Message-ID: <24337asstr$959519404@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: VickieTern@aol.com
X-Original-Message-ID: <c3.5e5e2f8.2661232c@aol.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Subject: {ASSM} New TG: Cute, 7/10 by Vickie Tern M/F m/F M/m F/F etc. Femdom too.
Date: Sun, 28 May 2000 09:10:04 -0400
Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail
Approved: <assm@asstr-mirror.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d
X-Archived-At: <URL:http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/Year2000/24337>
X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation <story-ckought69@hotmail.com>
X-Story-Submission: <ckought69@hotmail.com>
X-Moderator-ID: gill-bates, dennyw
New TG: Cute, 7/10 by Vickie Tern M/F m/F M/m F/F etc. Femdom too.
The sex in this story is sometimes heavy and explicit, though not
cruel, so you may not wish to read it. If you shouldn't
read it because you're underaged or overly judgemental, don't.
All comments welcome: VickieTern@AOL.COM
(c) 2000 by Vickie Tern. May be freely reposted, but only on
free archives.
vii.
Katie, when Friday came around, I was almost as excited as Laurie.
My darling's first date! I made him take the afternoon off and I
sent him to Roseline to be made especially beautiful, and he
returned absolutely gorgeous. She'd given him the special hairdo
she usually reserved for brides, girls who need to outshine their
own bridesmaids when they're also done up to look their best. She
braided some of his hair into a coronet and piled the rest high up
in a frantic tumble of small curls that seemed to cascade up and
all around his face -- I'd never before seen anything so delicate,
seemingly negligent yet also elegant. And she'd plucked his
eyebrows to aristocratic fineness, and given him a cupid-bow mouth
and huge, deep, almond-shaped eyes, shadowed and somehow
smouldering. And his nails were red-tipped jewels.
"I really don't want to do this," he said on arriving home. "This
is a mistake. We've gone too far! I'm your husband! I can't date
a man!"
"You're a man?" I asked him. "Have you seen yourself lately?"
I steered him to the nearest mirror and let him stand there. He
was transfixed. "My God!" he said, staring in awe at his
reflection. "My God!" He turned his head from side to side to
make sure the figure in the mirror was himself. "She's beautiful!
But where am I?"
He was in a state of panic. All of a sudden our games had become
serious! "You're right here," I told him. "But now you're the girl
we've both wanted you to become."
"Only to cheer you up!" he said, frightened. "And then for fun!
And it was fun! And it felt fantastic! But now I feel lost.
She's beautiful! But she isn't me!"
His mind was circling back toward an identity, a manhood, that was
no longer there! When he found that out he really would be lost!
So it was time to intervene. I came around behind him and began to
caress his now-heavy titties through the thin fabric of his blouse
and his satin brassiere. He closed his eyes. "The girl in the
mirror is you," I whispered into his ear while his nipples engorged
under my touch. "You're the girl in the mirror. You're beautiful!
You're my beloved! I love you, Laurie girl!"
"But I'm a man" he said, unpersuaded even as he spoke, yielding to
my fingers, leaning back into me and closing his eyes. I continued
to caress his nipples.
"You were a man! My beautiful girl! My gorgeous girl! Look in
the mirror! Aren't you beautiful?"
"Yes, I am. I'm beautiful," the girl in the mirror replied. "Your
beautiful girl."
I cupped his breasts and tweaked his nipples repeatedly, ever so
slightly. Over and over. Then something fascinating!
"Oh!" he moaned. "Oh! Oh! Oooooh!"
I knew what was happening! His nipples were so highly erogenous
now that he had climaxed! He was cumming at that very moment! The
base of his soft penis was squeezing clear fluid into his panties.
"Upstairs and into the tub," I said. "Your perfumed bath awaits
you, my beautiful girl! Slip into your bath, my sweet former man.
Tonight maybe my girl will become a woman!"
"Yes!" he replied in the afterglow of his climax. He could not
have known what I meant.
I stepped back. "Be careful to keep your hairdo dry! And your
face!" So! Finally his enlarged nipples had become so delectable
that he'd cum whenever I stroked them! That was certainly a fair
trade for a functioning penis. Two for one. Twice the pleasure!
