Jo accompanied me on my rounds of the farm that day. Our boots crunched through the thin layer of snow and ice, a product of several days of thaw-and-melt cycles. In the space between our steps, pensive silence lingered.

I stopped short of the supply sheds. “Can you believe how casually they just let it drop, ‘Oh yeah, and you could visit other worlds.’”

“Right? Ugh. I have questions. Like could I come too? I’d be a little sad if you had to leave me behind—still, I would love that for you.”

I nodded, and we resumed our walkabout of the first shed, checking everything was secured, checking that the door was well-oiled and working, basics. Force of habit now as much as anything. Being a farm manager had come to me surprisingly easily, for a city kid.

“You know,” I said, “you said ‘we’ would think it over.”

“I’m sorry, that was—”

I waved her off. “None of that. I’m glad I have your input. And your support.”

“Don’t mention it.” She had this bitten-lip, shifty-eyed smile on that I knew well. I, too, was dealing with a tangle of emotions that my first instinct would say to hold inside. Fuck that.

“It reminded me. Josefina, I—I love you. As a treasured friend of many years, of course, but now in another way too. And, I know our hearts and lives are on opposite ends of the country, which I don’t expect to change any time soon. I just know in my gut I’ll always want you in my life.”

And here came the smile that said, oh thank fuck, somebody finally said it. “My thoughts exactly, Shel.”

“So your feelings about this do matter, a lot.” I stopped a moment to fiddle with my keyring, until I found the one for this row of sheds. “If what Ana says is true, I’m still going to have to live my life carefully with the demonheart. This could go bad in more ways than I can probably think of. I’ll need moral support as I learn to live with it. Monogamy will remain as foreign to me as ever. If anything, I’ll be a bigger slut. And, we’ll probably have wild-ass sex every time you visit—not because that’s all you are to me, but because it nourishes the demonheart. And because you know and accept that part of me.”

“First of all, I won’t lie. The thought of arriving in Ithaca only to be dragged upstairs and used by my half demon lover? Makes me wet as fuuuck. But, I will try my hardest to be objective, for you.”

“I really appreciate that,” I said as I shut and re-locked the shed. “I myself am trying not to let my judgment be skewed by the idea of becoming an actual tiefling!”

“I know, right? Okay, where to next?”

“Grain silo over yonder.” It was at the end of this row of sheds, before the chicken coop and right next to the smaller of the farm’s two livestock barns.

“So, tell me this: what was it like, when you started T and were suddenly horny all the time? How’d that affect your life?”

“It was... an adjustment. For a while I was masturbating like four times a day, including a few very sketchy sessions in a bathroom between classes. I was distractible, I’d get hard every time I drove somewhere, I slutted it up extensively...”

“Did you lose your mind? Start fights in the quad? Did you commit murder or rape or armed robbery in the pursuit of ass?”

“...No,” I said, as we began the walkabout of the large, white sided silo. “And I eventually got used to it, then cut back to fapping once or twice a night in my bed. Come to think of it, there was a similar process of settling in after Ana gave me the device. And in both cases, I had those moments of like... dysmorphia almost? Not in the sense of hating my body, but in the sense that suddenly my body can do the things I’ve dreamed of for years, things it has never done in my waking life, and I need to adjust to the new me.”

I looked up to find Josefina smirking back at me. “Yeah, that can be a lot to process. Sheisse, dude, how many puberties is that? Three, and now potentially four? I almost envy you.”

“Almost. Right. Say, you’re not afraid of heights, are you? You ever see the inside of one of these babies?”

“Nope,” said Josefina.

“Oh, you gotta. It’s 12 feet up, but the ladder and handles are extra grippy.” I lifted the lid of a small aluminum box bolted to the wall. “Just pop on a pair of these. Shoe condoms.”

I went up first so I could get the hatch open. As usual, I accomplished this in dead silence, with my eyes glued to the wall, studiously ignoring my position and the empty vertical space behind me. Finally I clambered down the second ladder, and into the giant pile of literally half a ton of corn kernel pieces within. An enthralled Jo followed behind.

“Oh, this is fucking wild. I’m glad you convinced me.”

