Message-ID: <44957asstr$1066957805@assm.asstr-mirror.org> Return-Path: <vickietern@aol.com> From: vickietern@aol.com (VickieTern) X-Original-Message-ID: <20031023121305.28326.00000026@mb-m10.aol.com> X-Spamscanner: mailbox1.ucsd.edu (v1.2 May 26 2003 01:55:38, 0.9/5.0 2.55) X-Spam-Level: Level X-MailScanner: PASSED (v1.2.8 31285 h9NGDpfN047630 mailbox1.ucsd.edu) X-ASSTR-Original-Date: 23 Oct 2003 16:13:05 GMT Subject: {ASSM} Shy by Vickie Tern 4/6 TG Femdom Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 21:10:05 -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/Year2003/44957> X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation <story-ckought69@hotmail.com> X-Story-Submission: <ckought69@hotmail.com> X-Moderator-ID: dennyw, hecate Shy by Vickie Tern TG Femdom 4/6 Don't read this if you shouldn't or you don't want to. Do if you do. I'd appreciate knowing what you think (VickieTern@aol.com). iv. Don just stared at me, speechless. "Oh, yes!" he said. I'd opened the pearly gates to him, and he'd just glimpsed heaven. "Have you any idea what that way is? Are you willing?" He had no idea. His mouth involuntary kissed and sucked the air as if it were Sally's pussy. "Yes! Please, Jenny. Anything! Tell me what to do." "I will. This very morning we'll fix it. You'll do everything I say whether you like it or not? I guarantee you'll like it a lot, maybe not right away but sooner or later!" He looked a little wary. "Or you can go back to this bruiser who lives in your dorm room and ask him for more closet space." "All right," he said, looking resigned, scared, hopeful, and happy all at the same time. What a weird kid! "I'll do whatever you say. Anything!" "Great! That's a promise! That's what I like to hear. Now, it's easy! You'll move in with us here and let your roommate tyrannize someone else. Next, there's your student ID and Freshman Handbook photo this morning. You won't want to look the way you look now for that because you'll need an ID that sort of authorizes you to live in our suite. Also, Sally's father might some day look through the handbook to find out what his daughter's seducer looks like, if he hears there's this person making his daughter impure night after night. So you'll need to look different." "I guess so." None of the obvious questions, like how would Sally's father ever know who or what to look for even if he did suspect that someone was sleeping with his repurified daughter. Fear and a guilty conscience clouded his mind, maybe? I remember when I lost my virginity in ninth grade how scared I was that my parents would find out. Then I discovered that my seducer Tommy Bellagio was even more scared than I was that his parents would find out. So I made him wait on me hand and foot for nearly the whole rest of that year. He did all sorts of perverted and disgusting things for me, until he finally realized I'd never tattle on him anyhow. Nor on any of the other guys who'd followed him into my pants during that same year. I mean, I mean, if they knew, my parents would be even more furious than his parents, and I'd never hear the end of it. So why ruin a good thing? So I went on. "We'll disguise you. You do what I say, no questions, we can fix it." I looked at him appraisingly. "What did Sally tell you about your hair?" He blushed. "She rolled it up out of the way so it wouldn't get wet from her...from my licking her. There were lots of little plastic rods -- she took them out only this morning. She says you'll know what to do next. It looks a little like a girl's, like I said." "It's the kind of style girls like, that's true. Sally likes it, you told me yourself. So I'm sure you'll get to like it too." In another minute, he'll figure it out for himself, I was thinking. How we mean to hide him in plain sight. I studied him. Yes, I decided, small rollers in front for a curly pom-pom, sort of, and large in back to make smooth waves falling to his shoulders. A high maintenance hairdo, one he'll need to set every night, supposedly to protect it from the moisture of Sally's crotch. Well, he might as well get used to the one big thing about being a girl right off, how much trouble it is for us to make ourselves attractive to guys so they'll want to do things for us. Yes, that'll be Don's hairdo. With his small chin and his wide cheekbones he'll look really adorable! Like a pet poodle! "But now we need to go get some breakfast," I said. "There's donuts and Danish and stuff down in the lower lounge. No need to get dressed, it'll just be us girls there -- here, borrow one of my robes." Ordinarily we made coffee and tea in the suite, and ate whatever was left of last night's midnight snacks, cold cuts, cold pizza, whatever. But I wanted to get Don out and seen by everybody right off. So they'd accept him as just one more Quintette project and pay