Lady of the Rings
by Brandy Dewinter and Ellen Hayes
(All rights reserved)
Chapter 12 - Red Roses for A Blue Lady
Build 6
What happened to me when the ring was put on my finger was more
analogous to what pilots call a gray-out than a full black-out. I re-
mained conscious but I lost all sensory input. It was as though my
entire world ended at the borders of my physical brain.
This was very bad.
It allowed my mind to observe without distraction as each and every
nerve cell in my brain screeched in agony. It felt like they were being
squeezed with intolerable pressure into some new shape. Whatever part of
my mind still functioned realized that this was probably necessary in or-
der for me to process the tremendously expanded sensations I had received
when this first of the magic rings was placed on my finger. That reali-
zation seemed to be the opening of a small window of consciousness on the
real world, as though a test program were running prior to full start-
up.
This was also bad.
The first sensation I received was not taste and did not in any
way involve my tongue or my nose, but I interpreted it in the language
of taste as I tried to understand. The sensation was sweetness gone
amok, sweetness extended into such an intense level that it was cloying,
suffocating, sickening. Like someone in fear of drowning who splashes
ineffectually, I flailed at the sensation with my mind, trying to get it
under control. After some timeless interval the new method of processing
data finally clicked into effect and I could encapsulate the sensation
and analyze it.
It came from Sarah. It was not a taste at all, it was an emotion.
It was pity.
That was not the only sensation pounding at my mind, others were
also present. One was almost the same, still far too sweet to be tolera-
ted. It was also an emotion, also pity. With a start that actually
caused my body to move, I realized this sensation of pity was from me,
for me.
That roused me back to an expanding awareness. With part of my
mind I watched the new method of data processing absorb, file, and filter
out the myriad of sensations around me, focusing only on the strongest
and most compelling. My body awareness became more complete and I
realized I was lying on a couch or something.
I opened my eyes, groaned once at the brightness and vibrant colors
that I perceived, but refused to surrender to the onslaught. In another
few seconds I was back to full-awareness, functioning at much less than
full efficiency, but functioning.
"Brittany! Are you all right?" asked Sarah.
Dumb question. If I were all right would I have passed out, or
whatever it was that had happened to me? Still, I had to do something
about that pity.
"Maybe that corset WAS a bit too tight," she theorized to herself.
"Anyway, how about we get you out of that outfit?" Her face was prac-
tically glowing. I could hear her heartbeat, too.
"Uh." The smell of her shoes, an intolerable combination of plastic
and rubber, overwhelmed me and I still couldn't speak. I let a nod show
at least some awareness and Sarah went into her standard bustling energy
routine.
Which was literally sickening this time, because I was still reeling
from the hyperesthesia and her moving around, jostling the trailer,
moving things back and forth.... I jettisoned the dunce cap, ripping
hair out in the process, and just barely made it to a toilet in time to
retch out the most evil fluids I had ever encountered in my life, bar
none.
I have no idea how she got me undressed, but she managed. In mo-
ments I was out of the dress and she was headed for the tiny cubicle
where I had left my jeans and shirt.
I stayed where I was and puked some more. It seemed the thing to
do, somehow.
When she came back, I had found the position of least misery - arms
wrapped around my head cutting out the sound with the scent of my skin
somehow masking the rest of the odors - curled up on the floor in a fetal
position.
"Gwlr? Ryfli ngk? Nrnnrn, zznn wwrinngnnggn."
"Wha?" I pulled my wrists away from my ears.
"I said, you're spotting."
I was about to speak when another groan was forced from me by a
massive wrenching in my abdomen. It felt as though someone had reached
up inside me and ripped my insides loose. Or like my stomach was trying
to rip itself loose and crawl out of my throat. I clutched below my
waist and grimaced with another pulse of cramp.
"Hon, why didn't you tell me that it was your time? You had us
worried sick. I don't suppose you even thought to put on a pad if you
were due, did you?"
"Nuh?" These weird feelings kept washing over me. That plus the
feel of linoleum on my knees, and Sarah's shoes . . . my stomach heaved
again, but there wasn't anything left inside. Not that it hurt any less.
"Do you even have any? Probably not. Well, I'll get you something.
Are you up to going back to the cubicle and changing?"
"Guhhhhnnggggg...." By a supreme force of willpower incarnate, I
managed to stagger upright enough to lean on the doorframe. She walked
me over, I guess. Maybe she carried me. I couldn't feel my legs any
more and I was wondering if I'd left them in the bathroom.
By the time I had my shirt on her hand was doing its flutter over
the wall, this time holding a thin tube.
"Here, hun, use this tampon."
Oh, God! That's what she meant. Now I was the stupid one for not
catching on sooner. I knew that there was a lot more going on inside me
than just a period, but it certainly explained the problems in my belly.
