Because she had gotten an earlier train, Claire got into work nearly thirty minutes ahead of her normal time, so she spent some time in the lobby cafe frantically Googling her new crush on her phone over a coffee.
It turned out Adelka was a pretty big name in the European fighting game circuit. A retired pro fighter and avid gamer, she now worked doing motion capture for fighting games. According to one news site, she was here in the states to commentate on the grand final for a game Claire had seen promoted heavily over the last year. Googling further, she happened upon a photo shoot that quickly became intimate as, shot by shot, Adelka stripped down to a string bikini that left very little to the imagination.
Claire's face grew hotter with each picture but was not aroused with the same intensity as before. She felt her shaft twitch, sure, but her cock did not swell into a raging erection by the time she reached the last, very saucy photo like it would have before. She felt an attraction towards Adelka, a strong want to be intimate, but it was not the all too familiar urge to fuck.
It was kind of nice to not have her cock be the filter for her first impression of another person. If these new pills were working like this already--what would tomorrow feel like or the next day? Was this the start of her new life already? Her cheerful mood swelled even more, and by the time she had to head up to her desk, she was feeling quite confident. In the elevator, she typed a quick text.
[Hey, it’s Chuck, we spoke on the train earlier. I’m down for dinner tonight. What do you think of Italian? There’s a great place over on Market a couple blocks up from the station you got off at this morning. Can’t reply until lunch, but let me know, and I’ll make a reservation if that’s cool with you.]
Claire hit send before she could double guess herself. Much to her surprise, her phone vibrated before she made it to her desk.
[I love Italian. Guessing you’re off at five? I’ll wait for you at the station!]
Buoyed by prompt response, work flew by as her fingers click-clacked away at what seemed like an endless number of files that she had to transcribe. It was rote work but, it did mean she had all the time in the world to listen to things. In fact, Claire was not sure if she did it on purpose or not, but she found herself listening to a podcast where Adelka was a guest.
The depth of Adelka's insight on game design, particularly fighting games, was staggering. There was so much more to consider that Claire had never even thought of. Her crush considered a well-designed game to be like a puzzle, with all the pieces needed to create a bigger picture. And sure, there were fighting games that were not as well developed which were still fun to play, even at a competitive level. When pressed by the hosts to explain herself, Adelka talked about the rise of Smash and how a game that seemed very casual could still have skill testing complexity.
"--and it's not just in a player versus player arena," she continued. "The existence of challenge levels means that there is a completely different skill set to develop to handle scenarios two competitive fighters would never find themselves in. I was at a tournament a couple of months back, and there was a race to finish all of the Melee challenges going on in a side room. That event had nearly as many people sitting at watching it as the preliminaries did. So there is an audience for it."
When lunch finally rolled around, Claire grabbed something from the cafeteria and went outside to sit. The phone call to Tony’s only took a moment. Her buddy Gino assured her there would be an excellent seat for her date. Claire could almost hear him wink over the phone.
She downed her second two-pill dose and then ate while browsing Reddit. The sun was out, so it was not until she got back to her station that she realized she felt unusually warm. As she got back to typing, her mind wandered absently until it returned to Adelka.
This time, her thinking about the muscular woman segued into a daydream. One that made her twitch quite strongly as she found herself coming home to the video game-loving Amazon. In the dream, they started kissing, and Clair became aware of her shaft thickening as her pulse began to pound.
Shifting in her seat to push her growing erection down a pant leg, she was startled at how warm it was against her thigh. It felt like it had gotten bigger once more. It certainly pulled her slacks tight as the curved tip brushed her thigh. Her body humming with energy from her surprise arousal, she began to bounce her legs. It was as much an energetic twitch as it was her trying to find relief. Her fingers clacked even faster of the keyboard than usual as she hurried to finish her work so that she could take a break.
Mercifully, she went down a few minutes later as her mind focused on work instead of making out, but it was still a rattling experience. All of a sudden, it felt like there was no rhyme or reason as to what was going on with her body. The hormones seemed to be a step forward and then several steps backward at the same time. A small part of her celebrated the apparent growth of her masculinity even as another sighed with resignation. It had been like this for months. Although she had not been Chuck to her close friends for more than a year, she was not Clarie to them yet either--really.
Because of that and a few other factors, it was still very scary to even think about being full time. Claire knew that running from that fear was why the recent developments of her manhood were exciting. A small, cruel voice whispered if she kept getting well-endowed she could go back to being a man instead, and no one would question it--if anything, some people would celebrate her decision to stop transitioning.
The thought made her sick and she gagged on a stale-tasting burp. No. She had always been Clarie, not Chuck. Feelings of masculine inferiority aside, she had never felt like a guy for other reasons. Sure, she had never hated being male to an exceptional extent, but her dysphoria had been much more societal. All of the nonsense around being a guy--interactions between guys in particular--had always been an intractable mess. Women were far less complicated by comparison--or maybe that was just her somewhat narrow experience talking. There was so much to being a woman she had no idea about. She knew that transitioning at this point in her life meant having spent much of her life being treated like a guy by others. There were life experiences that came from growing up as a woman which she had missed out on, experiences that would never be part of her worldview.
Stewing in her thoughts, her mind grabbed hold of the newest thing. What would Adelka think when she found out? Would she have empath because of her hulking build? Did she understand the difficulties of fighting with people’s perceptions of you? Maybe it was worth asking. Besides, she wanted to let her know they had reservations.
When she had a break next, Claire gave the new number in her phone a call. Adelka picked up at once.
“Hello, Chuck. You ready for dinner already?”
“I get out in an hour, but I did get us a table at that place I was talking about.”
“Oh good. Looking forward to it.”
“Um...”
“Yes? What is it?”
“How do you, well, how do you deal with--”
There was a loud bang over the speaker. “I must go, some of the scaffolding fell, and I will likely have to lift some of the pieces out of the way. See you soon.”
The line clicked, and Clarie had never felt such a collection of conflicting emotions before. She started to gasp as relief and disappointment crashed over her. On top of that, her cock was warm against her leg from just the thought of Adelka lifting heavy piping with her bare hands. Claire had never been so nervous to meet someone for food.