no further attention. So he'd know he looks acceptable. So he'd think everything else we do to him is also nothing much. So he'd get used to looking like a girl before he figured out that he couldn't be anything else any more, because that's what people thought him. I reached for the frilliest, fluffiest pink robe I own, and held it out to him. A birthday present from one of my poets last year, Jeremy, who thought I was all air and froth and the scent of lilies, and never even once dipped his head down south to see what I really smelled like. He took it from me but then stood paralyzed, staring at it. Despite his pledge to obey me he started to draw in breath to object. So I distracted him. I played a real dirty trick on him. I twisted out from under the bed covers, knowing my nightie had crawled high up around my waist, and I put my feet on the floor. My crotch was now fully exposed to his startled eyes. I'd shaved it all through last year because I'd noticed that the sight of a naked cunt got guys harder faster and kept them harder longer. But during the summer I'd let it grow out into a little Bikini trim. So Don found himself staring directly at one more split, topped by a neat little patch of fur. "Ay!" He yipped as if I'd burnt him, and he jumped back, gawking wide-eyed. As if unaware of any of this I spread my legs wide, closed my eyes, leaned way back, stretched my arms way back, and yawned. He saw my pussy lips pulled way apart down there, I was sure, and maybe he could see halfway up my pussy hole too. Then I seemed to notice his crazed gaze. "Something wrong, Don honey? What are you staring at?" "Gakkkkkk," he tried to explain. "Your ... guk!" "Oh, that! My split! You've seen girls' splits before! Didn't you just spend the night kissing Sally's? Get used to it, honey, you'll be seeing a lot of pussy from now on. It's no big deal. Because we don't intend to hide ours from you all the time. While you live here, you'll have to think of yourself as one of us." "As one of you," he repeated, obviously wondering what I meant." "It's a perfect disguise," I added. "What is?" He really didn't have a clue! "That we're all girls here," I said. "Yes, I know you are. This is a girls' suite." "No, you don't know yet. I said 'we're all girls.' I mean all of us!" Don was now silent. I think it was dawning on him, what I meant. "You too, Don," I said, staring directly at him. He stared back. "You're a girl now too. We've already decided that. You agreed to do everything I say. That's what I say. Because it's the only way!" "I'm ....." He couldn't finish. Plainly. somewhere inside him a male ego felt threatened and was trying to protest. Interesting! He actually had one! "While you're here you're one of us, Don. That's how you get to sleep with Sally every night instead of that roommate they gave you. That's how you'll hide in plain sight from Sally's father. I hereby declare you an honorary girl!" Don remained silent, his mouth open just a little. In anguish? Trying to find the right words to use to protest? Not easy for a shy boy who can't easily say anything. He was a piece of cake, and soon he'd be a cupcake! "We're all stretching just a little here, Don," I said casually, reassuringly. "We're all making concessions, aren't we? All for you! Sally's father will be looking for a boy if the word gets out that you're sleeping with his daughter. That mustn't be you. And the resident advisers won't want to know that there's a boy living here -- they try hard never to notice anything, but we can't be too obvious, we've got to give them a break, meet them halfway, right? Also, if there's a boy living here all the time, some of our boyfriends will begin to wonder about it, and then there's no telling what they'd do, especially the jocks. They can get very jealous. No telling!" I looked at him solemnly, as if wondering where we'd bury his battered body, and how I'd notify his mother. Don looked equally grave. "But it's not a problem. You'll just blend in with us a little, that's all. Look the way we look. You'll get used to it, don't give it another thought! Just think of yourself as one of us, and you'll be fine. It isn't as if you were a real girl. You'll still be yourself. So who cares? C'mon, put this robe on and lets go join the other girls." I had him. He knew the score. The robe was a disguise for his own safety, so he'd blend in, and besides, he'd already promised to do whatever I told him. Above all it was his ticket of admission to the House of Pussy, specifically Sally's. When I referred to "the other girls" I pronounced him a member of our club and he didn't object. My reasoning had overwhelmed him. He began to slip the robe on. With his poodle curls topping his small face he actually did look more girl than boy! I grabbed another similar robe from my closet and we