Can a Shark Swim in Gender Fluid?

By Beedok

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Part Three

The area beside the pool was rather bustling as Maraĵa slipped through the crowds, towards one of the two actually semi-reasonably priced restaurants on the guest level of the resort. She was mostly up here to get some sunlight, her late shifts and living quarters below the water line leaving her a bit deprived, but she also couldn’t deny the food was pretty good. Probably worth the price for folks who had that sort of money to burn.

Eyes followed her as she walked past, many lingering on her tail as much as the rest of her, but the resort was happy to have sharks like her on display. They even got a discount at customer level restaurants, to encourage them to interact casually with guests and draw customers over to the club. Even if not all the guests were so thrilled by modified folks wandering around. (The annoyed demographic mostly being families, convinced their children would be lured in by the concept… a bit of nonsense it sometimes seemed humanity might never escape.)

Maraĵa rarely took advantage of those discounts, though. She blamed her mother’s Scottish heritage for not being able to splurge as casually as most of her coworkers.

Today, though… she had a severe craving for tuna. Since Thusitha was apparently busy with work again, Maraĵa wasn’t feeling like fighting the craving all that much, and so plopped herself down at the counter of the grill. She ordered a tuna melt bagel, and then watched the movements of the resort as she waited for it. 

What she couldn’t help noticing was the sheer number of bodyguards lurking about. They seemed to be on high alert. What for, she couldn’t guess, but she knew there hadn’t been that many patrolling rooftops the day before.

“Have you heard what has them so jumpy?” she asked the waiter as he handed her her sandwich, pointing a thumb towards one of the nearer guards.

“I heard a rumour someone called in a threat, but I don’t know how true that is,” the young man said, shrugging slightly.

She nodded, though it wasn’t like he’d shared anything surprising with her. Still, this all explained why her new girlfriend was so busy, barely having time to text.

 

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Thursdays were a shorter shift, barring holidays or other special events, but Thusitha was still apparently too busy to do anything before the shift started. Maraĵa ended up puttering about, making a large fancy lunch and watching a few shows before work. She spent a bit of time wondering if she needed a better hobby than tv, but then it was time for work. Which meant having to leave before reaching any real conclusion on the matter.

The shift was fairly quiet, for a Thursday. Nothing next to the chaos of normal Friday or Saturday, but Thursday was normally busy enough by the standards of most other days of the week. Even for people on week plus vacations, there seemed to be feelings that it was inappropriate to party too hard on a Monday or a Tuesday. Some ingrained sense of what was proper refusing to let people truly escape the rat race of a work week.

The sort of thing Maraĵa was glad to be free of, even if it might have meant not having actual clear career prospects. A thing she’d never really thought about, having existed in the haze of her pre-transition life. Her present, meanwhile, was dominated by her contract with the Club Ajkula. Three years, barring extraordinary circumstances.

Since she was less than a year into it, she didn’t see any great reason to dwell on the after just yet. Despite that, her mind sometimes drifted to it on quieter nights, like the one she was dealing with. Ones where the clientele were a little older, and therefore a little richer.

At least the existential thoughts also came with bigger tips to help balance them out.

She’d just finished giving some of the quieter patrons eating dinners in the corners of the club a warning that the kitchen was going to close (which meant they should order dessert now if they wanted anything). Then someone entered the club. She was about to feel annoyed that a (likely already drunk) patron had decided to crawl in five minutes before they were going to lock the doors to new arrivals when she realised it was Thusitha.

The tall woman was looking dashing in her work suit as she strolled over and sat at the bar. Maraĵa made sure there was nothing work related to demand her attention and then slipped over to her side. 

“Is everything ok?” she whispered. “You look a little tired.”

“48 hour shift,” Thusitha sighed, leaning an elbow on the bar. “We were stuck on high alert… I can’t go into detail, but it’s over now.”

“That’s good,” Maraĵa replied.

Thusitha nodded. “It’s left me wanting a strong drink and some time with a cute shark, though.”