Katie, you can't imagine how relieved I felt. I'd been a little
uneasy for months and months about the way I'd tricked him into
this. He was so loving and trusting, and he was doing it for me,
and I was doing it so he'd never find out about Vincent and me, so
when he found out it wouldn't matter any more. So he'd be hidden
from Vincent inside his own body when Vincent tried to find him, to
tell him all about us and then claim me! Was that so bad? I was
protecting his faith in me. His innocence. Our marriage.
But now I saw for the first time that I'd been doing him a great
service. His manhood would never have permitted me to feminize
him, but his love for me was stronger than his manhood, and his
love had become his guide to a higher, finer kind of life! He was
giving up what he was, but I was giving him something better than
that! Think about it, Katie. He had traded his masculinity for
this new femininity? Would you ever trade in your femininity?
Would you trade in your breasts and your vagina for a prick? For
a prick and the sensation of power you get when you're leaning over
some man's asshole or some woman's pussy, preparing to lunge? For
a prick and that sensation of power and the whole world besides?
Of course not! I wouldn't either! Not for the whole world
besides!
I laid out Laurie's clothes with an odd sensation that I was laying
out the raiments of a vestal virgin about to be sacrificed. His
Wonder Bra for deep cleavage, and thong panties. A black woven
mini-dress with metallic gold tracery throughout, the skirt short
and flippy enough to reveal his panties when he shook his bootie
while dancing, the neckline low to reveal his unmistakeably
authentic breasts. High, high heeled shoes. When he came back
into the bedroom his skin was smooth from the bath oil beads and
smelled faintly of Lily of the Valley. I sprayed more of the same
scent on his wrists, his neck, and behind his knees. Pulse points.
No telling where a date's nose may go.
"You used your cleansing fluids, and your douche?" I asked him. He
seemed so solemn!
"Yes, of course!" he said in his old male voice.
"I didn't hear you!" I responded reflexively.
"Angela," he said in his Lauren Bacall voice this time. "Yes."
He dressed quickly. In fact I hadn't planned for him to wear much.
I didn't expect him to wear it for long anyhow.
"What's wrong, baby?" I asked him. Of course I knew.
"You want this, don't you. This is a kind of rite of passage isn't
it. You want for me to have sex with a man!"
"Yes, I do want it for you!" I said with the deepest conviction I
could muster. "Because it's what women do. You aren't a woman
until you've been well-fucked -- men are always telling us that.
Well, it's true. If you mean to live like a woman, you need to
know and feel everything a woman knows and feels!"
"But I don't mean to!" he said. "Or I didn't! It's exciting, and
I love lots of things about it. I'll always want to do this, now
and then, live on both sides of the great divide. It's wonderful!
But sweetheart, you do know I've been doing this mostly for you.
Because it pleases you!"
"Mostly?"
He was doing his makeup, staring straight and serious into the
mirror while he blended his eye-shadows and then stroked on his
mascara. But he smiled as best he could. "Well, for you
originally, anyhow. Mostly. Now for me too. Because it's so
nice. I do love the feelings. When we make love I'm in heaven --
I can't remember feeling so ... delicious. And these days, you
know, it's odd, I'd rather be my sister and chat with other women
than be myself with men. So I do. Women are ... nicer!"
"Well, there we are. Have we ever felt closer than we do now? Let
me reassure you, baby. In another two months it'll be a year since
that first time we went to the mall and that lady thought you were
a girl, and you offered yourself to me as a girl, and I fucked you
as if you were a girl. Now I want you really to be fucked as a
girl. By a real man. But I'll make you an offer. Afterward, if
you don't like any of this, we'll return you to the way you were.
If you do like it, well, we'll see. I think you might even decide
you want to be a girl for the rest of your life. Then we'll make
arrangements for you to go the rest of the way. Fair?"
He heard this offer in silence. Maybe he knew it was doubly
suspect. Breasts can be removed, but other effects of estrogen on
a man's body can't be undone. His cock and balls had shut down for
good, though he probably didn't know it -- later I'd break it to
him that a working vagina was preferable to no functioning genitals
at all. Probably he suspected that this all had been an elaborate
and somewhat perverse seduction on my part. But he was feeling
genuinely seduced. Being a woman among other women was so
attractive to him that he had reason to worry it would cost him his
cock, balls, and manhood.
