay a small clutch of eggs during her monthly cycle. A highly ranked Syndicate Matriarch bought her and gave her like, as a present to one of her like, lieutenants? But this male was on the like, wrong side of a fight? So like Sissy was given a poisoned knife by a rival Syndicate Lieutenant and during one of her egg shows for her owner, she like, killed him and escaped. So she ran away to Flotsam and has been making her way dancing since, hoping her past doesn't catch up with her. What's totally crazy is that Sissy is a total sweetie, and like the nicest Sapient on the planet. She is like totally my best friend.

"You saw Kammallaporandoola dance too? The dancer with the scarves? She is like a member of a nomadic group of humans who were once slaves to the Reptilians. They like, rose up and like, kicked the Snakes out, but not before the Snakes totally poisoned their planet. So the people, like, built arc ships and started to travel the Nexus, visiting different planets to trade for stuff and repairs. And like, they were way poor or whatever, so they stated to use performance to barter for goods. Like, dance or storytelling or song or acrobatics or whatever.  Some of the original nomads left and settled down, but like, other people who liked that stuff joined the crew. And like, generations went by and it became like a travelling space circus. Which totally made a stop at Flotsam a year ago. And it was bonkers to see all these super talented people descending on our shitty little planet. A total party! And like Kamma was a dancer specialist who was just soooo good. But when the ships left Kamma, like stayed behind. It's kind of like a total mystery and she won't like tell us why. But she stayed and started to do different sexy dances and it was great." Halley-23 blushes. "I really like her. Like, like-like her." She giggles, "And she is so fucking into me."

"She's the one with stripes right? And the penis?"

Halley giggles and blushes, "Yeah, it's like a recent thing. She got it Shaped on from Clem as like, a clone-day present for me 'cause she knows I miss cock. It's just, like, for a few days." Halley bites her lip and and makes a sly look, "I'm gonna try and convince her to keep it!" She presses her tongue against the side of her mouth in a pantomime blow job face.

"Coooool..." I say. Changing the subject now. "What about the Blue, uh, smell dancer?"

"Oh! That's Fragrance. She didn't join the dance group until, like, after I joined."

"Fragrance?"

"Blue names are like, too fucking hard to say and like, have a smell component. So they like to have human nicknames. She picked Fragrance because she is like, a pheromonal therapist? She like, helps Blue couples that have trouble like, connecting sexually. So she goes to them and gets herself really horny and makes sexy smells that drive the Blues wild until they fuck. It's like, kind of an important job for the Blues? But it's also kind of lonely 'cause it's kinda like dating a hooker who is also a priest. It also doesn't really pay well, 'cause it's like a public service? So she started to dance here to make some money on the side. Which is like, great for us since it brings in the Blues, who like, usually aren't super into strippers and exotic dance." Halley leans in and says in a quieter voice, "And like, I think Fragrance gets off on performing? Like, she loves the attention and is kind of an exhibitionist. Which is like, a moral failing for the Blues because it's like, selfish and aggrandizing? Which is stupid 'cause Fragrance is really nice and sweet and just likes to feel sexy sometimes." Halley makes a playful face and whispers, "I bet she is totally jilling off right now." She giggles with a pair of hands covering her mouth.

Okay, TMI. "So you met the girls?"

Halley, "Right! So, like, y'know, it was nice to make friends with these girls who were, like, as lost as I was. And we started to hang out every night after work. And one night after the club closed we got all tipsy and stuff, and they were asking me about Earth and like, Kamma asked me what Earthling erotic dance looked like. And I was feeling silly and it was just my friends so I thought I would show them? So we looked all over the club and found like, an old pipe that went floor to ceiling like a pole. The girls made music for me, the two scaley gals drummed their tails and like, Kamma hummed a beautiful tune, and I stripped down to my bra and panties and started to pole dance for them. I was rusty, but I could still kinda do it okay. And the girls fucking loved it! They told me they thought I could be like, a real stripper! I was like, so embarrassed, but like also totally flattered!

"While like, this was going on, I was like so over the Halley-prime drama. Like, I had looked and whatever, but it wasn't fun or like, going anywhere and I was having such a good time with the girls and at the club. So I started to like, avoid Hank and Clem? Not because of like, a fight or anything. Just 'cause, like, they were so tied up in all that Halley shit. I wanted to do me and like, start over. But I couldn't make enough money only being a waitress at the club, I still needed to work and live with Hank. But if I started to dance... well, like, that would totally be enough to move out. Especially if I moved in with Kamma, which she totally wanted. So like, I hit the stage and became the only Earthling stripper on Flotsam." Halley smiles and does a sexy pose in her seat, thrusting out her six tits proudly.

"I still don't know how you managed to dance on stage in front of people!"

Halley giggles, "Oh that..." There is a soft knock outside the door. Halley puts on a plastic smile, "Come in!"

And into the room walks the greasiest motherfucker I've seen on this planet so far. He is a pale human man with thinning hair, a neck beard, and pale blotchy skin. He is wearing a thin leather blazer with the sleeves rolled up to show off a lizard scale tattoo on his forearm. Except it's not a tattoo, it's a patch of actual scales growing from his skin leading to a clawed hand clutching a metal-skinned courier bag. He turns his head and now I see his left cheek is covered in scales too, his left eye yellow and slit-puppilled. He sees me and smiles, yellow fangs flashing, a forked tongue slipping out of his disgusting mouth. From living in a trailer park I know a low level drug dealer when I see one. "Comet! Baby! You didn't tell me you had a hot Ssisster!"

Halley giggles in a way I can tell is fake, "Oh you!" She dimples, bites her lip, and makes a show of averting her eyes, "Do you have my Bliss?"

"Would old Adder have ssslithered all the way down here if he didn't have the ssstuff?" He says playfully. His tongue tastes the air again, and his intensity ratchets up a gear "Do you have my money?"

Halley slips a Keyband over one of her wrists and holds it out to the drug dealer. He touches it with his Keyband and some display flashes green. "Atta girl!" He says now, all disgusting, fanged smiles. He opens up his courier bag and draws out five steel canisters, which from Clem's brief paintball job I recognize are miniature compressed gas cylinders. He handed these to Halley one at a time, who catches each one in a different hand. He carefully reseals his bag, tongues the air, and leers at us. "Now have fun girlssss. I'll be ssseeing you!" And exit scummy lizard drug dealer man.

Halley watches the door for a few seconds longer, seemingly to make sure that Adder has truly fucked off, before releasing a breath she had been holding.

