It started with a rough day at work. So many things start with a rough day at work.

I hadn't been able to join the rest of the team at the birthday potluck, a thing the department did regularly to celebrate everyone who had a birthday in that month. I was too wrapped up in my job. By the time I got down to the break room, most of the goodies had been divvied up. There were a couple bits of melon on the fruit plate, cake that hadn't been covered since lunch and had probably gone dry, and a few chocolate chip cookies. Homemade, from the look of them.

It was pretty rare for someone to make homemade anything that was actually any good, but these had a look about them. Something... oddly enticing. I couldn't figure it out, and while I was trying to figure it out, I had already picked one up.

The smell hit me then, the glorious mix of cinnamon and maple, in light hints, with the more solid notes of chocolate and vanilla, but there was a pull there. The room was empty, other than me, so I had no worry (after looking around) about putting the cookie to my nose and inhaling deeply, and the scent went straight to my brain and wrapped around it wonderfully. A whole world of sensation exploded into existence there, sights and sounds and memory and fantasy, all contained within that single whiff.

I dreaded the taste of it. I hesitated. I nearly put the cookie back down, nearly tossed it in the trash. Somehow, I knew that the first taste would change my life, and I didn't understand what that meant, or how that was even possible. There were crumbs on the plate, so other people had eaten some of them, and I wasn't aware of a sudden outburst of heightened consciousness in the office. Maybe it would be alright. Maybe I was just being weird.

I knew that wasn't the case. I knew that the object I held in my hand was no ordinary cookie, at least to me. I could try and convince myself otherwise, but I knew I was pretending, and as I put the dessert between my teeth and took a bite, I did so with my eyes open and a deep, honest understanding that I was stepping through a doorway that would close behind me. I just didn't know what would be on the other side.

Suddenly, the hour that I had left at work felt like it would stretch on forever. Time felt like it was frozen, and I was frozen with it. That first bite existed to be savoured, and I did, but once it was over, I needed to act, and I wasn't sure on what. I looked at the cookie in my hand, one small bite taken from it. I didn't want to devour it, but I did want another taste. Again, the scent filled my nose and my mind, and I knew that the more I took in, the clearer a picture I would have.

A clearer picture of what, I didn't know, but it was too late by far to back down. It wasn't like it was some impossible task or something; all I had to do was eat a cookie. A delicious cookie. I looked at the other ones on the plate, and somehow, they didn't hold the same appeal. That was good, I hadn't suddenly become a glutton. I didn't feel driven to eat everything, just this one cookie. There was a mystery, and I loved a good mystery.

I took another bite.

I could feel them, then. The others. I saw light and shadow shaping into images. I heard music like I'd never been aware of, not alien or anything, very human, just nothing I'd paid attention to before. I felt an embrace, but not just a hug, the closeness of a body pressed against mine, through my clothing, skin to skin. And of course, there was the smell and taste of the cookie, but there were other smells and tastes there which didn't conflict with the cookie or with each other: wonderfully marinated chicken, salad with a strange bite, the perfect cheese pizza, an ice cream sundae. It was like a minuscule hint of every fantastic meal that I'd ever had and ever would have, all at once.

I could sense one of them close by. I don't know how, I don't know why, but I knew where she was, and she was just down the hall. She was the one who'd wrapped me in that beautiful hug. Half-eaten cookie in hand, I went to see her.

I hardly ever went to that part of the office. I worked in infotech, I never really needed to interact with finance, but I knew right where to go: the cubicle with "Erynn Price" on it.

She turned in her office chair, hearing me enter, and she saw the cookie in my hand, and she looked up to my face and said, "Skye, right?"

I nodded. The moment felt... solemn, and joyful, all at once. It was subdued, but I understood that was for three reasons: first, we weren't alone, we were at work; second, Erynn was only the one who delivered the cookies, she hadn't made them, and that was important; and third, I hadn't finished the cookie yet.

"There's no way back, is there?" I asked.

Erynn shook her head. "But you won't want to go back, either."

I nodded again. "Okay. So, what's forward, then?"

She smiled, mysteriously. "That's for you to find out."

I took a breath. I was halfway through that door. Or, I guess, I was all the way through the door, but halfway down the hall, and I needed to finish the journey.

"Take your time," Erynn continued. "There's no rush. I know you're feeling like you want to hurry right now, and I really want you to, too. But take your time. Take the cookie back to your desk, finish your day, and then you can go talk to Emi."

"Right," I said. "Right. Okay. No hurry. Finish the day. Get through the day, then..."

Her smile got bigger, brighter, and more mysterious. "Then you'll know what to do."

"Okay. Okay. Sure. I can do that."

"I'll see you later, then?"

"I... yeah, I guess you will."

She winked. "I know."