Sort of.
On the other hand, I was *not* going to stick something up inside of
me.
"I, uh, can't use that," I refused, weakly.
"Really? Hmm, that might be a problem with your show costume.
Well, for now, I'll get you a panty shield instead."
Her hand had retracted as she spoke and a few minutes later it reap-
peared, this time clutching a small pad. Since she had said it was a
panty shield I had a clue on what to do and figured out how to do it
without the embarrassment of asking for further help.
I had just gotten everything in place, including my jeans and knit
shirt, when I had an uncontrollable urge to go to the bathroom.
Completely uncontrollable. In an instant I felt wetness seep from
me. The cramp that heralded this humiliation forced another groan from
me, well, more of a teeth-gritted grunt, but it told Sarah enough of what
was going on to grimace in sympathy.
"Dear, I've got a Motrin here. Take it." She handed me a pill and
a cup of water.
"How about a half dozen?" I asked, almost a joke. A poor one, but
more than I could have done even a few minutes before. It seemed I was
about to rediscover the truism that anything that doesn't kill you makes
you stronger. The cramps were still bad but no longer devastating. And,
sort of like adjusting to bright sunlight, the rest of the world was
calming down, sensory-wise. I had, however, decided on just how I was
going to kill Andreas the Atrocious. I was gonna punch a hole in his
crotch and slowly draw his entrails out and feed them to him. It would
only be fair.
The pill would take a while to work so the pain didn't really di-
minish, but I was learning to live with it so I was able to stand up-
right. My enhanced perceptions of the world around me that had seemed so
overwhelming, had been themselves overwhelmed by the pain from within so
it was only then that I began to understand what had really happened to
me.
Sarah's cloying pity had been flavored now with sympathy and more
understanding. I wasn't getting any direct thoughts from her so I
decided the ring must provide empathic rather than telepathic powers.
But emotions weren't the only things I was sensing.
It was as though everything had an aura. I know, mixing metaphors
is confusing, but that's the way it is when you're trying to describe
something that doesn't fit into neat categories. Some perceptions seemed
to be visual and I could see colors so much more vibrantly than before.
Yet understanding the auras seemed to be more on the order of flavors or
smells. They triggered associations that didn't show visually. Like,
the tinge of orange around Sarah's coffee maker "smelled" like burnt
insulation and I knew it meant that it would fail within a few more
cycles. It was as though all my perceptions now worked together to
provide what the high-tech people call sensor fusion.
"Is something wrong with your hand, hun?" Sarah asked.
"What? No," I replied, but I realized my left hand, the one with
the ring, was lifting almost even with my elbow rather than hanging
easily by my side. I lowered it to match my right hand and turned to
sit on the bed/couch where Sarah's table was normally placed, the couch
where I roused from my gray-out. When I stopped thinking about it, my
hand rose again and pointed in the same direction it had held before like
a compass needle.
The insight that followed was not terribly difficult. This first
ring must be pointing toward the second ring. Andreas had told me that
each ring would help me achieve the next, and the enhanced perceptions of
the first ring were clearly to help me find the second. With the con-
scious acceptance of that insight some sub-processor within my newly-
structured mind let my hand drop, yet I knew I could call on that direc-
tion sense anytime I needed it.
"How long before you'll need to change your pad?" Sarah asked
casually.
Beats the hell out of me! All I knew was that I had already leaked
something onto it. I definitely didn't want to find out how much, but
there didn't seem to be much choice.
All I could say, though, was, "I'm not sure, but I probably ought
to keep one handy." How could women talk so easily about such an inti-
mate subject?
Sarah nodded, then kept digging into what felt like an open sore,
both in my body and in my psyche. "Have you ever used a tampon?"
I just shook my head. She was clearly about to tell me more than
I ever wanted to know about them, when there was a knock at the door.
She stood up and opened it to see old Sleazy Sam standing there with
a package. As far as I could tell he had the same slimy cigar in his
mouth, still unlit, thank God.
"Your young lady friend here has an admirer," he sneered. "I fi-
gured she'd be hanging around you. If she's slacking, get her back to
work."
"She's not slacking, we're discussing her show costume right now,"
Sarah defended me. With the truth, apparently since she was still stuck
on a topic I wanted to go away.
Sam thrust a long white package at her and stalked away. The amuse-
ment on Sarah's face didn't need any enhanced perceptions to understand.
Here she thought I was some maladjusted runaway girl, desperately in need
of mothering, and instead I had an admirer who sent what were clearly
flowers.
Inside the box were a bunch of roses in blood red, a most unpleasant
coincidence right then (yeah, right, like I believed in coincidences any
more), and a little envelope.