Suddenly he looked up with a sprightly smile. "We aren't married
now, right?" he said. "You married a man, and I'm a girl now. So
far, anyhow. Right?"
What was he thinking? "Right!" I replied.
"So whatever I do as a girl, I'm not being unfaithful to you.
Isn't that so?"
He was trying to justify having sex with someone else while still
married to me! To ease his conscience! That darling! My absolute
angel! "Whatever you do as a girl is what I want," I said,
avoiding a direct reply. But now suddenly he was worrying me.
"But remember that I do love you, Laurie sweetheart! I do want to
live with you always! You do know that, I hope!"
"I know that, Angela. I love you the same way. You want me to
enjoy my girlhood but always come back to you, isn't that so?"
"Yes," I said. There was a lump in my throat. I don't know why.
"Then let's have a salad or something before Carla and her fellas
come get me," he said, flashing the cutest smile at me over his
shoulder as he headed out the door. "I'm starved. And I'm not
sure what I'll get to eat later on!" Then halfway down the hallway
to the stairs he called back, "Though I'll bet you know!"
That joker! That cutey! But he was right, I did know! I'd
arranged it!
When their car pulled into our driveway and honked, Laurie called
out a farewell and almost left without his purse -- I had to run
after him with it, a little gold bead job to match the threads in
his dress. Carla was driving, and she smiled and waved confidently
at me through the driver's window as I handed it to her and she
handed it back to Laurie in the rear seat. Carla's boy friend was
sitting beside her in the front, staring straight ahead. A really
large, touseled, dark-haired, rather handsome man was just getting
back into the car to sit next to my sweetie. A gentleman -- he'd
gotten out to open the door for Laurie. He moved like a
prizefighter I thought, all bulked up with muscle. They pulled
away.
Then at 3:00am Laurie came back home, came straight upstairs,
undressed, and crawled into bed alongside me naked, not bothering
even to cream off his make-up or slip into a nightie. I was eager
to talk, but obviously he was too tired. And disturbed? Best not
stir him. My main question was answered anyhow when he got out of
bed after only a minute or so, went to the bathroom, and I heard
him unwrapping a tampon. Then he returned to bed and began to
drift off. You can't imagine how relieved I felt when he reached
out to me, almost asleep, and hugged me close. Tight. As if
deeply grateful? As if clinging to a life raft? Both? I had to
smile. It had been an ordeal of some sort for my darling, but it
was over now. He'd really lost his virginity this time, and his
innocence too. Now he really was a real woman. And somewhere
inside himself, I think he knew it. I think he knew there was no
way back now.
I was seated at the breakfast table, that same one where Vince had
once plunged into my pussy so gloriously with company in the next
room, just checking newspaper ads and planning some Saturday
shopping, when Laurie came down. He'd scrubbed off his makeup and
put on a proper nightie. I was struck by how pale his brows and
eyelashes were without their usual pencilling and mascara. And by
how huge and pendulous his breasts had become, the way they hung
and swayed loose in his bodice. Time to cut my darling's dosages,
I thought, or before long he'll need to push them ahead of him in
a shopping cart.
"So how'd it go?" I kept my eyes on the newspaper as if finishing
an article first, and looked up only after asking. Casually, as if
I weren't in fact *dying* to find out!
"Were you as frightened your first time as I was?" he replied.
It *had* happened!! "My first time was a joke," I replied with
that "we women know, and now you know too" conspiratorial smile
he'd found so appealing that first time. "He was a jock who did it
on a dare. Also virginal. He didn't know where to put it, and I
had romantic dreams of being seduced against my will and then
ravished, so I wasn't about to tell him at first. He poked and
prodded until finally I took pity on him."
"I was frightened!" he said. "Terrified in fact!"
"But in the end satisfied, right?" I poured a half-cup of coffee
and carefully didn't look up.
He sat down. Very gingerly, I was amused to note. "'In the end,'
I guess. Very funny, Angela. But by the end of the evening very
satisfied! Yes! I felt so ... complete! Oh, Angela, at first it
was nothing, but then finally I ... I loved it!! It was like sex
with you, but ... warmer! Hotter!"