I headed back to my desk. The day didn't stretch on forever, surprising me; the anticipation of what was to come made it pass remarkably quickly. And every so often, I'd take another bite of that cookie, and be reminded of what I was working towards.

I didn't see Erynn after work. I didn't even look for her. She wasn't my destination. Instead, I left my car in the parking lot and started walking. I knew it wasn't far. Or at least, it wasn't too far to walk in the late winter slush.

I didn't have the right shoes for walking. I didn't care. My stockings and my feet were getting wet, and I just sort of ... noticed it. It didn't matter, it didn't bother me, just like the wind whipping my coat about didn't matter. What mattered was that taste and smell still lingering in my mind, showing me the way.

The sun had set before I got there. I didn't even know where "there" was, I realized, but I buzzed an apartment number that I didn't recognize, got no response on the intercom, and heard the beep that said the door was unlocked. Up a flight of stairs to the door where I knocked and then opened it and walked in. Hung up my coat on a coat rack that I didn't know was there, and took off my shoes on a welcome mat I'd never seen.

The smell of baking hit me then. That vanilla and chocolate and cinnamon and maple and fresh-bread and cake and cookies as a full-body, full-mind, full-soul experience. I felt it right down to my toes.

"Hey, come in!" I heard from the other room, over the sound of some sort of electric folk music. I looked around the apartment, it was something of a disaster, but the sort of controlled disaster of someone who was packing up their life while in the middle of doing five or six other major projects. If I imagined trying to move house while cooking nightly for a family of six while also trying to do my job while also being the only one doing any of those jobs, I expect my house would have looked like that, but I also had a bigger space and, I think possibly less stuff. More furniture, fewer DVDs, definitely fewer books.

I walked over to the doorway where I'd heard the voice coming from. A short young person of Asian descent was there, brown-eyed, with very short black hair with light pink streaks running through it, wearing a plain blue apron over her slight frame and absolutely nothing else, standing by an oven and mixing something in a bowl. Somehow I understood at that first glance that their name was Emi; their whole identity spoke to me, without them even saying a word, and I knew my identity spoke to them in the same way.

And the kitchen itself was full of sensation! Music from the phone on the shelf, a wild explosion of colour in bright mixing bowls and plates everywhere mostly covered with baking, and of course the smell of all that baking. It was a riot of excitement, so very different from the way I lived, in the white-painted suburban house I'd inherited from my parents, with my work in an antiseptic corporate office.

I was flooded, overwhelmed, astonished. I think I was staring. Emi waved me over towards a small table with one small chair at it, and I unbuttoned my blouse as I sat down at her direction. Something about the way my clothing was sitting against my skin bothered me. It was one sense too many. I had to be at least as undressed as my... host? I didn't know what to call them. I needed to focus on the magic of the moment, and my work clothes inhibited that.

That's how we passed the next few moments, me getting undressed, Emi mixing and stirring and adding ingredients. By the time I'd stripped down to my underwear, they had finished spooning dough onto a cookie sheet. They turned to me as I was slowly unhooking my bra.

"You okay, Skye?"

I nodded. Their voice sounded lovely mingling with the music. My own, in my head, sounded rough and discordant, so I didn't use it. I stood up to remove my underwear and to just be naked in that space, then sat back down on the wooden chair.

"This is where you wanna be, right?"

I nodded again, enthused. My hands rested in my lap. It was only then that I realized that my usual discomfort with my body was nonexistent. I knew I wasn't in terrible shape, pretty average for someone closing in on forty, that most of my problems were a result of the way society treats women of a certain age and body type, but it was nice to sit there and just be in that state without anyone judging me and, more importantly, without judging myself.

She smiled at my response, a predatory gleam in their eye. "It gets better."

I knew it would. How could it not? Especially when they were the one saying it.

"There's two of them. Lyric and Tempest. They started this whole thing, about, uh, two months ago? Anyway I haven't been a part of it for that long. Erynn's been with them pretty much since it all started, and Lyric found me a couple weeks later. Something like that. Time gets... weird, I guess. Tough to follow."

I took it all in, a bit wide-eyed, just enjoying the music and the smells and sights and the sound of their voice.

"And of course, there's..." They said a Name, but it wasn't just a word, it was in the way they were standing, the smell and taste of the cookies baking, the blue of their apron... I understood. I understood that that Name was the power behind whatever had happened to me when I bit into that cookie at work, and behind what I was feeling, where I was existing in that moment. I could put the letters together that make up the sounds that they had said, but there's no way to convey the actual sensation of the word without everything else that was part of the moment. I imagined the actual sound of the Name would change if any of those other surrounding characteristics were different.

They waited as I processed the Name. "You get it. Of course you do. That's why you're here."