went into the suite living room, all pink and fluffy and feminine-looking, both of us. Beth, Maureen, Elvira, and of course Sally were already there, waiting for us all to go down for coffee all together, so as a group we'd reveal to everyone else in the building that he was one of ours, not a free lance. So there'd be no further questions about him -- the whole dorm was accustomed to different stuff we did with our guys, and they always played along. When Sally saw him coming in she smiled wide and seemed to leap at him, though she hardly moved. "Oh, here's the darling of my dreams, my sweet honey tongue! I've just been telling the other girls what a wonderful night we've just spent together! How darling! I love that robe! Is it yours?" "It is now," I said. "Dawn understands that while he's living with us he mustn't stand out. He needs to look like us." It crossed my mind that with the hormones we were feeding him, he soon wouldn't be standing out any other way either. "Maureen, Beth, Elvira, meet Dawn. Dawn is our new honorary girl!" As expected, he didn't even notice he was no longer 'Don.' He was probably still trying to wrap his mind around 'honorary girl.' Was that as bad as being called a real girl? What were its duties and obligations? "Wait just a minute! Who says this man is an honorary girl?" A sharp, angry statement! I looked up surprised, and saw that Elvira was staring at him as if furious. "He's not a girl!" she said contemptuously. "Where's his vagina? Where's his whole girlhood, his whole life until now spent learning how to be sweet and gentle, sugar and spice and all, the way we are?" Oh! That was the tipoff. Elvira was all vinegar and vitriol where men were concerned. If she couldn't dominate a guy right off, get him interested in her "games" as she called them -- she'd forget he existed. I waited to see where she was going. "Sure he looks cute right now! Maybe he's an honorary girl to you! But he's only a boy in drag to me! I insist that right now he acknowledge that he can never be what I am, a real woman. I need to know that every time he sees me, he'll be willing to kiss my ass!" She glared at Don. He looked addled, first at the ceiling, then at his bare feet, unable even to swallow. "No, not your ass!" It was Sally, using her littlest little girl voice. She sounded so shocked! "That would be a terrible waste! He has a fantastic mouth, Elvira! I love it, and you should too! So let me propose this. Dawn doesn't have a vagina of his own, the poor dear, so every morning first thing he should honor those who do! Every morning when he sees each of us he can prove that he isn't exercising male privilege and being patriarchal and all, prove that he respects us as women, by kneeling down and giving each of us a good morning kiss on our mounds. If we should happen to spread our legs just a little bit, he'll know that we want to give him a special treat, and he'll give us a real wet sloppy smooch on our pussies! Honor ours precisely because he doesn't have one of his own." She smiled. "He's really very good at it," she added, as if the point needed further persuading. Elvira appeared to think this through, and then said grudgingly, "Well, all right! At least that way we can all feel a little safer, even though we're living with someone who might feel superior to us and can take advantage of us." The issue was settled. That issue, anyhow. Well, not quite. Beth piped up with kindly concern. "Is that all right with you, Dawn? Are you willing, and all? It sounds nice. But we wouldn't want you to do anything you don't want to do." Don was hopelessly tongue-tied. He made a single strangled noise, then dropped his head, defeated. I saw and answered for him. "Dawn is willing as long as Sally doesn't mind -- remember that Dawn's first loyalty is to Sally's pussy. I think I can say safely that if at any time any one of us wants to remind him he wasn't born one of us, that he's only an honorary girl, we can remind him simply by showing him our pussies." "Right, Sally said. "That's how he'll know his place. But he's mine. He plays lickety split only with me!" I turned to Don. "Are you willing, Dawn? Do you understand what we've all agreed?" He stared at me. This whole situation was now altogether out of control. He made another moaning sound. I leaned forward. Barely audible, he asked, "Jennifer, what should I do?" I stood straight up, and did my best to sound like a magistrate sentencing some criminal to harsh punishment. I said loudly, "Dawn, right now what you should do is go down on your knees and honor Sally's pussy. Then mine. Then each of the rest of us!" He looked mournfully at me for a moment. Probably he was considering his alternative, which was to leave, to walk away while he still could. Even an overbearing roommate might be easier to live with