Trismegistus Shandy

By Strange Ways, part 6 of 6

I wondered if she was asking the impossible. She had no work experience she could talk about, no references, and was a rank beginner at English writing and modern technology. Maybe there weren’t any jobs around here for someone like that that would also pay for transition care – insurance policies that covered it were rare enough as it was.

By Strange Ways, part 5 of 6

“Good evening, Jenny,” she said. “I swept the floor in the kitchen, but I can’t tell how you take up the carpet to shake it out. Do you move all your furniture every time?”

 

I suppressed a laugh. “No, we have a machine for that – let me show you.”

By Strange Ways, part 4 of 6

“Please tell me more about Chris,” Permelia said as she followed me down the stairs to the parking lot.

 

“He’s like us,” I said, “except that he was assigned female at birth. And he was lucky enough to have understanding parents who helped him get HRT in his early teens, before he finished growing… and I understand both the men and women in his family tend to be tall. Anyway, he’s a big guy, and can be scary-looking if you don’t know him. I don’t think anybody will bother us with him escorting us.”

By Strange Ways, part 3 of 6

“I’ll have to look things up to see if they’re worth more than the precious metals in them,” she said. “I don’t recognize them. The minting techniques seem to be relatively modern, like eighteenth or nineteenth century, but I thought I’d recognize all the historic coins of that period, and I don’t.”

By Strange Ways, part 2 of 6

“Really. You’re asking me to believe that somewhere in the multiverse, a language almost exactly like English independently evolved? And not in an alternate England, but somewhere that sounds completely unrelated to England?”

“If the multiverse is infinite, that’s not a far-fetched claim, is it?” I said.

By Strange Ways

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Near the end of a busy shift at the diner, she was approached by a person who wanted to know how to become a woman. She thought she would give her a bit of advice after she got off work, and that would be it, but it was an encounter that would change her life.

A Girl, a House and a Secret, part 5 of 7

“What about,” she said, “we play a game of two truths and a lie. Only we mix it up so you tell, I dunno, four or five lies for every truth, and you don’t tell me whether my guesses are right? That way you get the benefit of unburdening yourself, but I’m no wiser about your secretive employers than I was before.”

A Girl, a House and a Secret, part 4 of 7

Essie didn’t linger long on the wedding photos, just long enough to tell me a funny story about how her great-uncle had forgotten his best man speech and after stammering for a few moments, had instead — I don’t know what. I wasn’t listening at that point. I was staring at the older man posed with the groom in one of the pictures. He was a good few years younger and less wrinkled, but he was unmistakably the creepy old man from my dreams.

 



 

A Girl, a House and a Secret, part 3 of 7

For reasons that seemed obvious at the time, I dreamed about my grandfather again that night. He and the other old man I’d seen in my previous dream were sitting around a fire, talking in low voices, frequently glancing at me where I was tied up and struggling to get loose.

 



 

A Girl, a House and a Secret, part 2 of 7

“May I ask what exactly Essie’s disability is? I ask because it’s possible it might affect how I need to accommodate her learning —”

 

“You’ll find that out in time,” she said, “if you stick with the job. Suffice it to say that she can’t go to school with other children.”

 



 

A Girl, a House and a Secret, part 1 of 7

Of course I wasn’t fired because I was trans. No, it was for completely unrelated reasons, as anyone at South Taine Elementary or the Taine County school board would tell you. Besides, Georgia is an at-will employment state, so even if they did fire me for being trans, it would be perfectly legal.

Armored

Cursed, he thought. It was a trap for thieves, not a legitimate work of magecraft waiting for someone named Timala ghe Sulahi to come pay for it. It had protected him from the new scorpion, or so it had seemed in his haste, but who knew what else it would do to him before he could find a mage who knew how to get it off him?