"This is how I get onto Stage," says Halley brandishing one of the cylinders.

"You get fucking high!" My sister clone is a six-titted stripper junkie!

"Oh slow the fuck down," Halley mutters as she puts the other cylinders into a drawer with a lock and pulls out something that looks a lot like an asthma inhaler. "This isn't like, crack or anything. It's called Bliss and it's like the best fucking anti-anxiety medication that I've ever like, used.” She looks down at the inhaler device and fiddles with it, removing a spent canister. “Like, we have tried all the Earth meds for anxiety and like, none of them really worked all that well. And the side effects? Like, weight gain and not feeling sexy and like making us more depressed?” Not to mention the one that made us super constipated. I nod begrudgingly. “Bliss like, actually works. Actually makes me feel brave or whatever. And it makes everything a little like, happier? Brighter?” Halley sticks out her tongue a little and peels off a wax seal on a fresh Bliss canister and inserts it into her inhaler. It makes a little hiss as it snaps into the mechanism. “So it like, helps with the depression and anxiety, and like, a couple hits a day and I can go dance on stage and be like, sunny for the crowd.” Halley licks her lips and lifts the inhaler to her mouth. She delicately seals her lips around it, closes her eyes, and activates the device. It makes a sharp whooshing sound and Halley breathes deeply, sucking greedily at the drug. She flops back in her chair bonelessly and groans in contentment, a waft of escaped drug vapour giving the room a faint botanical smell. She giggles in pure happiness and looks up at me, stretched out and beautiful, “It also like, gives you a fucking great high for a few minutes.”

“What about side effects? You sound like...”

“Like totally a bimbo?” Halley-23 rolls her eyes. “Yeah, Bliss like, makes me sound dumb. I’m like, still smart or whatever, but Bliss fucks with my translation nanites so I sound way dumb. It’s like, embarrassing but whatever.”

I make a face, “Translation nanites?”

Halley giggles, “and People think I’m a ditz!? Didn't you like, wonder why all these aliens seem to be speaking English?”

Whoops, thats a bit embarrassing. I blush,  “Now that you mention it...”

Halley smirks at me like she’s scored a point. “Well, like, Sissy likes to use Bliss sometimes and like offered me a hit and like, it made me feel really great. So when everyone said I should totally pole dance on stage I was too scared until I thought about using Bliss.” She giggles, “and like one good hit of this and I was on stage in my panties humping a pole for cash!”

“Wild.” Totally fucking wild. “And how did that lead to the whole...”

“Six tits and arms?”

“I was going to say ‘new look’.”

More giggling, “so like, the exotic art of Earthling pole dancing got me into the business. But like, the bit wasn’t going to stay mine forever. In just like, a couple months there were fake Earthlings spinning on poles and totally horning in on my shtick. So i needed to find like, an advantage? And like, Kamma pointed out that i could get free Shaping. So I went and got a fortune in work done.”

Halley smiled wistfully. “Clem is such a sweetheart, she was so happy to help me. And like, if you get Shaped, you should do it on Bliss. Something about the drug like, interacts with Shaping so that it feels reeallllllyyy gooood.” Halley clutches her six boobs and blushes, “the feeling of the Shaping nanites reaching into my tits, like, pulling and massaging and like, growing them... it made my clit so fucking hard!” Halley giggles, “I gooshed right there on the table!” She strokes her arms, “and the feeling of my new arms growing was like, a warm long massage that got me all horny again. So I like totally jumped Clem’s bone and fucked her.”

And now I'm picturing my space princess ex(?)- boyfriend fucking my mutant stripper alter ego. Its all six big breasts mashed up against three smaller ones, so many arms and a tail roaming, soft faces kissing hungrily, and a impressively large cock plunging into Halley making her giggle and pant and moan. Until they both goosh. Ugh, its kind of hot. I blush, “What about your girlfriend?”

“Kamma?” Halley giggles, “she was there and like, joined right in.” Halley smiled impishly, “We totally double teamed Clem as a thank you.” Dang, okay mental picture just levelled up...

“Anyway!” I say.

Halley has a bit of a giggle fit. "Geez, we need to get you some Bliss to loosen up!" Dubious stare. "No? Okay." She cutely rolls her eyes, "so like, having these extra tits and arms and having my like, overall sexiness jacked up gave me a really big advantage. No other dancers were gonna be able to like, afford this kind of Shaping. So I'm kinda like THE Earthling Pole Dancer on Flotsam. And like, I realized that Clem could help the other girls get better too. So like Kamma got her stripes Shaped into her skin, which she can make glow or change colour if she wants. And Sissy got her eggy parts like, super charged so she can lay so many eggs at once and do it four times a day if she wants. Or like, none at all if she isn't dancing. Ssslaine got her feathers grown from her body like, permanently so that she could stop taking hormonal drugs that make her feel shitty. Which took fucking forever because she isn't human. And then we were like totally a super group of strippers. Especially after we got Fragrance and a few other rad ladies to join up. Next thing, we like, bought out the Menagerie with a few backers, so like all us bitches have a stake in the club. So we like do really good and can like, be fair to freelancers too." Halley giggles, "Not bad for like, a bimbo stripper, right?"

I nod. I didn't want to be an erotic dancer, but if I was that did sound like a pretty sweet deal.

A knock at the door and there is Sissy wearing a drapey fuchsia toga and looking kind of sheepish. Well, as sheepish as a lizard-person can anyway. "Ssso sssorry to interrupt, but the girlss are keen to get going... Ssslaine is getting difficult."

Halley rolls her eyes, "Oh, I like, fucking bet she is. Tell her to hold onto her tail feathers. I'll be out in like, a minute."

Sissy nodded and smiled at me, "It'ss very nice to meet you, new Halley." And then shyly she ducked out of the room. 

"Okay, like, sorry to run, but there is concert in the club tonight? So me and the girls get to go out for once." Halley wiggles into a sheath of loose fabric that hangs over her body like a loose tunic with openings for all of her arms. She touches her Keyband and the fabric shrinks, becoming a tight lycra looking dress in metallic red with a very short skirt that hugs her body like a second skin. Halley looks critically at her go-go boots, shrugs, and piles her hair up on top of her head in a lazy top knot. She grabs a white, faux fur looking cape garment and flings it over her shoulders. Halley strikes a pose, and moues at me playfully. "How do I look?"

She looks fucking hot and carefree in a way I have never in my life been. "You look good. Really good."