Finally it had come out! "Tell me!" was all I needed to say. The
renewed memory of it had put stars in his eyes! Now I wanted him
to relive it all! And so did he!
Well, he did. I've got to hand it to Carla, she does know what
she's doing. She told him up front, even before they were out of
our driveway, that everything happening that night had nothing to
do with the office and would never have anything to do with the
office, and he should wipe any ideas to the contrary about that out
of his mind right now. And she demanded to know if he understood!
He did, he told her rather primly. Then she introduced him to his
date, Mac-somebody, and Mac-somebody grinned at him. He said "Hi"
in a small voice to Mac-somebody, and Carla told him that was no
way to be friendly, that he should reach into Mac's fly and hold
his dick for him while they drove to a place where they could have
a few drinks and dance together. That was how to be friendly.
So Laurie did. The first real cock he had ever touched apart from
his own, he said in wonderment. Far, far bigger. And as he held
it it swelled up huge!
"His was even a little bigger than your cock, Angela," he said.
"Was it?" I replied.
"Are all men's cocks that big?" he asked. He was really asking me
'Is mine that small?' but he was afraid to say it.
"As far as I know," I told him. In fact, most aren't. That's what
was so exceptional about Vincent. But now that I wanted Laurie to
go the rest of the way, that was the next step, I had to use every
opening he gave me. His own cock was quite respectable, or anyhow
it had been until his hormones diminished it. But if he believed
it was a cock of no consequence, trivial, then he'd never miss it.
He'd been holding Mac-somebody's prick gingerly, between his thumb
and his forefinger. Carla saw that in the rear view mirror, and
told him to take it out of those pants and use his whole fist -- he
was wasting a perfectly good manicure, keeping those other fingers
hidden. Apparently Mac's prick was so thick his whole fist
wouldn't go around it, and so long that it towered over his hand
when he gripped it around the base. She told him to use both
hands! It felt warm, Laurie reported, in fact hot! And bumpy,
except around the crown!
"In fact maybe you'd better kiss the tip, to show your
appreciation," Carla said. "Mac has a world class cock!"
And he did! All that training paid off! He said there was a drop
of pre-cum on the tip, and he licked it off. Then kissed it. And
the taste of that single drop was in his mouth the whole rest of
the trip to this dance-bar where they were headed. He licked his
lips once, and Carla saw. And that was enough.
Because as they pulled into the parking lot she said, "You like his
flavor, don't you? I suspect you give good head, is that true?"
And Laurie said "Yes." What else could he say? I'd told him so
all week!
"Then why don't you suck Mac's cock right now. Why pretend to be
a girl? Be a real girl! You want to do it, don't you? Do it!
Don't be embarrassed. We'll wait!"
He must have hesitated a moment. He says he felt Mac's cock throb,
but then Carla repeated herself ferociously -- "Do it, girlie!"
He was now actually afraid of her. His own secretary! Because he
sensed that she could make him do other unspeakable things too if
she chose to.
Anyhow, my man did well! He was a credit to us both! He licked
and slurped and sucked the way I taught him, and Mac must have been
a lot like Vince, because when he came, he came in buckets. My
sweet cock sucker hubbie made me feel so proud of him! But Katie,
you know that a live man's cock in your mouth is different from any
dildo. It's hot, and it throbs, and it rises and falls as your
head bobs up and down, and when a live man comes to a climax he
shoves it all the way back, down deep into the bowels of your
throat, and all you can do is swallow, and swallow, and swallow,
and hope not to choke or cough. There was no preparing Laurie for
that, but he worked it out! That's just what my Laurie said he
did! In the very same words we used back in high school to tell
each other things, when we were first finding out what boys were
really like.
I asked Laurie how it tasted, and he said "Salty and slick, and a
little bit sweaty too. A lot like you used to taste, that summer
a few years ago!" I changed the subject! He'd find out soon
enough, I was thinking, maybe.
When they were seated in a booth and had nursed most of one drink,
Carla suddenly told her boy friend -- who'd been there the whole
time, silent, even vacant -- to ask Laurie to dance. Talk about
Carla's power over men? Immediately Mr. Blank became Mr. Vivacious
Personality, and he leaned forward, and gave Laurie his complete
attention. A moment later they were on the dance floor and Laurie
was blending into his body in a slow dance -- you remember how it
is with a superb dancer for a partner -- when he felt Mr.