Gender Panic, part 5 of 5

By the time Stella comes to visit again, the changes are pretty much complete. Daddy, Stella and Quindy go out shopping, and Daddy buys Stella a couple of things too, although the trip is mostly to get new underwear and a new swimsuit for Quindy, and some new pants, too.

Gender Panic, part 4 of 5

“Hey,” Julius says to him, “you should apologize to Sebastian. About what you said yesterday.”

 

“Yeah, I guess so,” Vincent says, not quite meeting Sebastian’s eyes. “I’m sorry I said stupid stuff when you told us about changing your type. Um, I heard somebody saying you were using new pronouns already?”

Wings, part 62 of 62 [FINAL]

“Yeah, we can only stay about an hour 'cause I’ve got a freshman orientation thing to go to at four o’clock, and I want to allow time to unload the car and do some unpacking first.”

Wings, part 61 of 62

When I’d taken a shower on Friday morning, I found out the hard way that moss is even harder to dry than fur. It took me a long time to blow-dry the moss enough that I could put on my work clothes without getting them damp, and I was nearly late to work.

Wings, part 59 of 62

Dad and I went for a short walk around the halls near his room with the nurse’s aide. He was tired out after going one lap around the nurses’ station. After we got back to the room and the nurse hooked his heart monitor leads back up to the larger machine, he told me, “I’d like to talk more about the transgender thing, if you don’t mind.”

Gender Panic, part 2 of 5

“Are you like that because your mommy or daddy was a beringer, or did you decide to be a beringer after you grew up?”

 

Mx. Herschel laughs. “I’m glad you think I look that young! No, when I was born I had a girl type body — almost everyone had a girl or boy type body back then. I was several years older than you when I told my parents I didn’t want to be a girl, but they didn’t like that, so I didn’t get to change into a beringer body until I was eighteen.”

Wings, part 58 of 62

“Last time Brenda and I played backgammon,” Grandpa said, “we talked about venning into little bitty bodies, maybe two or three inches tall, and seeing how the board would look from that angle. Big enough to roll the dice and move the pieces, but small enough that it would be as good a workout as an hour at the gym.”

Wings, part 57 of 62

“So Joe was upset, and wanted my advice about what to do. I didn’t know any more about LGBT people than he did, at the time, and I didn’t give him the same advice I would now, but I hope I did sort of okay given what I knew then.

Wings, part 56 of 62

“Have you tried to talk to him about rejuvenating?” Grandpa asked.

 

“He won’t listen,” Mom said, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “I’ve almost given up trying. I bring it up every few months, still, but...”

 

We heard a door open somewhere, and changed the subject.

Wings, part 55 of 62

“Oh, good. This feels weird. Not as bad as I feared, though. I know you said I wouldn’t feel paralyzed or claustrophobic, but hearing it is one thing and experiencing it is another. It just feels... sort of normal to not have any arms or legs?”

Gender Panic, part 1 of 5

“Zoe, bring up some pictures of me from about ten to fourteen years ago,” Daddy says to the household AI. Zoe complies, projecting an array of four pictures on the opposite wall. Three of the four show Daddy holding a baby, either Sebastian or his big sister Stella, who lives with Mommy now. In one of them, he’s nursing the baby. “Sebastian, do you see what’s different about me back then?”

Wings, part 54 of 62

I’d originally been going to title it “Venn-Splitting for Long-Distance Relationships,” but Sophia had come up with a snappier title, “Splitting for Togetherness.”

Wings, part 53 of 62

One day in mid-December, a few days after Meredith came home from UNC Chapel Hill for Christmas, I was taking a break at work and hanging out with Genevieve and Terri for a few minutes. Genevieve was a kind of beetle-bee hybrid, with a bee’s striped fuzzy underbelly and a beetle’s elytra over her wings, and a slightly human-ish face. Terri was a big mushroom with a face and arms and four small feet, apparently based on a fantasy creature from a story she liked, “though the ones in the book are a lot smaller,” she said. I was in one of my more outre dragon-like bodies, slender with silver scales and four smaller wings more like a butterfly or moth than a bat.