She smiles and giggles, obviously pleased.

As she ushers me out of her dressing room Halley-23 takes my hands in a pair of hers. "If I can offer you like, a piece of advice? About life on Flotsam? It's find your bliss." She giggles, "not like the drug or whatever, but like, what will make you actually happy. It's something we Halley's find way hard." She envelops me in a six armed hug with so many tits and gives me a wet kiss on the cheek. "Don't be a stranger sweetie." She releases me and struts down the hallway looking hot as fuck towards her weird, sexy friends. Halley sees me watching and winks, "Good luck!"

***

(Halley-23 is heavily inspired by that great Ariel comic of the six-breasted stripper. Despite their (seeming?) absence Ariel remains the best! I will also hopefully start doing some illustrations to go with the story soon.)

This is a fun story dont worry and dont stop. I have always enjoyed your tempo and merth as a writer, yes it's an odd ball fetish spot but your stories always have an up tempo grace to them that I have always enjoyed.

This story is alot of fun and your world building exemplary. I cant wait to see the next chapter

Haha thanks. It's nice to see people still enjoying this. I always worry about the balance with these things and am concerned about straying too far from my usual formula.

Flotsam
Chapter 8: Bluebells and Clementines

I am standing outside the airlock door to my ex-boyfriends space apartment.

Maybe ex-boyfriend. Who is a girl now. With a penis. And has a sexy catgirl clone of me as a pet.

My life is complicated.

I take a deep breath and let it out as a sigh, clenching and unclenching my hands, shifting my weight from foot to foot. I am not ready for this. Not at all.

Steadfast Freya, who has been impatiently waiting for me to open the door, snorts and gives me a little shove. I stumble forward, throwing out my hands to catch myself, touching the door which chimes and warmly chirps "Welcome home Halley!" The door swishes open and I fall into the house, Freya looming behind me. No escape.

I do a big cartoon swallow. Gulp! This is going to be so awkward.

Pussy the catgirl clone lackadaisically and fluidly crawls to the threshold to greet us, black furred tail twitching cheerfully behind her. She gracefully lifts herself onto her hind legs and narrows her green feline eyes at us, "Oh," she sniffs, "it's you again."

It strikes me again just how fucking weird this is. I am looking at my own face, but with big green cats eyes, a pink little twitching nose, whiskers, roving black furry ears, and a blandly judgemental look. I am seeing my own nude body, but a leaner, dancers version sporting eight pointy little tits and forelimbs covered in black fur and ending in paws. A cats tail waves lazily from a much perter version of my ass and a hairless crotch shows my pink little pussy to the world. It's like looking at a bizarre pornographic reflection of myself, as if I was still in Illadra's clothing shop, playing with a hologram model of myself wearing the sluttiest cat costume ever. "Mrowr," Pussy says, "what do you want?"

"We have come to see the Healer," Freya replies, "she is expecting us."

"She is still with Master," Pussy says coolly, "but I suppose you could go watch if you wanted." She turns, tail lashing, and falls back onto all fours, slinking away, "I don't really give a shit."

"Charming," mutters Freya. For a catgirl, Pussy is kind of a bitch.

I take a look around Clem's space-trailer home. It's basically a one bedroom apartment with a modular galley kitchen, a small corner for a dining table, and a modest living space with a pair of comfy looking couches. The interior is lined with a seamless warm grey polymer: floors, ceiling, and walls. Some kind soul added a dark blue area rug by the couches; I suspect the handiwork of a girlfriend or past Hayley. The walls display a few holograms: a large photo of Earth from Space; a drones-eye panorama of the Flotsam City Mesa, like a picture of those villages in Italy perched on cliffs; and an area with cycling candid photos of Clementine smiling with friends and Halleys. A book shelf is covered in Clem style tacky crap: sexy figurines, interesting looking mechanical components, a few geodes, and an outrageous looking bong. Also an enormous equine-looking dildo, which is new. Dildo aside, it feels like coming home to our trailer. But where was Clem and our 'Healer'? Other than Pussy who is lounging on the small dining table and tongue grooming her thigh, the apartment seems deserted. "Attend," Freya directs me, "we can see the Witch at her craft."

Freya leads me to the bedroom, the very room I woke up in the other day, beginning my new clone life. I close my eyes and rub my face, I'm not sure I want to go back into that room. It's kind of a fraught space? Freya just barges in regardless of me, and not wanting to be left behind with Pussy, I scramble in after her. And walk into a bizarre scene.

It takes my brain a few seconds to figure out what I'm watching exactly. There are two people, women, on the bed in Clem's small bedroom. Clementine is sitting crosslegged at one end of the bed, head bowed in concentration, with the foot of the other woman in her lap. She is wearing only a little camisole top and a pair of underwear, both slicked to her body with sweat, and has her lustrous silver hair tied up in a loose topknot behind her spiralling goat horns. Her long tail is coiled behind her, and her three breasts raise and fall steadily with controlled breathing. Clem massages the other woman's foot with her hands, which give off a faint white glow. She frowns and chews her lip, sweat dripping off her forehead.

The other woman is lying naked on her back and is... blue? Is a Blue. But not like any Blue I've seen yet. The Blues I've seen have all been tall and skinny and asexual. And clothed. The only way to tell their sexes apart was to strip them naked and get them horny enough for their junk to engorge. This Blue was curvaceous, with big tits and curves and an obviously womanly body. Four big tits to be specific, with long, teat like nipples and, laying on her thighs, a big sack of flesh with more teats. An udder? And the Blue has horns on her head and a long ropey tail snaking out from below her wide, pillowy ass.  And did she just moo?

Was Clem shaping a Blue into some sort of cow-person? A cowgirl? Why would anyone want to be part cow? Why would an alien want to be part Earth animal? Was a cow an Earth animal? This was fucking weird for so many reasons.

I take a closer look at the Blue woman's feet. The foot not currently being shaped isn't really a foot at all, but a perfectly formed cloven hoof. The other foot, or hoof, isn't quite on model yet: it looks more like two toes only half covered in hoof material. But as I watch, Clem keeps massaging these toes, kneading them together, and slowly, so slowly they begin to merge together as the hoof material expands. Freya and I watch in silence as Clementine patiently, laboriously, Shapes the foot into a perfect cloven hoof, a matching twin to the other one. Clem withdraws her hands and throws her head back and pants, taking great deep breaths of air.

