I had just taken a shower when Lauren had asked me to come and sit down with her on the bed. While I didn’t immediately know why, it didn’t take very long for me to see what was coming up… And it completely flipped my mood around. I’d hoped to keep living the lie a little bit longer, but I couldn’t just keep lying and misleading her. Especially not now that she’d started to like me…

So I told her, I told her everything. I saw her glance at her pistol for a second, but I wasn’t afraid, if she’d chosen to act on it, I wouldn’t have blamed her at all and I wouldn’t have tried to stop her either... But she didn’t, she listened to me, patiently, although I had to ask her to be quiet a couple of times to formulate sentences in my head, she listened and gave me the time I needed…

She didn’t attack me, she didn’t yell at me, from what I could tell she wasn’t even angry. It’s as if she’d always imagined this to be some kind of possibility that just came true. Even when I told her about the possible fate of her planet, she stayed calm. She even calmed me down instead…

I guess I should’ve expected this from her… After all, she was the person I’d fallen for.

That’s when she came out with her request. “I’d like to see your true form… if that’s okay?” Of course, she would frame her question like that. Always leaving me the room to say no. I couldn’t deny her request. Although that didn’t mean I was terribly comfortable with what I was going to do. I’d really grown to like this body, and I didn’t want to scare her off. But she’d asked.

We headed to my old cabin. Lauren locked the door behind her as I headed towards my old desk and grabbed my spying equipment.

I handed over a couple of the communication devices to her.

“You use this to contact your people?”

I nodded. “This one is for contact purposes, and this can form an area around you through which sound can’t pass.” I explained.

“That’s useful.” She looked at it a little better in her hand before putting it on the desk. “And that box is…”

“That’s the device I use to alter my… being…” I took the inconspicuous slim black box out and handed it over to Lauren.

“It doesn’t look like it can open.” She flipped it around a couple of times, looking for seams or hidden buttons.

“That’s so no one can accidentally activate it.” I put up my hands to receive my little black box back again. Lauren didn’t waste a lot of time handing it back. I sighed as I held it in my hands. With just a couple of relatively simple steps, I’d be able to reveal my true form to Lauren, the woman I loved.

“You don’t have to. If you don’t feel comfortable showing it to me.” Lauren replied. “I’ll just take it on your word that you are not some giant crab monster or something.”

Her little joke made me laugh. “That’s oddly specific.”

“If you are, that’s fine too, but please don’t pinch me.” She gave me a cheeky wink.

“I’ll show you.” I say, resolved in my decision by her jokingly encouragement. “Although you should probably turn around.”

“Hmm?” Lauren tilted her head.

“It’s just that I need to undress for this… I don’t want to destroy the clothes.” I blushed.

“Ah! Oh…” She quickly turned around on her heel and stared at the wall.

“Thank you.”

“No, thank you for confiding in me.” Lauren replied. -I love that woman so much…-

I’d slowly undressed and had put my clothes in a neat pile in front of me. I then put the black disguise kit in my hands and spoke to it while holding on to the sides. “Open up.” I said in my native language. Lauren didn’t comment on it. Light blue lines appeared on the box so I could pull it open, revealing a screen. “It will only take a little while longer.” I said to Lauren.

“Take all the time you need.”

With that, I pressed a series of buttons, after which the little box started to work its magic on my body. I didn’t really know how it worked and how it didn’t hurt, but in just a couple of minutes time, I was back in my original body. Tail and horns included. I took up my shirt and buttoned it up again before I talked to Lauren again. “I’m… I’m ready.”

Lauren turned around slowly and let her eyes fall onto me. She took a step back and looked me up and down.

“I’d expected something less… androgynous… Not that that’s bad or anything. The tail and horns are a nice addition, though. And purple is definitely one of my favorite colors.”

Lauren’s comment made me chuckle a little. “My race is very androgynous.” I replied. “We don’t really have pronounced genders like you humans do.”

“You don’t sound or look very happy about that.”

“Uh… Don’t I?” I hadn’t even noticed.

“Not really.”

“I do like my human body a lot more.” I admitted. “But this is who I was born as.”

“Hmm… that black box, does it allow you to change your original body too?”

“I… uh… I actually don’t know.” I replied.

Lauren approached me and signaled to take the box from me. I handed it over to her.

“I only really know how to switch between these two bodies.”

“I see.” Lauren looked at the box, but it was back to its inactive state. “If we could find a way to change it… how would you feel about looking into a more feminine ‘alien’ body?”

“I hadn’t really thought about that…” I replied. “But I don’t think I’d be opposed to that…”

“It would require us to tell some people about you first, though. It would be a little bit too sudden if we’d just go to… Eva, for example, or Yuki, with this now.” She offered the box back to me. “But for now, let’s get you back in your comfy body.” She gave me a wink.

“Right after you turn around again…” I blushed, to which the Commander blushed as well.

“Right…”

I was so happy to be back in my body and with my clothes back on. Lauren had noticed it as well, as she smiled at me.

“Let’s head back to our cabin.”

“After all this, you still want to share your room with me?”

“Of course.” Lauren continued smiling. “Why wouldn’t I?”

The corners of my lips pulled into a smile as well. I’d expected her to say that but I was happy about it nonetheless.

“And if you want… I could still be your girlfriend as well.”

“I’d like nothing more.” I replied and went in for a hug. She accepted me with open arms.

“It’s actually pretty funny if you think about it… In the end, I still got my alien girlfriend.”

“Oh, right, you did talk about that, didn’t you.”

“Did you forget?” Lauren chuckled.

“Maybe a little bit.”

“How could you?” She laughed again. “That was my biggest secret.”

“Haha.”

After Lauren and I broke off the hug, the both of us went to her cabin. This time I took all my spy gear with me to her cabin as well.

“Where can I put this?”

“There must be an empty drawer somewhere. Just toss it in that.”

“You make it sound like these are but mere trinkets.”

“In the end, it’s just a tool for a job.” Lauren started to search through a couple of cabinets. “Here, you can put it next to the small towels.”

“Thanks…” I walked over and put the gear in the cabinet Lauren had opened. It felt a bit weird how the mood had flipped from such a dark place to being so lighthearted in a matter of an hour.

“So back on the first planet we landed on, those explorers were part of your race as well, right? They also had horns and tails, if I recall correctly.” Lauren asked while sitting back on the side of her bed.

“Yes, those explorers were Qhaba'Qhazd too.”

“That’s what your race is called, huh… Qhaba…?”

“Qhaba’Qhazd.” I repeated myself.

“I see, Qhaba’Qhazd…” Lauren scratched her chin. “Back then, when we were in the labs, you reacted pretty poorly to seeing their bodies.”

“It wasn’t only that.” I replied and filled two glasses of water in the meantime. “I saw something that I wasn’t allowed to see.”

“That being?”

I brought her a glass and sat down next to her. “I’m pretty sure our race has been genetically manipulated.”

Lauren took a sip from her glass of water. “And that’s bad?”

“It perplexes me.” I replied. “We have all been taught that our genetic code should not be looked at, ever, let alone be tampered with… It’s one of the biggest crimes that one could commit.”

“Yet your code has been tampered with… and not to mention your little black box of magic over there.” She pointed towards the cabinet I had put my gear in.

“But that’s different.”

“How?”

“....” I couldn’t give her an answer to that. I had admitted earlier that I didn’t really know how the box worked… but I’d always assumed that… They’d not betray my trust.

Lauren softly bumped her shoulder against me and then put her hand on mine. “We’ll figure stuff out. Together.” She smiled and leaned in, giving me a kiss on the cheek.

“Yeah… together.” I smiled back. I could feel my cheeks burning.