After Ana took a shower, she walked over to the mirror and said: “Infinity… I need to use the store to order stuff. I’m just gonna have it delivered with tomorrow’s free delivery though, if that’s okay?”

The mirror immediately transformed into a screen, and I started going on a shopping spree: Speedloaders for revolvers, strainers for pasta, two new and relatively expensive keyboards for my upstairs laptop and my desktop, two similarly fancy wireless mouses, a lot of AA batteries, two new electric toothbrushes, some steel targets for outside, a hair dryer so I don’t need to use towels… The list went on and on, as I found more and more things that I needed.

Ultimately, I ended up spending 450 dollars. Yeah, I think I inherited my shopping tendencies from my parents. At least I didn’t get a bunch of fresh food that would go bad in a few days though.

The most important thing I bought were the ear protectors, which looked similar to those really old headphones. There were ear plugs too, but I hate putting anything in my ears. I don’t even like putting things ‘over’ my ears, so I was also looking into ‘suppressors’. Not silencers, since those are more of a myth, though if you suppress a small caliber handgun well enough, it’s almost silent. Anyway, you can technically suppress a revolver, but it’s significantly more difficult, since they release gases out the sides… Then you also need a threaded barrel, so that you can actually attach a suppressor. Honestly, it’s just a lot easier to simply buy a non-revolver pistol and put a suppressor on that. Still, I didn’t wanna spend that much money on guns… Yet.

I also bought some cranberry juice as a preemptive measure. If the outside of my dick hurt so bad, then it was only a matter of time before the inside was fucked as well. In order to avoid urethritis or a UTI, I figured it was fine to start drinking cranberry juice regularly.

After that, I went downstairs. I figured it was about time that I start doing the laundry. Specifically, the towels. Fortunately, I already packed them all into a single trash bag, so I didn’t need to dig around through the other dirty clothes… Well, even though I say that, all the clothes and towels were supposed to be clean. It’s just that my definition of clean is a bit more extreme than most. I also took some laundry detergent, or it’d kinda be pointless.

I won’t bore you with the details, though I guess I was bored of the details too, because I focused all of my attention on Michael for most of that experience. He was busy writing down a detailed account of my first day with a vagina, taking care to write as much meaningless detail as possible, so that I could make more money.

In the meantime, Ana finished putting the towels in the washing machine, so she went upstairs, washed her hands and came back down into the basement. It was about time I started completing those ‘tasks’. Something I hadn’t done in at least eight or nine years: Sit-ups.

If I could do 50 incline sit-ups, I would earn 100 dollars. And after that, I would get 500 for every 25 sit-ups. That was a fuckload of money. It was for each individual body too, so if ‘Michael’ could keep up with Ana, I could potentially earn a lot.

I was still pretty wet, and not in the horny way, but I did spend at least half an hour doing laundry. In fact, I didn’t really consider how the basement was kinda cold. Not fucking freezing, so I wasn’t shivering or anything, but my nipples were hard and I was definitely uncomfortable by the time I went into the gym and closed the door.

“Shit, figures that I’d still end up freezing my ass off in a basement, even on a goddamn tropical island!”

At that moment, I received a message on my phone upstairs: [∞: We can adjust the temperature and atmospheric conditions to suit your desire, or the optimal testing parameters.]

“Okay then, how ‘bout you raise the temperature to something reasonable? Like… I don’t fucking know, seventy-five to eighty?” As the lights on the ceiling brightened dramatically, I felt like my skin was gonna burn off, so I screamed: “Not Celsius! Holy fuck! And what is that? Sun lamps?! Are you microwaving me?!”

[∞: They can imitate sunlight, which both of your bodies severely lack exposure to… However, this is merely the infrared function, in order to increase the temperature rapidly. We are also drying the air significantly, in order to reduce the moisture on your body and make your exercise more comfortable.]

“Oh… Well thanks then?” I snickered and walked over to the incline sit-up bench. It was a bench on a really steep angle, where even the lowest part was raised from the floor by a few inches. The higher part had a long pole in the middle, with cushioning on the parts my legs would touch, and the edge. I used to have a really old one where that material had basically been worn down to sharp metal, so it became unusable without potentially getting tetanus.

Anyway, there were two more cushioned round pieces near the bottom of that pole, which was where my shins or ankles would latch onto. It was super uncomfortable to have that leathery-plastic material rubbing against my wet back, ass and legs, but I started doing sit-ups regardless.

The first twenty times I was totally fine, like it didn’t tax my muscles at all. Around number fifty, I started to get dizzy and my head was a little wobbly from moving so quickly. I solved the problem by slowing down or just taking breaks… By 76 or 79, both my bodies started to feel strained. Even though Michael was just drinking tea and reading a webnovel, I could look down and see my abdominal muscles contracting involuntarily.

“Uhmmn~! Fuck, shit… Ugh…” I grumbled as I was trying not to bend forward, while Ana was struggling just to make it past 90… By the time she reached 100, she got up and walked around to relieve the tension in her abdomen. While Michael did the same.

I couldn’t breathe. You might not know this about me, but when I can’t breathe, I get stressed out and it only gets worse from there. Both my bodies felt like they were suffocating. Michael was dizzy and on the verge of puking, while Ana just felt lightheaded and was a few seconds from having a panic attack. Neither of my bodies could speak, but Michael picked up the phone, turned it on the side and immediately typed: [Holy fucking shitcakes, I feel like I’m gonna die! Did you bastards lower the oxygen in the house?!]

Of course, that was impossible. I just wasn’t in the proper state of mind to remember that the windows right next to my desks were open, and only a metal mesh was keeping the birds and other animals from sneaking inside.

[∞: Interesting… It appears that your bodies are exhibiting a degree of synchronization, far beyond what we anticipated. However, this is good… Very valuable data. We will reward you with a bonus of 1000 USD. We recommend that you avoid exercising any further, in order to avoid injuring one of your bodies and causing future experiments to be delayed.]

Unfortunately, 1600 dollars wasn’t enough for me to stop freaking out. People who have never had panic attacks wouldn’t understand what it’s like to know that you’re probably totally healthy, yet it feels like you can’t breathe. As if there was some immense weight on your chest. The air is really thick or thin. You don’t know. You just feel terrified and helpless.

When I feel that way, my instinct is almost always to escape. I can’t really handle cold weather well. However, I didn’t need to get on a train or fly on a plane. I was already on a goddamn tropical island. I was free, for the most part.

Both my bodies headed out the front door and breathed in the fresh, warm air. It was… Amazing.

“Oh fuck, fuck! That’s a tiger!” Of course, my sunbathing was immediately cut short when a massive black-striped white cat appeared out of the western treeline. I didn’t know whether it was a good kitty or a bad one, so I decided to just go inside and lock the door. As if the fucking tiger could turn the doorknob?

“This is so fucking goddamn ironic… I’m on a motherfucking beautiful island and I can’t even go outside… No, no, I definitely can, it’s only a matter of whether I’m willing to or not. It’s not like I need to worry about paying medical bills or whatever, since when did I become such a pussy?!”

I’m not sure if it was Ana or my original body talking, but that doesn’t really matter. I was pissed off. And when I get angry…