Inside the envelope was a card that read, "Did you think it would be
easy? A."
Easy? Easy?!! Where did that slimy piece of dog turd get off thin-
king I thought this was easy? I had worked my then-slender butt off get-
ting ready for this quest. I never thought it would be easy. That bas-
tard Andreas had stolen my body that I had worked so hard to get into
shape. He had even stolen my manhood, for God's sake! I sagged back
onto the couch, overcome with the unfairness of the world, my situation,
and most of all, Andreas.
"Who's your admirer?" Sarah asked with a smirk. She's lucky I was
feeling so shitty because if I'd been even half normal I'd have wiped
that smug expression off her face, with a 2 x 4 if I could find one fast
enough. I was just too beat, though. So I had to content myself with
ripping the card into confetti. Sarah stopped smirking.
"Some jerk," I finally snarled after I had flushed the confetti down
the toilet. It was as close as I could get at that particular moment to
making Andreas eat shit and the symbolism made me feel a little better.
Especially since something really bitter was dawning on me.
I realized that Andreas had pulled another one on me. Just as this
new body couldn't take as much pleasure from food as my real body (an
issue that all by itself truly justified whatever I could manage to do to
Andreas), while I wore the ring I couldn't lie to myself. If you think
you don't do that, then you're among the most accomplished at it. That
sickening-sweet taste in my mind was my own self-pity, now flavored with
an acrid burn I knew to be guilt.
I really had thought it would be easy, not trivial, but a fun sort
of game where I knew I would win. I knew my mind and body were as pre-
pared as anyone in my generation could have managed. I hadn't been Conan
the Barbarian, with massive shoulders and bulging biceps, but in my mind
that was more than offset by the fact I was smarter than anyone I had
ever known. Most especially including Andreas. I figured if this quest
thing were a standard part of becoming a wizard, then he must have passed
his. And if he could do it, then I certainly could do it. Easily. The
obstacles he had raised had been simply unfair, not at all a sign of my
true abilities.
Right, like I had been using those abilities. I hadn't expected to
need lots of physical strength, so what difference did it make that this
body was weaker than my real body? I had expected to use my wits, and
those were intact. Maybe, just maybe, there was a need for a little
wisdom to go with all that intellect I was so proud to claim.
I lifted up off the couch with a different sort of determination
even as a part of my mind watched while the self-pity receded. Andreas
was still unfair since changing my gender had nothing to do with magic,
but I would overcome even that obstacle. I had to, if not I couldn't
kill him. He was a slimy son of a bitch, but I respected his intel-
ligence, now, and would be more wary.
When I stood up a laminated card slipped out of the mass of flowers
I was still holding. I picked it up and immediately had to sit down
again.
The card was a Texas driver's license made out to Brittany Janeway!
It had my picture and I knew I hadn't had one taken since my transfor-
mation. It even had my old Texas address from the suburb near Fort
Worth. That slimy old SOB. My emotions felt as shredded as my body
while I tried to decide whether this reward made up for any of his dirty
tricks. It was too much. I just sat there and stared at the license.
"Are you okay, hun?" the ever-mothering Sarah was still concerned.
"Yes, thanks," I gave a pretty poor excuse for a smile, but it was
more because I was distracted with my new discoveries about myself and
the gifts from Andreas than because of any physical discomfort. I stood
up, feeling like I'd actually made some worthwhile progress for the day.
At least for a few moments. Before I even got out the door of the
trailer, another cramp hit me and I felt myself make more of a mess in
my pants. That was so incredibly embarrassing I wanted to just run and
hide, but there was more work to do. I had almost escaped when Sarah's
voice called me back.
"Brittany, dear, we still have to decide what to do about your
costume," she gently reminded me.
I wanted to argue with her but the wad of stuff in my pants felt as
big as a whole roll of toilet paper. With the brutal self-truth forced
on me by the ring, I knew it wouldn't work in my show costume. Feminine
hygiene had never been an especially interesting area of study for me (no
joke!), but I knew what had been invented to meet this need. And I knew
it meant an invasion of my body.
The sadness that swelled up this time was almost too pure for pity.
With it came a sense of understanding that may have been more fundamental
than some trick of the ring. I knew after this quest, I'd never again
look down on a woman for being a woman. It wasn't her fault, but it was
a tough job.
Sarah explained more than I wanted to know, just as I expected, and
finally let me go back to my dorm trailer. I checked the state of my
distress and decided I could go for a few hours at a time if it didn't
get any worse. Kim deserved a lot better treatment than I had given her
last night for making me take get the supplies I needed when we were in
town - except for those damn tampons. I decided to wait for that until I
actually had to wear my costume and went to see if Tom was ready to work
with the dogs.
(
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