Rising Shards

I had filled in three pages of one of my little notebooks within a few minutes of talking to the pharmacist. They had to draw a bit of blood then run it through some machine to see if I was compatible with the shapeshifting pills. The kind that’d let Evy and I have some fun that she’d apparently been a bit obsessed with lately. When Evy gets really into something like this I learned quickly it was a safe bet to indulge her fantasies, not only to reward my wonderful partner for being so wonderful but also because if she was this into something, it was pretty much guaranteed to be a very good time in bed.

I hadn’t really considered shapeshifting pills before for sex, it didn’t really come up with the partners I had prior, and if it did the small hurdle of having to go to the pharmacy proved too much for busy college schedules. But now...well, Evy and I were pretty regularly busy with work, but with more stable schedules that let us go, ”Hey, why don’t we get tested and get some Cani shapeshifting dick pills?” Well, that’s a bit crass, but that was basically how I ended up here.

While I took extensive notes as the pharmacist took questions from me, I hoped she didn’t think I was making fun of her or anything. I just liked to know everything I could going in on something like this.

”Evy told me, that’s my wif—OK, not wife yet, but hopefully we get there, right? My partner out there, she said these pills aren’t gonna...” I tried to find the right words. ”Like for trans Cani, this isn’t taking away from them?” I don’t know why I needed to hear it from the pharmacist too, a woman maybe ten years older than me who sounded like she’d seen it all, and her being so open about a subject like this made it easier for me to ask.

”Nope, when they first developed these there were definite issues with supply, but this kind is very different from any transgender pills, which are more about creating a more stable self for the one transitioning. With that in mind there was a split in developing them, where one side was for that stable, new self, and the other...well, more focused on a fun singular night, shall we say.”

”That’s a good way to put it,” I said. ”Next question...the two kinds of these...well, the two kinds on the...” This was still a bit shy to say to someone that wasn’t Evy. ”The...” I coughed slightly. ”The dick ones.”

”Uh huh,” The pharmacist said.

”There’s the kind that can get you pregnant, and the kind that doesn’t, correct?” I was very impressed with Evy’s knowledge, as really she had gone over everything well enough that the pharmacist was more just confirming what she had said to me earlier. Which I didn’t mind at all, hearing it again made me more comfortable with the whole thing.

”Yes indeed, if the lid of a purple pink has just purple, you can have all the fun you want without worry,” she said. ”If there’s a pink line on it, those are the ones that can cause pregnancies. Not the pills causing pregnancies themselves, mind you.”

”They just...make the stuff...more potent, yeah?” I said, wincing at how silly I sounded.

”Exactly,” The pharmacist said.

”Do people mix them up a lot?” I asked.

”Well, that’s a pretty common thing in fiction,” she said, and I blushed intensely, wondering if that was just something that came up in porn. If I just said something that only came up in porn of the ”accidental Cani pregnancy” variety...I shook my head, trying to not think about it, but the pharmacist just chuckled. ”But legally, they have to have it very clear which is which, so it’d be pretty hard to mix them up. The pills themselves look different, too, solid colors if it’s the ’one fun night you don’t have to worry about anything’ variety, and a mix of colors if it’s the family planning one.”

”And like...the factories don’t mix those up or anything?” I asked.

”They’re pretty solid about that,” The pharmacist said. ”I wouldn’t worry there.”

I had a few more questions that I was going to ask that I decided to save for Evy (I stammered just beginning to ask the pharmacist if the size would be the same each time, then my face got so red I had to change the subject abruptly to something else), but I was satisfied with what I’d learned. My blood test came back OK, so I got to pick out my new shapeshifting pills, as she presented me with two bottles. It wasn’t a huge deal, but in the moment I thought about what would happen if I did grab the ones that could get us pregnant. Maybe someday we’d want a kid like this.

”I’ll go with the ’one fun night’ kind,” I said. ”We’d have to talk about it if I got the others. Like, a lot. Clearly I’m not someone who can make decisions like that without...” I paged through my notebook. ”Writing a whole book, it seems.”

”Hey, nothing wrong with being prepared,” the pharmacist said.

If it were anyone else as the pharmacist I would’ve felt supremely embarrassed about the whole thing, but I left with just mostly embarrassed, wishing I had a bucket of cold water to dunk my face in. I left the testing area, excited to reunite with Evy. When I got out though, she was talking to two of our coworkers. Well, one coworker and one boss, as Alix sat next to Evy and Kitty Kilander was in front of them.