than this. But he was dressed in a frivolous woman's robe, and his hair was permed, and who knows where his clothes were? Maybe not even Sally. She could get kittenish. She once dropped a guy's clothes out of her window one article at a time, while he watched her and did nothing about it, because he understood that was her price for sleeping with him all night, her test of his sincerity. Then the next morning she watched him prance all around the courtyard stark naked as he tried to recover them, calling out encouragement in a voice that could be heard in the next county. As I knew he would, Don took the path of least resistance. He dropped to his knees in front of Sally. She was seated on a folding bridge chair, and as he settled in front of her she scuttled her butt forward and thrust her pelvis at him and spread her knees far apart, then sat there waiting. Her own bathrobe covered her thighs. After a moment Don picked up the hem and ducked his head under. We saw the lump of his head arrive roughly in the latitude of her lap and then remain there, perfectly still. Not altogether still, though, because Sally soon began to smile, then to wriggle her hips and moan. Faster and faster. Finally she breathed, "Not now, no more lover! Oooh it's so good! Later!" She pulled her hips back in a dismissive gesture. I sat down on the arm of an easy chair and spread my own legs as wide as I could, and said, "Just a peck, cousin. But on the wet part! You know where it is." As I expected, I felt his lips on my lips, and then a single lick of his tongue. Sally's already trained him, I thought, he can't just peck at a pussy, his tongue has to come right out and do its thing. More to the point, I felt his nose nuzzle my clit, and I lifted my crotch to nuzzle him back, just once, for encouragement. He felt good! Maureen was next, standing, impatient to go down and get breakfast. It was obvious that her mind was elsewhere. "I've got a test in an hour," she said. "So just kiss my crotch through my panties, Dawn, and we'll call that enough for now." Beth was seated on our upholstered chair awaiting her turn. "Now, you're sure you want to?" she asked earnestly. Don didn't respond, he just knelt there looking at her knees. He needed help. Beth was nothing if not charitable. So she suddenly pulled her housecoat all the way to her waist and spread her legs wide, as far wide as they'd go! And there was her twat, Ziggy's pearly gates until the Lord decreed he could enter the other ones, a huge furry muff! "Dive in," she said. Don leaned forward, and then like a lift bridge closing, her legs folded over his shoulders and then around the back of his head, clamping his mouth to her vulva. "He wants to," she decided aloud. What he did down there none of us could tell, but after a moment Beth's eyes glazed over, and her pelvis begin to rise and fall rhythmically with her breathing. Faster and faster, then with a strain and a squeal she lifted her buttocks high up! I worried for a moment that she might break Don's neck. But a moment later her spasm subsided and she released him. Still breathing heavily, she said to everyone in the room, "Ohhh, yes! Every morning! Is that OK?" None of us saw any reason why not. "Ziggy never wants to do that. Maybe if Don shows him how he'll be a little more friendly that way." "Oh?" Elvira looked annoyed. "Your boyfriend doesn't know how to give head? How to honor his fiancee properly? He thinks he has a choice? Give me one night with him and he'll be eating all his meals from between your legs for the rest of his life ." Then she looked Don over. He was sweating now, or maybe it was his face glistening from Beth's pussy juice. "You don't deserve to kiss my private parts yet," she told him. "I wanted you to kiss my ass, so that's what you'll do." She turned and raised her nightie and bent over, and there they were, Elvira's rotund globes perched above her enormous thighs. Elvira carried weight all right. "Crawl over here! Don't stand up!" Don crawled over, and then lightly kissed one of Elvira's buns. "No, asshole, kiss my asshole! Let's see a meeting of like minds! Spread me wide! Burrow in deep until your lips find it!" Don did. We watched amazed! His face went a long way down into her crack, and her cheeks almost covered his ears when finally she went, "Ahhh! and wriggled, and then said "Good!" Don withdrew, and just remained stone still on his knees, his head hanging down. He obviously felt defeated in some obscure way. Pussywhipped? Asswhipped? So far his college experience was not what he'd anticipated. I took pity on him, and said in a sprightly voice, "OK, cuz! It'll be a lot easier tomorrow! But now, congratulations! You've just recited the pledge of allegiance! You're now our honorary girl. You're one of us! Isn't he?" I looked around. If anyone wanted to