That got a blush out of Maraĵa, before she waved the bartender over. Maraĵa’s good word encouraged him to serve Thusitha, despite her being a new client at just shy of three in the morning. He offered her a bottle of boukha, which the large woman popped open and began to drink like a soft drink. 

“I know you’re big,” Maraĵa said, once she’d returned from serving a couple of customers, “but is drinking like that really wise?”

“We’ve got healing nanites in our systems,” Thusitha replied, turning to face her. “It’s nice if you get shot, but… less thrilling if you’re trying to get even a smidge tipsy.”

Maraĵa could only blink, staring at the tank of a woman. Walking around with significant amounts of nanobots in one’s system mildly boggled her mind. She hadn’t realised that was even possible yet. Sure, she also wasn’t the best at keeping up with tech news, but she hadn’t thought she’d missed that something like that existed.

Though, it was far from the most amazing and mind melting thing for her to encounter that night. The second event started about seventeen minutes after her shift ended. Otherwise known as the amount of time it took her to lead Thusitha down to her suite and for both of them to take (most of) their clothes off.

The next couple hours saw them cover a surprising amount of ground in the small apartment. In the end, though, the pair had ended up cuddling on the bed, Maraĵa happily pressed against Thusitha’s large frame as she drifted off to sleep. It was about the best way to end a night that she could imagine.

 

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A noise from the washroom woke Maraĵa up. She blinked, looking around in a drowsy state. Her clock told her it had barely been two hours, but Thusitha was out of bed and the light was on in the washroom, peeking out from under the door.

Not quite sure what to do, Maraĵa sat up, ready to try to call her new amazonesque girlfriend back to bed.

Only to be left staring in shock at the figure that walked out of the bathroom. It was still a bit dark, the occupant of the bathroom having turned the light off before opening the door, but there was just enough light in the apartment for Maraĵa to realise the figure was not what one would generally call feminine.

“Oh… you’re awake,” a fairly deep voice said.

Maraĵa knew that voice… not well, but—the one bodyguard. The one she kept running into. Who kept flirting with her.

With a sinking feeling in her gut, she flicked on the lamp beside the bed to stare up at him.

“You,” she said, effectively hissing.

“Um… yes,” he muttered with a shrug.

“What ar—how are you—where…” she stammered, struggling to ignore the impossible thought that was forming in her mind. One she did not want to digify with any more neurons than she could get away with giving it.

“Well… um… you, uh… you’re rather familiar with what nanites can do,” he said, gesturing towards her.

She stared, the thought in her mind seeming rather less impossible right now.

Especially as she studied his face, noting that he had the same complexion as Thusitha, and that his facial features weren’t all that different. Close enough to pass for siblings.

“So… yeah. The nanobots in my system let me switch my sex when I fee—”

She threw a pillow at him. He caught it, but it distracted him enough to get him to stop talking. Maraĵa hopped to her feet, standing on top of the bed, and glared at him.

“So what?” she hissed. “When you heard I was a lesbian you thought you’d just have some fun at my expense!?”

“What? No…”

“Just a big funny joke, isn’t it? ‘Oh, I’ll make her think I’m a woman so I can get some forbidden fun with the cute shark’?” she shouted, struggling to hold back tears.

The utter betrayal of it. The way she’d opened up… the way she’d felt so thrilled at the attention. Had he been laughing at the texts she’d sent? 

“That wasn’t—that isn’t,” he started to say.

“Out!!” she snarled, pointing to the door.

“Can’t we—”

“OUT!!”

He nodded, starting to move towards the door. Then he stopped, turning to let out a small request. “My clothes?”

Her eye twitched, before she decided to give a sharp nod. She didn’t want them around to remind her. “You can get dressed in the hall.”

He gave another small nod, hunching over to grab his things, hurrying out of the small suit still in the nude.

She marched over to make sure the door was locked, then wandered back into the middle of the room, where she collapsed, curling up into a ball. She pulled her tail up to hug, and began to cry. Sobs of betrayal fueled by the feeling of having been deeply violated. Having had a man do… do everything she’d done both those nights.

She’d been used. Seen as nothing more than a source of amusement.

It made her feel sick. She needed to wash herself off.