"Sorry, Bell," Clem says, wiping sweat from her forehead, "that's all I've got for you today." She rolls her long, elegant neck in a circle, eyes closed "And I have an appointment today still. It's an easy one, but, bleh." Clem blinks her eyes and looks around the room, noticing Freya and me for the first time. She startles and then smiles, "Hi guys. Did you enjoy the show?"

Clementine's hair is a tangle of escaped locks and sweat makes her shirt cling tightly to her three tits, nipples showing. When she smiles her entire face lights up. She's fucking gorgeous. I nod mutely and blush. "This is Bluebell," says Clem nodding at the Blue cowgirl.

"Helloooo" lows Bluebell.

"It's nice to meet you," I say gamely.

The bovine-ish Blue pushes herself up to a sitting position, her heavy breasts spilling onto her udder. She moos and blinks her large black eyes, like she's just had a spot of headrush, and swings her legs over the side of the bed. Carefully she places her new hooves onto the floor with a pair of solid clops. She takes a deep breath, her stretched nostrils flaring, and, with a heave of mammaries, she stands up, unsteady, arms milling, and stumbles into the strong, waiting arms of Freya. "Moo..." Bluebell lows, "these hooves will require practice..."

"Easy girl," Freya says, "I've got you." She guides Bluebell towards the bedroom door and gives me a pointed look. "Shall we go to the common hall to practice your stride?" The pair step through the threshold leaving me alone with Clementine. It's an ambush! I've been betrayed!

"So you finally came to talk?" Clem asks, climbing gracefully to her own hooves and stretching her stiff body, giving me a pretty compelling show. I try not to stare at her breasts, or at the sweaty bulge in the front of her underwear.

"I, uh, actually think we came here for Bluebell... She's a healer of some sort, right? Something about immunity nannites?" I stammer, "b-but I would love to talk? To you, I mean."

Clementine laughs easily, "Don't be so nervous Hales, it's just me." I give her a skeptical look. "Fine, it's just me in a prettier package. I'm still not going to bite." She sits on the edge of the mattress and pats a spot next to her.

Blushing, I hesitantly step over and sit next to her. "You have definitely bitten me before."

Clem giggles, "I don't remember you complaining in the moment. Or, for that matter, using the safe word."

I giggle too. Clem still knew just how to make me laugh. It was surprisingly easy to fall back into our familiar rhythm. I turn and playfully give her arm a whack. Which is the first time I've touched her, Clem, since waking up on Flotsam. Waking up in this bed. Her bed. That I was in now.

Clem cutely snorts, and playfully says "Ha! I didn't think you'd hit a girl!" Because she's Clementine now. And just like that its weird again.

"Oh Clem, what the fuck?"

"I know Hales, I know. It's an adjustment..."

"Adjustment? I woke up to find that I'm one of two-dozen clones of me on an alien planet and that my boyfriend is an alien sorcerous with a catgirl sexpet who is one of those aforementioned clones."

"A big adjustment?"

"How can you be so calm about this!"

"Hales, I've been on Flotsam for eight years now, and a woman for most of them. This all... well, it doesn't seem normal, but it's my life, y'know? I mean, from your perspective we've been dating what? Three years? Maybe four?"

I do some quick math "Dating three and half, living in the park together for three."

"Okay, well, I have had Pussy as my petgirl for five years now. Which is longer than you've subjectively known me."

"Well that's a total mind fuck."

Clementine titters, "Did you just call me an alien sorcerous?"

I pout, a little amused and a little annoyed. "That's really what you want to focus on?"

Clem sighs, "I know, I owe you a real talk. About me. About us. But I have an appointment with a really important client; someone who travelled to Flotsam from another star system." She rubs her face and smooths her long, elfin ears. "I kind of have to bail..."

"It's okay," I say, grateful to escape from having a real talk. I am so not ready for that. "I probably should have called ahead," I shrug, "but Freya."

Clem grins, "I get it." She stands back up, "I gotta freshen up and get changed into something more presentable. VIP client likes presentable. Do you mind?"

I shake my head, "Go ahead."

Clem doesn't ask me to leave the room, so I stay, staring at the wall while Clementine peels off her sweat stained shirt and kicks off her dirty underwear. I sneak a peek and watch her bend over and root around in a pile of floor laundry, her round, perky ass wiggling in the air and her long sinuous tail swinging in sympathy. I try and glimpse her vulva or scrotum, but her tail resists me. Clem finds what she's looking for and stands up, back to me, and unpins her hair, letting it fall down her back in a shimmering cascade. She has... a towel? A towel that seems alive, like terrycloth made of living, clawing fibres. Clementine takes the creepy towel and runs it over her sweaty body, bending to run it over her hooves, and shapely digitigrade legs. My breath catches as this time I definitely see her pussy and the backside of her balls. She runs the towel over ass and the base of her tail, along her toned, elegant back, and up onto her shoulders. She turns, giving me a glimpse of ripe sideboob and the bulge of her cock and oh crap she can see me and I quickly look away. Shit! Did she just notice me peeking? I look fiercely at the wall and count to fifteen... and then sneak another look. And there is Clem wrapped in her towel, hands on a cocked hip, eyebrow raised as she smirks at me. I blush, clearly caught. Clementine giggles as she lets the magic towel fall open and wraps her hair in it.

Blushing I stare at my feet. This beautiful creature is definitely not my awkward, gawky Clem. But maybe we still fit together okay? She still seemed to get me, can still make me laugh, and talking with her was, despite the awkwardness, one of the most familiar and home feeling moments of my time here. While most of my romantic experience has been with men, my sexuality has always been fluid and I am definitely attracted to this woman. And that cock... Dang! I could tap that. Maybe this could work? My heart hammers in my chest. Do I still want to be with this new Clem? Does Clem still want to be with me?

And what about that stupid catgirl Pussy? Ugh....

I am getting so far ahead of myself.

When I look back up Clementine is half undressed in some fancypants lingerie. Her breasts are snuggly foisted by a lacy, black three-cupped bra that is fancier than any piece of underwear I've ever owned. Her legs are encased in sheer black stockings, somehow engineered to fit over her cloven hooves and inhuman gams. I boggle at how she managed to pull them over hooves without tearing runs in them. More future cloth? Her improbable stockings are clipped into an oldschool garter belt that hugs a pair of black, lacy bikini cut panties, smooth against her crotch. She has crystal jewelry things hanging from her horns and a choker made from beads of the same stone. Clem has gathered her hair into a new, and very professional looking bun with a few artfully messy forelocks left free. Clementine stands there looking like absolute perfection, chewing a plump lip, all trussed up like a Christmas present to unwrap, tail lazily waving behind her. "How do I look?" she breathes, voice husky.