play any more games with him this morning, my tone of voice warned them off. They all nodded encouragement, then gathered around to hug him, to welcome him into the fold. His hang dog expression changed -- he began to look vaguely pleased. Here were five girls being affectionate all at once, how could he not be pleased? Maureen looked into his face and actually kissed him on the cheek. I realized that the ceremony had worked for her, that he'd just changed gender in her own mind -- boys were for playing tricks with, but girls were for being affectionate with each other. Even Elvira looked approving now, though as always her smile was a bit grim. "Good!" I said. "Let's all go down to breakfast. Does anyone have a bra Dawn can wear until we can get him one of his own? This robe ties around the waist, but it doesn't stay closed up above. If it opens too far someone might notice he lacks breasts." "Jennifer!" This time the frightened outcry came from Don himself. "I can't wear one of those! Real girls wear those!" Sally instantly to the rescue. "Now Dawn honey, we don't want anyone to know you're a boy. Besides, you know that your chest is very precious to me. I want your nipples properly covered at all times when you're in public, the way mine are, so no one but me will find out how kissable they are! And anyhow, it's a dorm regulation." She pretended she was reading from a page printed on the inside of her head. 'Students will be appropriately attired when they appear in any of the dormitory's public areas.' 'Appropriate' means no risk of naked boobs." She nodded. I nodded. There was no risk of naked boobs in Don's case even if his chest were naked, not yet anyhow, but he bought the argument. His head sank again. Sally disappeared into her room and returned immediately with a large red lace bra dangling from her hand, produced as if out of thin air. Nothing subtle about it -- it was identifiable as what it was even if glimpsed a mile away! Not one of hers. She'd managed to measure his chest somehow during the night, and then had borrowed from somewhere the most feminine and ostentatious brassiere she could find. Off came Don's fluffy robe. He stood there in Sally's panties while Sally clipped his new bra around his chest. "There," she said. "Now you're decent! Now these." God, she'd also borrowed real silicone breast forms from someone! Whose boobs in this dorm weren't real? I had no idea! She tucked them into the cherry red lace bra, then handed him his fluffy robe again. With his crimped blonde hair and his groin covered Don now actually did look like a girl. Unmistakably. He held the robe closed with both hands, but despite the tie belt, his protruding breasts kept opening it and revealing his bra. His breasts in their red brassiere were now part of his chest decor. "Just great!" Maureen said over her shoulder as she disappeared into her room to grab a book to take down with her. "You're gorgeous, Dawn! The boys will eat you alive! Or you'll eat them!" "What does that mean," he asked me fearfully. "I don't want them to beat me up when they see me this way!" He clutched his robe tight closed, and almost managed to hide his new bra. A lot of it, anyhow. "Not a chance," I said. Let's go!" Breakfast wasn't so bad at all. Maureen was preoccupied, and Beth and Elvira drifted off elsewhere with their carbs and coffee, and a few of our girlfriends gathered round to share the fun. It was obvious enough to them what we were doing with this guy, and they all wanted to help. Don couldn't eat and hold his fluffy robe closed at the same time, so his new breasts in their red bra hung out openly over the table despite everything. Sally sat silent alongside him and watched, amused. Somehow all the talk at our table became all girl talk, about make-up, and clothes acquired for the new semester, and hair styles, and the new birth control patches the college had begun distributing, and gorgeous rock stars, and chick flicks, and guys of course. Now and then courses and professors, but only if the professor was "cute.". In the middle of all this Don realized that though he was only an honorary girl he had better seem to be the real thing to maintain his protective coloring. He made nondescript squeals when he was asked if his periods were cramp-free, or whether he meant to leave his hair loose like that, and was that its natural shade, he was so lucky, and did he use a curling iron or was that a perm? He agreed with a nod that it would be nicer to be fucked by Toby McGuire than Vin Diesel, but Toby was too nice to ramrod you while Vinnie was probably just the right guy for a hard fuck. He also agreed that Brad Pitt's cock would be more pleasing to suck on than Arnold Schwartzenegger's, that Arnie's was probably old and wrinkled. The only time he raised his eyes even to look around