The insidious alarm woke me up at ten the next morning, simultaneously letting me know that it was time for work and that I had not gotten nearly enough sleep. Exhaustion clung to me like a spark to tinder, a deep bone-weary tiredness that my human body had never felt. It was a struggle to get out of bed when all I wanted was more sleep. Maybe a tylenol or seven, too.

Beyond being tired, my body was sore. Sure, it was largely concentrated in my feminine bits which had been touched, rubbed, and penetrated until it hurt to even think about climaxing again. Surprisingly, my legs and stomach were sore, too. Too many muscles tensing for too long had done a number on my ill-prepared system and delivered me a good lesson on the perils of over-indulgence.

While there were not many parallels between my previous life as the greatest fire truck in northeast Ohio, there were absolutely zero experiences that were remotely close to the female orgasm. Nothing could have prepared me for the intensity, the suddenness, the explosiveness. It was as if my entire body lit up with pleasure, and it just kept going. It was hard to blame a girl for going a little crazy the first time she felt true bliss.

At some point during the evening, I realized Emma was gone, and had no memory of when she left or what she said. Later on, I realized that things down there - while still bringing me pleasure - were beginning to hurt a bit. Still later, I realized that my body was craving something other than that, and I’d denied it both fuel and sustenance, all while red-lining every system I had for hours.

I’ll have to thank Emma for vibrator and the forbidden knowledge, I thought. She’d given me the secret to everything. I understood exactly what it was that my body had been craving. What the point was for all of these strange social situations that humans put themselves into. The reason that people made absolute fools of themselves over a smile or a pretty face.

It was sex. All of it was keyed to sex.

Though I had only been a woman for a handful of days, I was quite sure that there could be nothing better than what I had experienced. Sure, maybe there were other flavors of the same thing - it might be more fun with a partner, or a different toy, or a different sex, or with different techniques - but it all boiled down to the final act of climaxing. All the kissing and getting food together and dressing in fancy clothes ultimately boiled down to advancing two people’s proximity to physical intimacy. 

Whether that took a night, a week, a month, or whatever, everyone was trying to get a little closer to being a lot closer.

When I finally understood this key fact of human life, many of the questions I’d had over the previous few days fell into place like a puzzle miraculously completing itself. Samantha had dressed up for me because she wanted to fuck. Arianna was shy around me because she thought I was cute. Emma was… well, Emma was getting paid to do what I needed, but even she had said I was pretty enough. Other people simply didn’t view me like that - I wasn’t their type of human, or perhaps my innate truckness was off-putting. Or maybe they just hated redheads with huge tits. I didn’t know what was in vogue these days for the female form… only that I personally found Samantha and Emma to be in vogue for me. 

I felt sure that today, finally, interactions with customers and other employees would finally make sense. 

At least… maybe they would if I could get my ass out of bed.

Samantha hopped into the car ten minutes before we were due at the Pizza Planet, exactly where I’d picked her up two days earlier. The touching we’d done at the time had confused me, left me wondering what was going on with my body and what it was that she wanted from me. If only I’d seen Emma first, I thought. I would have understood the goal, if not the journey. 

“Hi, Red!” Samantha said, cheerful as ever. She was dressed in her normal uniform, hair pulled back in a messy ponytail out the back of a Pizza Planet baseball hat. She wasn’t a tenth as dressed up as she had been for our “date”, and wasn’t wearing any makeup at all. 

I still found her so, so beautiful.

“Samantha,” I smiled, feeling the deep fatigue behind my eyes lessening at the sight of her. It was easier to forget the troubles of the world with her around. Easier to remember that even though I’d died three days ago, in some ways my new life was every bit as rewarding as the old. 

She buckled her seatbelt and beamed back at me. “Did you have a good day off? Do anything fun?”

Did I ever… “It was a good day,” I allowed. “But I wanted to talk to you about our date…”

Her smile dipped for a moment, but she was beaming a heartbeat later. “There’s nothing to talk about, Red,” she said. “We’re good - friends, always.”

“And I’m happy to be your friend. But that’s not what we both wanted that night,” I said seriously. 

Samantha was quiet for a moment. “No. It wasn’t. I wanted more… I’ve always wanted more. But that’s not what we have, and I know I can’t make you feel the same.” Her eyes bore into mine, and I could have lost myself in them as thoroughly as if I’d driven into Cleveland. “I don’t want to lose my best friend by pushing too far.”

“Samantha, it’s okay,” I stressed. “I know you wanted to fuck.”

The blonde’s eyes nearly bulged out of her head. “Jesus, Red,” she choked out, coughing several times. “That was… blunt.”

“I had a lot of time to think. I didn’t know what I wanted, everything was so confusing. My body was telling me one thing, but my brain didn’t know if it was okay. I’d never done anything like that at all,” I explained. Surely she would understand me being a sexual novice, even if she wouldn’t understand that it was mostly because I used to weigh forty tons and couldn’t use stairs.

There was another silence, and Samantha nodded slowly. “That was your first time on a date with a woman.” It was clear that she didn’t mean it as a question.

“First time on a date,” I countered. “I kind of didn’t know what sex was. My body wanted more, but I didn’t know what more was.”

“You… didn’t know what sex was,” Samantha replied, even more slowly. She looked at me like I was a giant red fire truck hiding inside of her best friend’s body. Her eyes drifted down my frame, taking in my black miniskirt, the tight black shirt, the cleavage clearly visible as it stretched out the soft fabric. “You, Red. You… didn’t know about sex.” 

“Nope!” I replied cheerfully. This was far easier than I thought, and she was catching on so quickly. Relating everyone’s intentions back to sex was definitely how  I was supposed to interact with people. 

“I don’t even understand life anymore,” Samantha said as I pulled away from her house. “You… haven’t…What the fuck?”

“Precisely,” I said. “But I know now, so the next time we go on a date, we can fuck.”

“This bluntness is mind-blowing,” Samantha remarked, still sounding a little dazed. In fact, she didn’t say much as we drove to work, and when we got there, she got out of the car mechanically, as if her mind was completely occupied with other thoughts. 

I took her hand and walked her inside, positively buzzing at my new knowledge of the way things were. This was going to make things so much easier.

“Red! Samantha! You’re god-damn late again,” Larry screamed, pointing at the ringing phone with one hand and two pizzas with another. “Get your asses in here!”

I stepped right up to the Pizzas, grabbing my delivery ticket and stared right at Larry. He slammed the phone down, then glared at me. “Well?” he snapped.

“Larry, I’m not going to fuck you,” I announced seriously.

“Jesus Christ,” Larry said.