"Awooogah..." I breath, aiming for sultry and probably missing.

Clem giggles, prettily. Which I find myself liking.

Clementine clops over to another heap of discarded clothes and pulls out a black dress. She slips the garment over her head, baggy and loose, slides her tail through an opening and, with a prod at her Keyband, commands the dress to cinch tighter, to become a form fitting dress with a pencil skirt and a square collar showing off wide double cleavage. Clem pinches the sides of her dress and wiggles her hips then smooths the front of her skirt. Her too smooth skirt. "Uh," I say blushing a bit, "where is your um?" I point at the flat crotch of her dress...

Clementine smirks, "My cock? I can, uh, retract it inside my body a bit when I want to for that all female look. With the right pair of panties I think I can pass pretty well." Clem does a little pirouette to show me. "It's a bit... restrictive feeling. But it feels kind of formal? Like wearing heels or a corset or something. And it looks nice with some outfits." She shrugs, "Some of my clients are a bit conservative. A bit of hardware..." Clem wags her tail and thrusts out her chest, "is just good advertising. But the whole enormous cock thing squicks some of them out." She rolls her eyes, "So part of the VIP package...."

"...is putting away your package," I finish for her.

"And few clients are more VIP or more conservative than today's." Clem summons a holographic screen that she tweaks into a mirror and conjures some makeup from amongst her laundry. She begins to apply. "This guy is a Shaping fixer who sends the rich and famous to Flotsam to get work done discreetly. His hustle is sneaking the celebri-rich off their home planets, getting them safely here in comfort, ensconcing them in Upper Terrace luxury, and getting them the best Shaping money can buy from someone who can keep their flawless mouth shut. Which, yours truly, the most powerful shaper in the quadrant, is happy to do for a generous fee." Clem applies lipstick and moues, "It's mostly pretty easy work like thinning down a starlet addicted to Ellsbarron Honey, very addictive and very fattening; or making a pipsqueak singer taller and much better hung. It just has to be done quickly and quietly and with a certain 'professionalism' and 'glamour' to give the VIP clients a 'premium experience'. Then it’s a few days of spas in the terrace and yachting back home to miraculously recover from that flu that gave them a new nose." Clem smiles, "Today it's some business executive’s daughter. Apparently she's getting herself a new nose and better boobs as a birthday gift." She winks, "I might throw something kinky in for free if she asks."

"What? Like a penis nose?" I say, joking.

"Oh, I wouldn't recommend that. It'll get stuffy every time you cum and just dangle from your face when it's soft." She tuts, "Very inconvenient. Imagine dipping that in your tea?"

"Youch!"

"No one ever considers the practical considerations of genital face and..." Clem glances at her Keyband, "Shit! I really have to run. Being late is not VIP." She clops over to me, gathers me into a hug and a kiss on the cheek and hoofs it out of there. I watch her go, enjoying the orbit of her hips and sway of her tail. I touch the lipstick smear on my cheek and sigh.

Maybe I want to get back together with my ex?

***

I find Bluebell and Freya waiting for me in the living room. Freya makes the face of someone who really wants to dish, but is too proud to admit it. I let her suffer, she deserves it. Bluebell for her part looks as placid as a cow, and smiles pleasantly at me. "I'm told that you are some sort of 'healer'."

Bluebell snorts in amusement, "One prefers the term Physician, but one understands that Nordics have a certain way of speaking."

Freya crosses two pairs of arms, "Do you not heal the injured? Provide succour to the sick?"

"One does."

"Then you art a healer."

Bluebell chuckles, "Why do you require the services of a... healer? You look healthy."

"I, uh, wish to visit The Grove? And I've been told that I need some sort of immunity update?" Hand wave, hand wave.

"Ah, one sees. You still have the Halley-Prime nanomachine configuration, and need to be outfitted with resistance to the Sylvannic Funganoid. One can do this for you."

That sounded suitably technobabble-expert. "You can?"

"Mooo-f course. It is a simple procedure; much akin to a vaccination."

"Great." Getting jabbed with a needle by an alien with a cow fetish.

"We shall have to travel to ones clinic though," Bluebell says with regret in her voice. "One does not have the necessary materials with this one to 'heal' you."

"You shall have to journey without me," Freya interjects, "I vowed to toil as Fair Hank's bar wench this night and must return to the Hideaway before the eventide rush."

"Does Hank want me come and help too?"

"Nay, tonight shall be too chaotic for an unaccustomed hand. You should go with Bluebell and have your medical needs addressed. And to make sure the healer journeys home safely."

Bluebell nods her head, "One could use a companion. One fears she is still unsteady on her hooves."

And so I am outflanked again. "Alright Doctor Bluebell, lead on."

The cowgirl doctor has managed to get herself dressed and is standing on her hooves, leaning with her flanks pressed against a wall. Like every Blue I have seen she is very tall, nearly seven feet from hoof to horn, but unlike other Blue’s who are androgynous and thin going gaunt, Bluebell is pneumatically curvaceous and very womanly. She has thick, generous thighs; a round, heavy ass; and hips with a shocking wingspan that have been squeezed into skintight knee length shorts. Instead of the narrow torso of her species, she has a slightly rounded belly, a bulging pink udder which nestled in the curve of her wide hips, and four huge breasts capped with long drooping teats, now squeezed into a Holstein patterned bandeau that does almost nothing to obscure her bovinified bust. Her face has also been remodelled, her large black eyes rest above a squared, muzzley nose with wide nostrils and a mouth with bee-stung, human lips. Her skin is still blue, but instead of the deep azure of most Blues, hers is a pale robin egg, with emerging blotches of navy. And then there are her bovine flourishes: mobile cow ears, short little horns, her altered legs and brand new hooves, and a cute, ropey tail that swishes against the wall. Bluebell frowns and takes a hesitant step forward and stumbles. I rush forward to catch her, shocking at the solid weight of the altered Blue. “Thank moo,” she says.

“Farewell, Pussy,” Freya says as we stumble out the door.

The petgirl, who is sprawled in a sunbeam, waves a dismissive paw and flicks her tail. “Whatever.”

***

I am holding the hand of an alien doctor who has decided to become part human and part cow. A cowgirl? But not yeehaw, rodeo cowgirl. Cow-hybrid. Cow-woman? Cow-sapient? Alien-Cowgirl? What’s the polite way to say this? “Cowblue? Bovine-Blu-man?”