“Didn’t mean to interrupt you, though. I think you were making a point. Something about not turning into a murdering raping lunatic.”

“Yeah. I was thinking maybe this is like those other times, and your past experiences will help you acclimatize. If not... I dunno, can we put your penis in a timed lock box? Remove the temptation for a week, let it out when the full moon passes—”

“Like some lycanthropic Marquis de Sade,” I said with a chuckle. “You make it sound romantic and heartrending. Though, I suspect it does not in fact work that way post-ascension. Mind if we move on to the next stop?”

She nodded. This time, she went up first, talking as we went. “My point is I think it’s a viable path, even if it’s hard. Dang, that is a hell of a view. ...If the choice was between that and endless dysphoric misery, it’d be a no-brainer. But I don’t think that’s true either. You’re stronger and more confident than you were a few years ago.”

I stopped two rungs short of the top, with the aluminum wall of the silo still in front of my chest, and let myself try and soak in that view for just a moment. The angular bulk of the barn was to my right. To my left, trees and the driveway. Before me, my lovely little farmhouse with its gray shingled roof, a wide clearing where a few additional plots of land lay, and the forest preserve.

It really was lovely, my domain.

“You’ve got me,” she continued, “and our friends, and a career ahead of you. I don’t think any of that would fundamentally change if you had to give up the shapeshifty thing. Sure, we’d miss the space dick, but then I’d buy you something new and shiny from Babeland. That is also a viable path.”

I reached solid ground again, and scratched my head absently in the cold. “Last stop of the day is the barn. So, how the fuck am I going to resolve this? I think I know what my heart wants, but this is one time I really, really can’t bite off too much. Or I’ll end up suffering for... well, however long a demi-demon lives.” I set to work on the barn door’s padlock, and Josefina continued:

“Hm. Let’s talk about concrete objectives. Where do you see yourself in 5, 10, 20 years? Nesting with someone or someones? Solving world hunger? Being an international spy?”

The lock undone, I set both hands against the massive sliding door and turned dramatically to my companion. “You ready for some got-dang adorableness?”

Inside the barn it was a balmy 56 degrees Fahrenheit. The floor was tamped dirt and the walkways were lined with dusty cork. Smells of hay, poop, and wool mingled in the air. I gestured to a stall halfway down on the left, where a pair of four-week-old baby Alpacas were resting with their mother.

“Oh my gawd,” Josefina squealed. “I could just die! What are their names?”

“Andy and Olly. Not to toot my own horn, but I was the one who convinced grandpa Ari to try raising alpacas for wool—”

“Eeeeee!” She rushed to the gate and stood there with a wide grin. The mother alpaca snorted and eyed her warily.

“—And yes, you can pet them,” I said with an eye roll, “if you’ll give me a moment to move Tulip here to the neighboring stall first. She’s protective of her babies.”

Once Tulip was situated, I had Jo take a few deep breaths. “They’re still skittish,” I explained. “So it’s important to be calm with them. The more they interact with people, the faster they’ll adjust.”

Josefina, of course, fell in love. Nobody is immune to those sweet fuzzy faces. I sat quietly against the back of the stall beside her, and let them get acquainted a while.

“So,” I said at length, “You asked me what I want for my future. I do like to imagine building a little polycule-slash-commune here, doing agri-science, and yes, doing my part to feed the world. I’ve thought about fostering some queer kids, too, molding them into the intrepid space gays of the future. But just as importantly, I want to travel, learn new things and experience the world for myself.”

“If you take the gift, you’ll sure as shit be built for travel and adventure. The question is, is it a home life that’s compatible with recurring bouts of monstrous horniness?”

“Um. I don’t know. I think largely, yes. I worry about not letting it interfere with being a father, and running the farm. But also, they say it takes a village to raise a child, and a village is exactly what I wanted for myself.”

This momentarily broke Josefina out of her rapture.

“If you’d like my opinion, Shel, I think you don’t even see how much you are already developing the skill set and the resources to be brilliant at all those things. I think if you choose to do it tomorrow, you absolutely will find the strength to make it work in your life, and you’ll just be that much more fulfilled by it.”

