"I need to cover this," he muttered as he ran back to his room. He grabbed his old denim jeans. Taking a deep breath, he pulled the rough pants up over the smooth spandex.
Slide.
"Oh, thank god." Alex exhaled. The spandex acted as a shield.
The denim rubbed against the synthetic fabric instead of his raw, new skin.
He buttoned the jeans, then threw on the oversized red flannel shirt again to hide his torso and the slight curve of his hips.
He walked over to the small desk, then opened it and pulled out his phone to check his balance.
A small smile touched his lips, the only bright spot in his miserable morning.
[ Account Balance: 25,450 Credits]
The transaction from late last night was glowing on the screen.
The Old Man at the corner store, who bought monster parts with no questions asked, nearly had a heart attack when Alex dumped the Star Leaf and the E-rank Gene Cores on his counter.
He cursed, and tried to haggle, but eventually, he paid out. It was more money than Alex had seen in his entire life in this world.
"I'm rich," Alex muttered, though the joy was dampened by the itch on his back. "But money can't buy my manhood back."
"It can at least buy you some comfort," the Empress suggested lazily. "Get rid of those rags. Go buy something... fitting for a Queen's vessel."
Alex looked at his wardrobe: a pile of rough shirts, stiff denim jeans, and canvas trousers. Just looking at them made his nipples ache.
"Fine," he decided. "I'm going shopping. I need to buy some suitable skill stones and potions for my own cultivation."
The walk to the commercial district was agonizingly slow.
Alex moved stiffly, his legs feeling like they didn't quite belong to him.
They felt heavy. Restrictive.
Every step was a reminder of the secret he was hiding beneath the rough blue fabric that was both comforting and humiliating.
"You're tense," the Empress's voice drifted through his mind, sounding bored. "Your hips are locked. Your shoulders are hunched. That is not how a vessel of my bloodline carries itself."
"I'm a guy walking in women's underwear," Alex hissed softly, checking to make sure no one was looking. "I'm not exactly going for a runway walk here."
"Tsk. Stubborn little thing," she sighed. "Perhaps you need a demonstration. If you won't walk like an Enchantress... I'll just have to make you feel like one."
"Wait, what does that…" Alex didn't finish the sentence.
Suddenly, a strange, heavy pressure washed over his chest. It wasn't painful, but it was very noticeable.
It felt as if two heavy, water-filled balloons had suddenly been strapped to his pectorals.
"W-What?" Alex gasped, looking down at his chest.
Physically, nothing had changed. He was still flat-chested, covered by the oversized shirt. But the sensation...
His brain was receiving signals that screamed weight.
He could feel the phantom flesh pulling at his skin, bouncing slightly with every step he took.
"Do you feel them?" the Empress purred, her voice wrapping around his consciousness like smoke. "Soft. Heavy. Full."
"Stop it," Alex whispered, crossing his arms over his chest instinctively.
But the moment his arms crossed, his forearms brushed against... nothing. And yet, his nerves registered the sensation of squishing against soft, yielding mounds.
It was a sensory hallucination so strong it made him dizzy.
"And here," she whispered.
The pressure shifted lower. Alex stumbled, nearly tripping over his own boots.
His hips felt... wider. It felt like his pelvis was being pulled apart, expanding outward.
The center of gravity in his body shifted violently.
"Whoa!" Alex grabbed a lamppost to steady himself.
"You, see?" the Empress teased. "With hips this wide, you have to sway. You can't just stomp forward like a brute."
Alex tried to take a step.
Because his brain was convinced his hips were six inches wider than they actually were, he swung his leg out in an exaggerated arc.
His hips swayed violently to the left, then to the right.
"There you go," she laughed. "A natural sway. A bit exaggerated, like a cheap whore, but we can work on the elegance later."
"I... I can't walk like this!" Alex panicked.
He was on the main street now. People were walking by filled with all types of people like adventurers, merchants, commoners.
A couple of older women carrying baskets of vegetables stopped and stared at him.
"Is that boy drunk?" one of them whispered loudly.
"Look at his face. He's all flushed," the other giggled.
Alex's face burned. He could feel the blood rushing to his cheeks, which only made his skin glow more intensely.
"Stop it! People are looking!" Alex pleaded internally.
"Let them look," the Empress commanded. "They are looking because you are beautiful."
"Fuck you… Stop it, it's embarrassing..."
"Hehe..hehee..," she laughed. "You're still fighting the sensation. You need to accept it sooner or later, get used to it."
"No, I don't want—"
"Shhh."
The sensation changed.
Suddenly, the "phantom" breasts weren't just large and heavy. They became very sensitive.
It felt like invisible cloth was rubbing against nipples that were standing at attention.
"Ah!" A sharp, high-pitched gasp escaped Alex's throat.
He clamped a hand over his mouth, his eyes widening.
The sensation was superimposed over his real body.
His actual nipples, already sensitive from the shedding, reacted to the mental command.
They hardened instantly, rubbing against his shirt.
The friction on his real body mixed with the phantom sensation of much larger, heavier breasts swaying and rubbing, creating a feedback loop of stimulation that short-circuited his brain.
"Oh god..." Alex whimpered. His knees knocked together.
The sensation traveled down.
He felt a ghost touch, a spectral hand sliding down his stomach, over the waistband of his jeans, and slipping inside.
"No... not here..." Alex begged, his eyes watering.
"Why not here?" she whispered, the voice sounding like it was right next to his ear. "You're walking down the street, pretending to be a man. But inside... you feel empty, don't you?"
The phantom hand brushed against his crotch.
But it didn't grab a penis.
Instead, Alex felt a bizarre, terrifying sensation of... inversion.
It felt like his junk wasn't there. Or rather, that it was merely a small, sensitive button at the top of a slick, wet void.
"You feel that?" she cooed. "The hunger? The craving to be filled?"
"I... I have a dick!" Alex shouted in his mind, trying to focus on the compression of the spandex shorts to ground himself in reality.
"Do you?" she laughed. "It feels so small right now. So insignificant compared to the heat spreading in your belly."
Alex couldn't take it.
The cognitive dissonance, feeling like he had a vagina that was dripping wet while physically having a hard-on trapped in spandex, was making him nauseous with arousal.
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