Bluebell blinks her huge eyes at me, “Pardon?

Did I say that out loud? “Sorry, never mind.” Idiot.

Bluebell is mostly able to walk, but she isn't exactly sure-hoofed yet, so I'm forced to clutch her hand to prevent stumbles. Holding hands with a strange alien turns out to be awkwardly intimate, and since she towers over me, it's making me feel childlike and very silly. And of course everyone is definitely watching us. Local humans gawk at us and give Bluebell fondly bemused looks; expressions that suggest familiarity and a kind of acceptance. Blues on the other hand avert their eyes and make a show of ignoring my new bovine acquaintance. Which is somehow worse than the staring. We are definitely a spectacle, which is making me more than a little anxious.

"So," I say to get my mind off being stared at, "why did you decide to..."

"Shape oneself into a...what did you call it? Bovine-Blue-man?" Bluebell grins, "It is a long story."

"Perfect!" Distract me from my social anxiety. "Give me the whole scoop."

"Mooo. One supposes it all started when one was training to become a doctor. It is common for young Blue physicians to travel to a new planet when they do their final, practical training. One managed to find a placement in a fantastic hospital on a world at the edge of Blue space. This world had many human citizens, so a great many of one's patients were human instead of Blue.” Bluebell smiles wistfully, “the human body is so strange and wonderful, an artifact of incredible engineering and design. One found herself deeply fascinated by human biology and one resolved to become an expert in human medicine.”

“As one spent more time around humans, dealing with the human body and the human matters that seep into providing medical counsel, one began to get enamoured with human culture,” Bluebell moos, “and sexuality.”

“Humans are so sexual! You perform your gender and sexuality constantly, instead of only privately in the nest between lovers. You have women and men. You have ridiculous, gorgeous external genitals and secondary sexual characteristics that you emphasize. You all live sex!”

“One found herself attracted to humans, sexually and intellectually. One began to take human lovers, men and women, and to experiment with dressing in human drag. For the first time in ones life one got to live openly as a woman. It was incredibly liberating,” she moos like a hungry growl, “and very fulfilling.”

“However, this is what got one into trouble.”

I grimace, “your bosses didn’t like you... fraternizing with humans?”

Bluebell shakes her head making the small cowbell she wears on a chocker tinkle. “Blues value their human citizens. As a people we encourage friendship with your kind and we expect there to be a certain amount of sexual exploration. It is considered a harmless kink. Ones flirtation with human-style gender was considered distasteful, but it was tolerated as long as it did not impact ones work. The reason one was dismissed from the hospital was that several of ones human lovers were former patients of this one, and this is a violation of the Healers Oath.” Bluebell sighed, “One deserved to be terminated.”

I squeeze her hand in support. “Is that why you came to Flotsam?”

Bluebell nods, “As a disgraced doctor with a known deviancy, finding employment in medicine within Blue space would have been difficult. One would have had to forsake her experiments with gender and Conformed to Blue society. One was reluctant to do this, so one sought alternatives. Flotsam was attractive because it is perennially short of doctors and has both Blue and human communities.”

I smile as we stumble past a gaggle of laughing human teens with antlers and horns growing from their heads. “And Flotsam is already full of weirdoes.”

Bluebell moos in amusement, “Yes, one did consider that Flotsam is a refuge for many outsiders.”

“So one began her life anew on Flotsam, catering to the medical needs of humans and Blues. Initially one worked hard to Conform, to build a place within the respectable Blue community. But the heart travels where it must and one began to discreetly dress as a human woman in covert clubs catering to certain fringe communities. It is through these clubs that I became acquainted with the Shapists.”

“Shapists? Do you mean Shapers?”

Bluebell shakes her head, “Shapists are humans who belong to a subculture that Shapes themselves for aesthetic and recreational reasons, often in ways that defy convention. It is not unusual for them to grow extra limbs or breasts or genitals or for them to experiment with animal hybridization.” My mind flashed to Clem with her tail, hooves, and extra breasts. “Casual members will often try small changes, maybe a tail or extra nipples that can be hidden. Core members, the ringleaders, will spend fortunes pursuing wild transformations, becoming so altered that they could never pass as normal again. One found in these people kindred spirits, outsiders who wanted to change their bodies as part of a path to their truer selves. One made many close friends among the Shapists and found many excellent lovers. One also became aware of Clementine.”

“It began as a rumour, a new Shaper on Flotsam, some unknown talent from a backwater called Earth who could do more challenging transformations far faster than anyone else on the planet. As the Shapists scene began to see nagas, people with serpent tails in place of legs, or four-legged humantaurs, it became clear that a truly remarkable Shaper was in our midst. Then one heard something that would change the course of her life: the new Shaper, this Clementine of Earth, was so powerful that she could shape non-human sapients. One’s mind exploded with new possibilities.”

“I met Clementine at a Shapist party, an unveiling of the new body of Villah dox Quillix, a wealthy heiress and leading patron of the group. Villah would change her body in the manner most sapients would change their clothing. Every few Shifts she would commission a team of Shapers to remake her body around a new theme and hold a lavish party to reveal it to her admirers. She held a Jungle Gala when she gave herself tiger stripes, a tail, and a few feline features. She threw an elaborate beach party when she had her legs Shaped into a stimulated fish tail like a mermaid. When she briefly became a man she threw a raucous bachelor party. She would pay to have her closest friends tweaked to fit the theme and would always feature Shapists whose bodies fit her current whim. This particular party was promised to be something spectacular: Villah had found a new Shaper of incredible talent and gossip said she had done something particularly daring.”

“The theme of the evening was Earthling decadence: guests were instructed to wear Earth tuxedos or gowns, Earth delicacies were circulated, and jazz music was performed by live musicians. Villah dox Quillix made her grand entrance upon a hovering dais, fashionably late as always. She was laying on a divan, snug in a gorgeous black lace corset and matching evening gloves, legs draped under a silk sheet. At first everyone was disappointed, Villah appeared human; fashionably thin and perhaps a bit too beautiful and busty, but far too baseline for all the hype. But then the silk sheet was drawn off her revealing that the heiress had replaced her legs with a whole other body: from the hips down she had the torso, arms, and head of a ravishingly handsome man. A man who looked, as everyone who knew Villah knew, like the male version of dox Quillix. Villah also, her dates were happy to report, had her mouths altered so that despite appearing normal from the outside, inside they felt like vaginas with internal clits on her palettes and tongues that could engorge and become phalluses. The crowd had gasped, not just because the mirrored torso form she had chosen was impossibly difficult to create, but because of how quickly it was accomplished. Villah had worn a towering, hugely obese body only two Shift Changes before, and to change from that to this in such a short time was beyond all of the Shapers on Flotsam. That this was all accomplished by a single Shaper was sensational.”