was when a girl asked him a direct question, maybe to tease him but maybe also because she assumed he was gay, so he'd know the answer. We were talking about swallowing cum or spitting it out or maybe returning it to the boy with his next kiss as a snowball. Or maybe never letting the guy cum at all, making him save it for later so he'll be harder and can pleasure you longer and more often in your other places. Both other places. All three. You know how girls talk over coffee some mornings. "How 'bout you, Dawn?" one girl asked him when he'd been silent for too long. "No fibbing now, look me in the eyes so I can tell you're telling the truth. No evasions, no giggling apologies now. The truth! What do you do when a guy has just cum in your mouth? Do you swallow it?" And the whole group grew silent, waiting to see what Don would say. Would he confess that his mouth was virginal? That he'd never ever sucked even a single cock? He finally managed to look her in the eyes, and I noticed for the first time that he had long, dark lashes himself. Beautiful eyes, and a huge cock too, I was thinking! For sure I'll never again let him leave the suite without at least mascara and eye liner, I was thinking. He needs to show those eyes off! They're gorgeous! "I swallow it," he said, in a new, flute-like tone I'd not heard before. Sweet and shy and very girlish, very vulnerable -- he was trying to hide behind his voice! A new Dawn was dawning! We were all persuaded that he was speaking the truth. Because it was true, as far as it went. He took a swig of coffee to prove it. "I suck it out and swallow it with all the other juices." "You don't mind the flavor then?" I asked him. I wanted to hear more of that voice again, to be sure it wasn't an accident. I knew that after spending last night swabbing out Sally's pussy with his tongue he'd have an answer of sorts, so I figured probably he wouldn't get flustered and choke. "It isn't bad," he replied. "Sorta sweet, in a way. You get used to it. I like it, now." Everyone listened fascinated. They'd already picked up on the fact that he was my boy cousin, somehow removed, and that twenty-four hours earlier he'd been inexperienced and clueless, straight. Now it seemed that in only one night the girls of our suite had turned him into an effeminate cock sucker. The silence grew respectful. Of us, of the Quintette. Don thought the respect was for him, so he added, emboldened, "It's a little salty too. But mainly its how it feels in your mouth." He glanced at me, embarrassed to be the center of attention. But he didn't get tongue-tied or stutter once. He was now being someone else, a girl, not himself, and that made all the difference! Had we cured his shyness just by changing his gender? He looked at me more modestly than shyly, then added in that same mellifluous voice, "It sort of melts in your mouth, but it clings too, it coats your tongue for a while. At first it's sticky, like honey, but not as sweet of course. And it mixes with your own saliva. I don't know. It's a little personal." There was a silence. "Wow!" one of the girls finally said, impressed. "It stays on your tongue? You know, I never noticed. With me, it sticks in my throat. Hey! You mean if I'm in an all-out orgy and a guy who's just sucked off another guy wants to tonguefuck me, he could make me pregnant? I never thought of that!" She seemed a little startled to realize it. Here was another candidate for the new birth control patches. I decided to change the subject before Don revealed that he was only talking about the taste and feel of Sally's pussy juices, or maybe of his own cum mixed in with Sally's. That was no big deal -- lots of girls test their boyfriends' devotion by asking them to lick cum out of their cunts. I always do, all my studs do it so afterward if I want to call them douche bags they can't complain. Elvira's studs clean off each others' cocks with their tongues, three or more at a time, I've seen it. But it takes even Elvira a few days to get new guys willing to do other guys. Someone might realize that our Dawn was too good to be true. "Dawn's going to major in engineering," I volunteered for him. That's what I'd overheard him tell Sally. He didn't contradict me. "Ooooh, all those boys, and not many girls!" said another of the girls. "Imagine how you'll feel, all those swinging dicks surrounding you all the time. I envy you!" end Shy 4/6 VickieTern@AOL.COM -- 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> Moderators: <story-ckought69@hotmail.com> | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |ASSM Archive at <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org> Hosted by <http://www.asstr-mirror.org> | |Discuss this story and others in alt.sex.stories.d; look for subject {ASSD}| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+