The buzzer went off on the oven. We both looked over. Emi crossed, put on oven mitts, and opened it up, unleashing the warm, sweet smell of fresh cookies. "I'm making twelve dozen. No real reason, I just like making things. That seems to be the common thread or whatever you wanna call it. We're all creators, in some sense." They put the baking on the stove top, putting the next sheet in the oven. I found myself admiring her legs and bare back, wondering how she kept slender when she was making such delicious things

They were still talking as they worked, taking the hot cookies from their sheet and putting them on a rack. "Lyric makes computer graphics. That's what brought me in. I belong to Her, really, and it's my job to help Her however I can so that She can keep doing what She's supposed to. I'm kind of an all-purpose assistant, though not as much as Erynn is. Erynn belongs to Tempest, who's a singer and songwriter. It's her music that I'm listening to."

I took it all in, making mental notes, letting them talk. They turned back to me, taking off their mitts. "Erynn is apparently finding her way into programming, which I just don't get, but that's alright, I can bake and cook and that's my job. So what do you do?"

The question caught me off guard. What did I do? I'd been in the IT department since graduation, and I hadn't really done much else with myself in a decade. I could only shrug.

"Heh, it's alright, you'll find something."

Their confidence was comforting. As much as part of me wanted to, I couldn't find a way to disagree with them.

"When I first got wrapped up in all this," they continued, "I had these... moments, I guess, of shock. Just complete disbelief and total terror. Erynn told me that transformation is never easy, and she's right, and this is a big transformation. Total identity breakdown, at least for me. But you're not alone. There's five of us, now, including you, and we're all learning and helping each other and exploring."

I took it in, listening, trying to comprehend. I didn't, really, but I was definitely curious.

"Here." Emi handed me a warm cookie. The feel of it in my grip alone was incredible. The texture, the grit of it, was something different from any other cookie I'd ever had.

Emi watched me, amused. "Okay, so you're hooked, clearly." She leaned back against the counter. "I wanna see what happens when you take a bite."

I kept her in suspense a moment longer. This was not an experience to be rushed. Somehow, the smell of that one cookie, the one Emi had handed to me, stood out against the background scent of the room. I lifted it to my nose and inhaled deeply.

Oh yes, I was absolutely hooked.

Emi seemed to understand. I could see the anticipation in their eyes, but they weren't going to rush me.

My first bite was almost tentative. My eyes closed to focus better on the taste. There it was, again, that burst of chocolate and vanilla, cinnamon and maple, and something deeper, something not really a flavour but a feeling, an intensity. I shook, I honestly quivered with the power of it.

I opened my eyes and the light of the kitchen felt impossibly bright. Emi seemed to glow, almost as much a source of the light as the cold LED fixture overhead.

"Wow," they breathed. "I kind of get what Tempest feels when she's playing for Erynn."

I smiled. I took another bite. The effect was diminished a little, but it was still potent. I watched as Emi seemed to get a sort of shiver themself. Their hands gripped the edges of their apron, and I could see muscles in their legs tensing. They shuffled back and forth on their feet. They swallowed.

"I don't know if..." they began, then paused, and started again. "One of the most frustrating things about the past couple weeks," they said, then shook their head.

I didn't know what they were trying to say then. I took another bite of the cookie, but it didn't have the same impact on either of us. It was still wonderful.

Emi straightened up, seemingly finally ready to talk. "I have been naked, or mostly naked, with three women, since I met them. And it's weird, but there hasn't been anything sexual about it." They took a step closer. "But this..."

I nodded.

"You're feeling it too."

I nodded. It was ridiculous, I was almost twice their age, and definitely not in their league, but...

Their kiss tasted like cinnamon and maple and it shook everything I had ever known about myself. Their touch was soft and commanding. The cookie sat half-eaten on their table as we made our way to the couch in the living room, and we kissed and explored and touched. We didn't get to sex, but we were well on our way when the timer on the oven went off.

I understood entirely when they went to take care of their baking. Making out is wonderful, but art is art. I waited patiently, but before Emi could come back I heard her phone.

"That's the door!" they called from the kitchen. "That'll be Erynn, can you let her in? Just press nine."

I picked up their phone and let Erynn in, then got up and made sure the door was unlocked. Erynn walked in a moment later, and I was honestly a little surprised that she was still clothed. She grinned, seeing me.

"Glad to see you're one of us."

I nodded, smiling back.

"You'll probably want to get dressed," Erynn continued, stepping in. "We have a bit of a drive."

I got off the couch, then realized I should probably clean up. I headed to the bathroom as Erynn walked into the kitchen, and by the time I emerged, the two of them were ready to go, all of Emi's baking nicely packed up, and my clothes brought out from the kitchen and laid out neatly on the couch where I had been sitting.

"So what do you think?" Erynn asked Emi as I started to put on my underwear. "Does she belong to Lyric, or Tempest?"

Emi giggled. "I think this one's ours," they replied.

I couldn't have been happier to hear it.