“One met Clementine by accident, amid this todo, an awkward and lanky woman with three breasts hiding against the wall. She nearly jumped out of her plain black evening dress and heels when one wished her greetings. One admitted that a friend had pointed her out, and that one wished to convey compliments on her astonishing work. She blushed and smiled proudly and stammered thanks. One explained that this one had heard that she could even shape nonhumans, perhaps even Blues. Clementine cautiously admitted that she had been informed that she could, but that it would be very difficult and that she had never tried. One took a deep, wavering breath and explained her great desires to become womanly, to take on human characteristics, and that she, Clementine, was this ones only hope to do this. Clementine looked at this one, took in her Blue body wearing a platinum blonde wig, squeezed into a red sequinned dress with false breasts and fake hips, and thought. She reached up to stroke her chin, to feel facial hair that was not there, frowned and tugged on her unkempt mousey brown hair instead. She told me that she knew something about feeling trapped in the wrong body and that she would help if she could.”

I smile a little sadly for Clem. Always a good guy, even when he’s a girl. “And so you started to be Shaped.”

Bluebell smiles and moos. “Yes. It took ages and happened very gradually, but ever so slowly Clementine began to make my body womanly. Ones skin began to plump with fat, making one look deliciously supple. Ones thighs and hips and ass swelled, creating real curves. One grew breasts! Nipples that sat upon swollen flesh that grew into tiny buds which became handfuls of breast which expanded into a generous bosom. One grew external labia and a real, human clitoris. After many seasons one could look in the mirror and see a smiling blue woman looking back.” Bluebells black eyes grow shiny with tears, “One finally looked like how she always pictured herself. One was overcome with joy.”

I smile, genuinely pleased for Bluebell and give her hand another squeeze. But... that doesn’t explain the whole cow thing. “Um, sorry, but how did you go from wanting to be a woman to wanting to be part cow?”

Bluebell blinks her eyes and smiles mischievously, “It was these beautiful things!” She moos and shakes her tits, “these magnificent breasts! One had no idea how amazing it would feel to actually have tits! One became obsessed, constantly looking at her busty body, constantly hefting her titflesh, caressing her nipples. But one wanted more. One wanted to be bigger and bustier and..." Bluebell moos, "one wanted to make her breasts lactate."

"So one returned to Clementine, who was happy to assist her. Slowly, over many Shaping sessions, ones breasts began to grow again, eventually becoming huge with protruding nipples. Then, starting with a trickle, ones breasts grew heavy and filled with milk." Bluebell closes her eyes and moos softly, "One was in ecstasy, the weight of ones breasts jostling with every step, the new painful tension of being engorged, the joyous relief and abandon of being milked... it was the most sexual thing one had ever experienced!" She moos again, longer this time. "One needed even more!"

"One was with a lover she had not seen in many circles of the sun. He was a human space trader who chased profit and adventure throughout the Nexus, and one last saw him after she became womanly, but before she expanded her bust. We made love. His eyes were as large as moons as he stared at the this one's huge surging breasts as she rode him. One bent forward, straddling him, his cock inside her, and made him nurse from her tits until we both came.” Bluebell licked her lips and smiled. “Afterward, as we lay together, he told this one that she had surprised him, that she was a ‘sexy cow’.”

“One had replied, what is a cow?”

“As a species, Blues do not farm animals for milk. Blues do not lactate, our young are born with a hump which feeds them until they are ready to wean, so milk is foreign to us. Here on Flotsam arable land is so precious that it is uneconomical to raise cattle, so one had never encountered a cow before. Ones lover summoned a hologram and showed her what a cow was. One was enraptured! Here was an animal that was the ultimate expression of mammalian femininity. A creature bred for lactation, an animal with a wondrous mammary gland called an udder. One became fixated! One knew that she had to embrace this creature with her body, to incorporate bovinity into her form." Bluebell shivers and moos. "It was like discovering the answer to a question one did not know to ask."

“One was nervous to bring her new desire to Clementine. Ones body had already taken years of hard work to Shape. To become part cow would take years more. One was also unsure if Clementine would even be willing: ones lactating, busty body was strange for a Blue but not so unusual in the mixed community of Flotsam. To become part cow would make one a trye outsider. One is not a human, capable of being Shaped and reShaped on a whim. If one spent years becoming part cow, it would take additional years of painstaking Shaping to reverse it, making these changes effectively permanent. It was, as Clementine would say, ‘a big ask.’”

“One saved her breast milk form many Shifts and with the help of a friend made cheese. One purchased some vinefruit wine and a terrine of savoury vatmeat and presented it all to Clementine during our next Shaping session. One smiled when she saw how Clementines eyes became fixated on the cheese and how delighted she was when one told her it was real. Coyly, one enquired how Clementine felt about a regular supply of cheese. She frowned thoughtfully and fidgeted with her tail, asked me what one had planned. Bashfully, one informed her that she wanted to be part cow. Clementine had laughed and told this one that she did not have to resort to bribes. She sketched a salute with her tail and declared she was in no place to judge unusual desires. Clementine with a wink told one that she would happily accept cheese in payment.”

“And so one began her next transformative journey. It has been slow, tedious, periodically painful, and often embarrassing. It is still a work in progress, but one think she looks quite sexy.” Bluebell puffs out her double cleavage and thrusts out her udder. Tail swishing behind her, she bats her eyes at me and moos long and deep. I’m staring, and realizing it, I blush. Bluebell notices and snorts, visibly quite pleased.

We enter a familiar looking plaza, the one I had tea with Freya in. Bluebells new hooves clop loudly on the mosaic cobblestones, and I squirm a little at how conspicuous we are. The humans in the plaza look up at the commotion, a few smirking like jerks, and a couple offering Bluebell a friendly wave. The many Blues in the plaza completely ignore us. No, they actively ignore us, pointedly avoiding us like a charity canvaser. Assholes. I glance at Bluebell and see a mask of bovine stoicism. “You okay?”

Bluebell moos in amusement, “Yes, one is quite used to being shunned.” She waves a hand dismissively and flicks her tail as if swatting a fly. “It is just our way.”