Gender Panic and Other Stories

My new short fiction collection, Gender Panic and Other Stories contains 253,948 words of transgender fiction: seven short stories, seven novelettes, one novella, and two short novels. Six of the stories (including both novels), 163,318 words, have never appeared online before. The collection has an introduction, an overview of the stories, and content warnings, and afterwords to all the individual stories.

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Wings, part 51 of 62

“I’m not against letting formerly disabled kids compete,” Eric said, “but I’m not sure exactly where you’d draw the line between someone venned into a healthy body and someone venned into a more athletic body.”

Wings, part 49 of 62

“So... Lauren, would you mind venning me into a plushie? And then you could change me back before you go home?”

 

“Sure,” I said, a little surprised but not entirely. “What kind of plushie? I’m not as good at venning people into living dolls as my friend Sophia, but I’ve gotten some practice at it lately.”

Wings, part 48 of 62

Jada was a little demon, only about eighteen inches tall, with short horns, bat-like wings similar to mine, short reddish-brown fur, and cute little hooves. I picked her up and gave her a piggyback ride with her legs around my left neck.

 

Britt was an angel of the same height, with feathery wings and mostly-human legs with bird-like feet, wearing a white robe. I picked her up, too, and she straddled my right neck.

Wings, part 47 of 62

“There are days I feel more robotic and days I feel more human. People tip more when my body is shaped like a female human, but they also expect me to act in a feminine way. Some days I can do that and some days I cannot.”

Wings, part 46 of 62

Mr. Ramsey was still female, but Mrs. Ramsey had switched back to female already, though her new girl body had blue skin like the guy body she’d worn for a couple of weeks and the body Mr. Ramsey was still wearing.

Wings, part 45 of 62

When they returned, Jada was a cyclopean llama-taur and Steph was an octopus-taur. She was riding on Jada’s back, having apparently gotten tuckered out on the way back — she was surprisingly fast on her tentacles, but they’d tired after walking a third of the way across campus.

Wings, part 43 of 62

Britt and I went on a couple of dates that month, taking Desiree with us and snuggling with her. On one of those dates, we went to the mall in Catesville, venned into little girls, and played on the playground until closing time. We didn’t run into Melinda and Melanie that time, but we played tag with a couple of little girls and then chatted with them after we got tired of chasing each other around the playground, up the stairs and through the tunnels and down the slides.

Wings, part 42 of 62

On Furry Friday, I had Jill venn me into a two-headed creature with a sheep-like head and a wolf-like head. After some practice, I tried talking with my usual voice with the sheep head and with a fake Scottish accent with the wolf head; I would recommend the meat dishes with the wolf head and the vegetable dishes and salads with the sheep head.

Smart House AI in Another World, part 9 of 9

“Hello!” Bisur said, and “We come in peace,” said Pamani. My other self had spent the morning during breakfast drilling the emissaries in English greetings, and had apparently thought “We come in peace” would be funny. Juniper certainly found it so, snorting as she suppressed an inappropriate laugh. And to be honest, so did I.

Wings, part 41 of 62

Before she unpacked any more of her stuff, she looked over Jada’s things, including me, but didn’t touch anything — except me. She petted me gently before going back to her side of the room and finishing unpacking.

Smart House AI in Another World, part 8 of 9

“If you were willing to postpone the opening of the portal,” I said, “I could teach you the most commonly spoken language of my world, which would be useful in most places that your portal might open up. But I understand if you don’t wish to delay as long as that might take.” In truth, I did not wish to delay the opening of the portal either.

Smart House AI in Another World, part 6 and 7 of 9

Razuko was crying hard now, doubled over, and I fell silent, moving my hologram to “sit” next to them and giving them a gentle telekinetic hug. When they finally cried themselves out, they stammered, “D-do you think I might... ah... I might be a girl? On the inside, like your friend?”

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