Personality's cock come between his legs, pressing up on his crotch
just where a vagina should be. The perils of too short a mini --
there's nothing for anyone to lift up out of the way! You'll never
guess! My Laurie actually felt apologetic that there was nothing
there for Mr. P to penetrate! Apologetic that he wasn't what he
seemed!
So when Mr. P suggested to Laurie that they go back to the car for
a moment, Laurie agreed. And it was there that Laurie took his
first real live hot cock up his ass.
It wasn't that much, Laurie said -- he preferred my dildo. The man
was very gentle, he said, and certainly skilled. But he was so
impersonal! Laurie lay down on his stomach across the driver's
side of the front seat, with his toes touching the ground and his
rear end high up in the air. And he then felt Mr. Personality
enter him and slide in and out. And then cum, and then soften and
flop out. He says he himself felt nothing during this breach of
his virginity. Except perhaps used. There were no sweet words or
gentle talk, no kissing or stroking. Only an almost routine cram,
pump, and cum.
When they returned, Carla asked him how it was, and Laurie
shrugged.
"Good," Carla answered him. "Now that's done, you're free to
decide for yourself what your real sexual feelings may be. I
thought an uneventful first fuck was the best way to begin. It's
the least conflict-ridden, because the man in you will never really
appreciate what the woman in you is capable of -- not unless he's
gay, and I think you'd know by now if that were true. I could
have told him to be rough with you, or to make it the most sublime
experience of your life -- he'd do either of those if I'd asked!
But he's mine, and I don't like to share my sublime things with
beginners. You do know now I'll bet why women don't appreciate
being some man's mere cum receptacle. Being merely used. Why we
cherish romance."
"I've never treated any woman as a cum receptacle," Laurie replied,
feeling a little defensive. "Why did you tell him to be so ...
ordinary?
"And you never will treat a woman as a cum receptacle, Laurie,"
Carla said. "Because you'll only be on the receiving end yourself
from now on. In fact soon you'll want a proper receptacle of your
very own. To be a complete woman, vagina and all! I have no doubt
of it. But some of the men in your life after tonight won't be as
enlightened as you. They'll only want to use your cunt for their
own pleasure. And now you know what that's like. Sex is no big
deal if there isn't some kind of passsionate desire behind it!
Remember that!"
She leaned over the table, holding her drink in both hands. "Just
like any schoolgirl handed a line, you did it just now because you
felt you owed him, didn't you? Well, no woman owes any man
anything. You didn't owe my pet anything, yet you seemed to think
you did, didn't you? Now you know better. If you must, Laurie, do
as I do. Use men. But never let them use you!"
"Carla, I don't know how."
"I'll show you, Laurie. Don't worry, I'll see that you learn.
Some of it by talking, some by doing. You were a man with some
extraordinary abilities, and I've always respected you. Now I want
you to be a woman with extraordinary abilities. I'll teach you."
She smiled at me almost conspiratorially! "But meanwhile, Mac, why
don't you ask this lovely lady to dance."
Mac did. And Laurie said that Mac was really a gentleman, really
a lovely man, breathing little compliments into Laurie's ear and
touching his neck with his lips in a way that made him shudder. So
when he danced with Mac he felt appreciated. And then he danced
with Mr. Personality too, and this time Mr. Personality proved
fascinating! He told Laurie about all sorts of things men want
from their dates, mostly ego-stroking, approval, and he told Laurie
to ask Mac what he does for a living, to be impressed by whatever
Mac answered, to want to know more, and to ask him to do little
errands and then be grateful. To ask him questions about his
favorite anything. Carla had told Mr. P to clue Laurie in. To
tell him what any dating guide tells girls. Of course Laurie
hadn't read dating guides when he was a girl. The poor man had
never been a girl!