“Seems pretty shitty to me...”

“One is a Deviant.”

“You’re unusual but I’d hardly call you a pervert...”

Bluebell grins, “one is most assuredly a pervert. One has a fetish for an alien animal and lactation.” She gives her mammaries a shake for emphasis. “However, that is not what one is saying.”

“One is a Deviant. Blue culture has a concept called Social Responsibility. It stems from our experiment with unrestricted Capitalism, when greed and resource mismanagement nearly destroyed our homeworld. The survivors knew a new outlook would be needed: the common good needed to be emphasized and non-material forms of wealth needed to be valued and celebrated. The survivors knew that enforcing this change with laws would be tyrannical, that social change has to be organic and generated at the community level. So they created the Contract of Social Responsibility, a code of conduct where Blues tried to live according to ideals of community, family, ethics, and egalitarianism. They would hold themselves to a standard and pressure others to live the same ideals. Over time, Social Responsibility became formalized and today it is the foundation of Blue culture. The Congregation Hall is the centre of our community where we gather to meditate on the harmony of our community and to celebrate Paragons, Blues that exemplify our shared ideals.” Bluebell moos, “It is an imperfect system, but it has allowed ones people to peacefully thrive for generations.”

“One is shunned, not so much for her body or sexual interests, but because one behaves against the code of Social Responsibility. One has been deemed selfish for her drive to satisfy her own needs without regard to the community. Ones body makes many Blues uncomfortable, but it is ones choices that make her Deviant.”

“That sounds...” like total bullshit that is super fucked up. “Pretty repressive...”

Bluebell swings her head from side to side. A Blue shrug? “It is just our way. It is not so terrible. One is not a victim of violence or confinement. One still has all her rights: if one requires food or lodging, the community is obligated to ensure her needs are met. One is unwelcome in the Congregation Hall but not barred from attending, since no Blue can be denied this. Blue merchants will still do business with this one out of duty to the ethical code. One still has Blue friends and acquaintances, even among respectable society.” Bluebell pauses thoughtfully, “One is not required to change and is free to pursue her perversion, just without the endorsement of her community. Which is more than many societies would allow.”

Bluebell does her head wobble again, “It is not ideal, but it is tolerable. One loves herself, her life, and her body. This is an acceptable price to pay.” She moos loudly, making a passing Blue cringe. “Besides, one finds Blue society much too rigid and stuffy!”

“Still, It must be hard.” I deploy another supportive hand squeeze.

Bluebell directs us down a narrow footpath made of raised steel plates and lined with homes. “The main difficulty has been professionally. When one first arrived on Flotsam, ones practice mostly catered to Blues. Once one was declared Deviant many of her patients left to find doctors more in harmony with the community. Many humans, understandably, prefer to have a human physician. Ones medical practice has suffered because of her choices.” Bluebell grins, “One has become something of a renegade doctor to make up for it. Flotsam has many outsider groups with special medical needs, groups that are more openminded than the Blue Community. One works with cyborgs, restrictive cultists, and minority Sapient species with similar physiologies.” She glances around, “Sometimes one does work for the Syndicates or other Deviants. Ones main patrons are the Shaped. Many have challenges caused by their changes and being a fellow Shapist, they feel comfortable working with this one.”

Bluebell gives her udder a fond pat, making the pink sack judder. “One has also started selling her milk. Real, fresh dairy on a planet with no cows is very valuable.” Bluebell looks wistful,”One dreams of finding other individuals fascinated by cows and one day starting a cowgirl dairy business.”

We clop down a secluded, narrow path between a rock outcropping and an unbroken metal wall, and enter a small courtyard. Bluebell moos bovine contentment, “ones home nest and clinic.” Nestled between a rusty, cylindrical apartment block and a huge space freighter turned into flats is a cute little A-frame building. The building facade is fashioned from layered shingles of metal, some bright and silvery, others copper, and a few patina green. “Heat sink fins,” Bluebell informs me proudly. The sloped roof is made of starship deck plating attached like a tin roof. There is a single round porthole window near the top of the front, probably brightening a loft, and a pair of square windows on either side of the metal door hung with Holstein pattern curtains. Below each window is a planter box filled with bluebell flowers. At the apex of the building hangs a rusty iron rooster weathervane. Wind chimes tinkle in the breeze. It is absurdly adorable.

Bluebell leads me to the door, which recognizes her and opens, and ushers me into her clinic. Despite the rustic exterior, the front room of her adorable house is a sci-fi infirmary. The entire inner surface, walls, floor, and ceiling is coated in seamless white laminate. A worryingly articulated looking examination chair sits in the middle of the room lit by a cluster of powerful examination lights. Cabinets and counter line one side of the room and the other has a collection of anonymous future machines. An open door allows a peek at a quaint living area and kitchen in the next room.

As soon as we walk in, Bluebell summons a hologram and starts typing commands. A large 3D hologram of a beating heart with sheets of light cruising around it hovers in the air with accompanying squiggly graphs. My vitals? “Should I sit in the chair? Or take off my clothes?” I nervously ask.

“If it would make you comfortable,” Bluebell says. “But one does not require it. One would usually have to analyze a sample of your immunity nannites, but one already has ‘Halley-Prime Standard Load’ on record and an immunity booster prepared for Halley-23. It should only take a few moments to synthesize what one requires.” Bluebell clops over to one the machines, a modular pharmacy maybe, and opens a compartment removing a small ampule of clear fluid. “Your immunity nannites cannot be directly reprogrammed, it is a safety feature. So one is going to inject you with short lived nannites that will provide immunity immediately and, in a process not unlike plasmid transfer between bacteria, provide information your native nannites will incorporate.” The Blue cowgirl clops over to the cabinets and withdraws a little gun shaped device and slots the ampule into it. “This will protect you from everything currently on Flotsam, including the Sylvannic Funganoid.”

Bluebell steps up to me and gently grasps my left arm. My heart is pounding in my chest and my hologram heart is a reflective light show. I hate needles and am none too fond of doctors. I look away and wince my eyes closed, bracing for the sharp prick of a needle. And instead feel a warm spot on my skin, like a tiny heat lamp. “There. Now you can safely go visit Halley-22 in The Grove.”

***

(Phew! In hindsight that could probably have been two chapters....)

Haha. Sounds kind of dubious, doesn't it? I would say that Blues are terrible critics of their own society and that Hank (I tried to imply) thinks the Contract of Social Responsibility is bullshit.