Standing in the shower, she let water hotter than was likely smart run over her body, trying to wash the feelings away. 

She was going to have to wash her sheets.

 

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Not wanting to spend more time than necessary alone in her apartment, Maraĵa dragged herself to the employee cafeteria. She stared blankly at the window after breakfast, watching the various fish swim past. At points her jaw twitched with the anticipation of hunting, but subconscious instincts didn’t do much to break through her emotional fragility. The disgust that felt locked inside of her.

“Maraĵa?” a woman asked, sitting down across from her. “Is everything ok?”

She blinked, realising it was Francesca with some food. 

“You don’t usually hang out in the caf and… have you been crying?” the other shark girl asked.

“Men,” she muttered as a reply.

“Men? I—What in the world happened?” Francesca asked, eyes filling with concern.

“Thusitha… was… those bodyguards have medical nanotech in their bodies. Apparently they can change sexes for fun,” she explained in a vaguely detached voice.

“Really?” Francesca replied, leaning in. “That sounds nea—wait. So then…?”

Letting out a sigh, Maraĵa nodded and continued. “The jerk who flirted with me the first night. And then again at the entrance security check.When I said I was a lesbian he must have decided he could play a fun game with me…”

“He didn’t?” Francesca replied, pailing.

All Maraĵa could do was nod again. It took her a few moments to find the words to continue. “I woke up in the middle of the night… he’d gone to the bathroom, and he was a man again.”

Francesca grimaced. “And then he confessed?”

“Ye—well, basically,” she muttered. “I chased him off before I had to hear the worst of it.”

Chloe arrived with a tray of food at that point, sitting down beside Francesca. She realised something serious was happening, and Francesca quietly filled her in on the details. Maraĵa was glad to have someone else there to explain it, as she didn’t want to think about it any more.

“Bold of him to have worn a dress that first night,” Chloe muttered. “I guess if you’re going in, you go all in… do you think that means the other two who showed up with him were faking?”

“I… I don’t know,” Maraĵa said, shrugging.

She hadn’t thought of that, but she didn’t really want to think about anything to do with Thusitha. If that was even her—his real name.

“There are some women on the bodyguard staff,” Francesca replied.

“Whatever the case, it’s a shame to see something like that wasted on a cis doing being a jerk… I know some genderfluid folks who’d love to have that,” Chloe said, taking a bite of her burger.

She spent a few moments chewing, then swallowed with the look of a woman who had just thought of something flashing on her face.

“You are certain that Thusitha isn’t gender fluid, right?” Chloe asked.

Maraĵa made to glare at her, but found she couldn’t. That… well, it wasn’t impossible. In fact, some part of her heart wanted to say that was the truth… that she couldn’t have fallen so strongly for a man just attempting to play the part of a woman to get in her pants.

“I… wouldn’t sh—wouldn’t they have said, if they were?” Maraĵa asked. “Before risking getting caught?”

“Do you tell everyone you flirt with that you’re trans?” Francesca asked.

“Um… well, no…” Maraĵa mumbled. “But I don’t get as far as sleeping with them.”

“Well, I didn’t tell Chloe I was trans until our fourth date,” Francesda replied. “Since it didn’t seem overly relevant with nano-tubs and all that.”

“Mhm! And I didn’t tell Francesca until our sixth date,” Chloe added.

“Which I still think was a little bit of a jerk move… waiting two extra dates like that,” Francesca said, glaring at her girlfriend.

“I told you, it was hilarious,” Chloe countered.

“But…” Maraĵa said, interrupting her friends’ reverie. “If… if Thusitha is gender fluid, then… then I’m the biggest jerk ever.”

“I—” Chloe started to say, before trailing off.

“Oof… yeah.. that might be a hard recovery,” Francesca replied.

“W—well, we still don’t know for sure? Maybe you are in the right?” Chloe offered.

“True!” Francesca added. “We… we need to investigate, clearly. No jumping to conclusions either way.”

Maraĵa nodded, not sure if she felt better or worse now. Did she want to find out she’d been used, or that she’d been horrible?