Anyhow, to make a long story short, when they all went to Carla's
house, Carla had them all three of them strip naked. Both men it
turned out were Carla's subs, her obedient servants. They spent
the next few hours just pleasuring Laurie. Just Laurie. He was in
heaven! Both men suckling his breasts while he was tied up on a
kind of cross. One licked and fondled his little cock -- his
hormones *had* shrunk it by now -- while the other licked his
asshole. And when they'd gotten him hot they fucked him in the
mouth and in the rear repeatedly, often both at the same time.
This time in order to make him cum, which he did, repeatedly.
"Orgasm," I mean, because he was tied up in such a way that he
couldn't thrust, just quiver and then pulse his secretions through
his soft penis, the way we do in our pussies. And all the while
they were caressing his nipples and fondling his breasts and
calling him a lovely girl, a beautiful sweet lady, and anything
else feminine they could think of.
My sweetie went out of his mind. When he was utterly crazed with
joy Carla finished the evening by ordering him to crawl toward her
in a ritual worship of the central attribute of any woman, to beg
to kiss her pussy, and then to lick her clit and to French kiss her
vagina until she'd had several orgasms herself, in sequence, one
after another. Then as Carla lounged backward and Laurie licked
her while still on all fours, Mac entered his rear end one last
time, and while Mac was slipping in and out, while Laurie was
rotating his rear toward Mac and bobbing his head into Carla's
crotch, Carla asked him the same questions I'd put to him all those
months ago. But now with a difference! Ultimate questions! Did
he want a slit like hers, a sweet pussy to hold all those big,
meaty cocks, so he could take on even three men at a time? So a
man could tongue and lick and kiss his vagina the way he was doing
hers? And so forth. You know.
She must have a terribly persuasive voice, Katie. It's true, she
also used a hypnotropic drug to help convince my darling that he
really did yearn to fulfill the femininity he was feeling at that
moment in his one available opening. It helped him concentrate his
mind on its pleasures. "I often use it when I'm training men to
obey me," she'd told me a few days earlier. "If that's what they
really want to do. A few drops, and we save so much time! It
releases them to persuade themselves to do what they want to do
anyway that they might not feel they should do!"
My Laurie was lost in his paradise of men, rapturous. Maybe for
that reason alone, when Carla asked him if he wanted a vagina and
waited for a reply, my lovely, dearest darling told her in a single
rush of words, "Yes, I do want one, yes, I love the idea, yes,
please, yes, just as soon as possible, I want to be a complete
woman, the real thing, yes, please help me! God, yes! I do!"
That's what he said. In just those words. She tape recorded him
saying just that, and later she played it back to me!
Your heart would have leapt up to hear my Laurie sitting in our
breakfast table area the next day repeating what he'd told Carla
over and over the night before, telling me he wanted to kiss my
pussy, and he wanted men to kiss his pussy, to fill it with
themselves, that now he needed to become altogether and irrevocably
a woman. Tears were streaming down his face as he said these
things. We hugged and clung and cried together as he said them yet
again. Even the morning after, his desire was still as powerful as
ever. And I cried with him, because I could understand why!
"Can you forgive me, Angela?" he sobbed to me. "For wanting this?"
"Forgive you? I knew you wanted this! I've been dreaming of this
moment! I've been hoping for it, that it would come soon, your
realization! And here it is!"
When he went upstairs to dress, I phoned Janet to set up his
preliminary appointments. I told her what I'd done with Laurie,
and what I'd done to him, and what I'd had done to him. Not
everything of course.
Janet scolded me for being naughty with my prescriptions. She told
me that before anything else she wanted to see for herself this new
Laurie with the curvy figure and the big boobs and now apparently
a need to go all the way. She did, the next day, and when she was
finished interviewing him she congratulated me for the fine job I'd
done with him, bringing out those deeply buried desires and making
them so self-evident even to himself. "I think you can feel proud
of yourself, and of Laurie too." Janet told me.
Yes. I did feel proud of Laurie, and proud of myself too.
-----------
end 7/10 This story can be found in it's entirety at www.go.to/furysaga
--
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| alt.sex.stories.moderated ----- send stories to: <ckought69@hotmail.com> |
| FAQ: <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/faq.html> Moderator: <story-ckought69@hotmail.com> |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Archive: <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org> Hosted by Alt.Sex.Stories Text Repository |
|<http://www.asstr-mirror.org>, an entity supported entirely by donations. |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+