“If I can surround myself with the right people”—and in saying this, I placed my index and middle finger under Josefina’s chin, and tilted her face up to meet mine—“then yeah.” Our eyes lingered after we kissed.

“...Hey, Shel?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want to interrupt our soul searching, but could we maybe bring back mama Tulip, and then find a private place for ourselves? The dad vibes are just driving me wild. If I don’t give you a blowjob, I might die.”

Bless that girl, she shines at a quickie. I pointed us to a little exam room for calves and kids, where the table is always scrupulously disinfected, and she backed me up against it, necking me with a passion that made the morning’s exercises feel like foreplay. Her hands, clad in nitrile exam gloves, went to my belt, while her mouth nibbled at my ears, all the while muttering promises as arousing as they were vague.

Then, with all her womanly strength—she’s worked hard not to lose it after transition—she yanked my jeans down below my knees, and heaved me up onto the table.

“Spread your knees, daddy, let me pleasure you. Oh, wow, look at it. It’s beautiful.”

“You really think so?” I’d spent years learning to love my T-dick and its capabilities, but to be honest, ever since Ana gifted me the transformer, I’d allowed progress on that front to stall, and I was feeling a bit uncertain today. Not so much that I didn’t want head, but, still.

“Hey, you know me,” said Josefina. She tore off her sweater, leaving her in just a tanktop that struggled to contain her tits. “I don’t mince words. Now help me hold those legs back, and enjoy.”

And with that, Josefina propped me up with her folded up sweater, lovingly rested one hand on my stomach and the other against the back of my knee, and buried herself in my crotch, pulling me into her mouth, subjecting my two-inch T-dick to an unfair fight against her tongue, which twisted around it and swiped at it from every direction.

“Hey Shel, you okay with fingers in your front hole while I suck you?”

“Better use the ass for now. Nice firm pressure should do it. Up on the wall there’s a—”

“Lube dispenser, got it... Oh, Shel, my apologies in advance. It is... not warm.”

“Y’know, I probably should’ve thought of thaaAAAAT. Jebus, that’s cold!” The air temp here in the back rooms of the barn couldn’t be over 50; she may as well have dipped her fingers in milkshake. It took effort not to flail and roll off the table, that is, until Jo’s mouth got my attention back. She licked all around my little labia, then went back to sucking with a vengeance, all with the easy confidence of a woman who’s slutted it up all over the multifaceted spectrum of gender and anatomy. And when her two fingers managed to slip up my ass and join the party, they knew instinctively where to press and how hard, lighting a fire at the subterranean roots of my bits.

“Am I a good slut, Shel?”

“Only the best, baby.”

“Then treat me like one. Use me.”

I balled my fist in Josefina’s hair and pulled, back and forth, like I was masturbating myself with her lips and tongue.

“Ahhhhh. Ahhhhh!”

And while it might not be reaching the same part of her throat, my woman moaned every bit as loudly, every bit as lost in the bliss of being my fucktoy as any other time this weekend. Some of the animals lowed with confusion at our little duet.

It wasn’t until she started vigorously finger-fucking my ass that I lost it. With little warning my libido swelled like a balloon under a tap, and burst. My hips bucked as I held Jo against my pubes, squirt landing on her chin and wrist and running off onto the corkboard floor. The whole time, she’d never taken her left hand from where it lovingly pressed against my stomach, and presently I grabbed it and kissed it profusely and tenderly.

Then, as she was unfolding her sweater, a fart ripped loose, resonating loudly against the plastic tabletop. We lost our shit laughing, and before I knew it, I screamed and fell off the table.

“Fuck! Sheldon, are you okay?”

I just righted myself and went on laughing.

Ana was waiting for us in the adirondack chair out front, with the tiniest Mona Lisa grin. “Ahem. You have reached a decision,” they said. “And an orgasm.” I blushed.

Josefina was also flushed, but only from exertion. She beamed. “Been a while since I’ve done a quickie in the great outdoors. I still got it though.”

“We should head inside,” I added. “It’s getting a bit cold for us human folks. Also, we have a pilgrimage to the outer realm to plan.”