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1972, somewhere...
“Do you ever wish,” Regina mused, taking a long drag from her cigarette, “that you could be a guy for… I don’t know, a month or so?” She waved the smoke away as she exhaled and watched the light breeze carry it off, the sort of thoughtful frown on her face which people often called adorable, much to the drummer’s chagrin.
Joan glanced up through her lashes from where she was lying in the grass, hands folded behind her head, while Brianna and Freddie - the latter also lounging in the grass with her head on the guitarist’s lap - turned to look at Regina. Freddie laughed softly, one hand flying up to cover her mouth.
“What are you smoking, dear?” she teased and stretched out her leg, prodding Regina in the thigh.
“I’m serious!” Regina returned a smile, the tip of her tongue stuck out between her teeth, and threw Freddie a look over the rim of her sunglasses. “Haven’t you ever wondered?”
“Maybe not a month.” Brianna tilted her head, squinting against the warm afternoon sun as she contemplated the question. “A week, yes. I suppose. That would be quite interesting.”
“Nah, you’d need a week just to get used to it,” Regina pointed out with a shake of her head. She had clearly through this through. A grin returned to her lips, unashamedly suggestive this time. “Then you'll need at least three weeks to enjoy it.”
“I’ll pass,” Freddie stretched, elegantly re-arranging her limbs. “I can’t imagine finding it particularly enjoyable. I’d rather be a girl any day…”
Brianna smiled down at her, combing long fingers through the singer’s hair, but stopped and raised her eyebrows when Freddie wrinkled her nose as if she had smelled something nasty.
“What?”
“Imagine having all those… hideous dangly bits between your legs,” Freddie shuddered, mildly horrified at the idea.
Regina snorted with laughter. “That’s the fun part!”
“Getting your testicles caught in your knickers is the fun part?” Freddie deadpanned, arching an eyebrow.
The others chuckled and Regina coughed, having just inhaled the last puff of smoke from her cigarette. “I tell you what-” She brushed a few dirty blond strands of hair out of her face and flicked the cigarette butt towards the road. “I’ll put up with that for a great big cock!”
“Reg,” Brianna tossed a bit of grass at her, mostly amused, although there was a small blush creeping into her cheeks. Freddie cackled and flapped her hands in front of her face, as though to bat the mental image away physically.
“Oh, you’re a bunch of prudes,” Regina complained, brushing off the bit of grass that had landed on her torn jeans. “Don’t tell me you’ve never wondered what it must be like.”
“I haven’t, I swear!” Freddie protested, still giggling.
“It’s crossed my mind,” Brianna admitted, earning herself an incredulous look from the singer. “But I wouldn’t say I’m desperately keen on the idea.”
“How do you know you wouldn’t end up with a tiny cocktail sausage for a prick?” asked Joan, quite seriously, and that sent the rest of them howling.
“Oh, dearie me,” Freddie wheezed, dabbing the corners of her eyes, “I can’t, it’s too much-”
“That,” Regina admitted with a chortle, “that is a fair point, well made.”
“You know,” Brianna started after a few moments, once they had all calmed down again, “there is a theory that this isn’t the only universe that exists, but that there are countless others, just like this one, or completely different, or partly different… and more are created all the time.”
Everyone pondered this for a moment while the shade from the van, which was parked by the side of the road, slowly drew nearer with the slowly setting afternoon sun.
“So for all we know, there might be a male version of you out there,” Brianna concluded.
“With a great, big cock,” Freddie grinned, and Regina nodded approvingly at the thought.
Brianna propped her hands up behind her in the grass and leaned back. “There might be male versions of all of us somewhere, if the multiverse theory holds true. In fact, it would be likely...”
“Mmh, no, not me, darling,” Freddie purred playfully, pulling herself up to sitting and shaking out her thick mane of hair. “I’m unique, I’ll have you know. There’s only one me.”
The others just smiled fondly at that, none of them particularly compelled to argue.
“D’you know,” Regina said as she slowly rose to her feet, brushing herself off and stretching, “I don’t think I’d mind if I turned into a bloke and never turned back again. I mean,” she continued quickly, before anyone could protest, “I wouldn’t want… for that to happen, you know? But I don’t think… I think I’d just go with it, and I’d probably be alright.”
“Yes,” Joan sat up, moving her sunglasses up to the top of her head. “I know what you mean.”
“You do?” Freddie cast them both a dubious, uncertain look and let Regina help her up onto her feet. “I don’t know, dear,” she sighed, giving the drummer’s hand a gentle squeeze as she caught her eye with a smile, “I think you’re far too beautiful to be a man. All of you are,” she was quick to add, after a moment, glancing at Joan and Brianna over her shoulder.
“Shall we?” Joan nodded towards the van.
“Mhm.”
“Yes, let’s…”
“Be good to get there before it gets dark.”
“I reckon I’d be into me as a bloke,” Regina informed them as they climbed back into the van.
“Oh God,” Brianna rolled her eyes.
"Hold on. You'd be into you if you were a bloke, or you would be into you as a bloke?" Freddie wondered.
Regina thought about it for a second and laughed. "Both!"
Joan laughed, too, leaning forward in the backseat with her arm on the back of Freddie’s chair. “Reg, have you looked up ‘narcissism’ in the dictionary lately? I think there might be a picture of you there.”
Regina stuck her tongue out at her and started the engine.
“Maybe you were a man in a past life,” Freddie suggested as the van pulled off.
“Maybe you were a cat in a past life, have you considered that?” Regina replied, glancing at the way Freddie had curled up in the passenger seat with her legs tucked underneath herself.
It was a Cheshire Cat’s grin Regina received in return, while the rusty tour van slowly gained speed, taking them down the open road towards the setting sun and their next destination.
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