My entries for MELANIE EZELL'S BIG CLOSET ULTIMATE WRITER'S CHALLENGE. A contest of 65 stories, 52 weekly, 12 monthly and one for the whole year.
Long time since I last wrote a bit. But this one was sitting finished on my hard drive and felt finished. It’s a bit of a drabble in
MELANIE EZELL'S BIG CLOSET ULTIMATE WRITER'S CHALLENGE, the fourty fourth week challenge:
44. Drabble Rabble
idea: Write a collection of related drabbles.
length: No more than 5 drabbles, each at 100 words.
limitations: Any TG theme can be used, though humor would tend to fit the drabble format best since you can think in terms of "setup, setup, punchline," much like a comic strip.
A misspelling in a draft for my second week challenge entry was what inspired the following…
Sorry about the last one, but there’s only so much I can do with creative misspellings of the name Radcliffe, and stay in theme at the same time.
― I understand you are here to change your legal gender, is this correct?
― Yes your honor. I have all the papers with appropriate signatures with me as well.
― Everything in order, I see. You desire a change in name as well?
― Your honor, mother is strongly dyslexic. She intended to name me “Michael Brian Radcliffe Rayson” but on the forms she entered “Mice Brain Ratclit Raisin”. You understand why I want to have that changed, surely?
― And what do you desire your new name to be?
― “Mouse Brain Ratclit Raisin”, your honor. Plural is just wrong for a first name!
I tried to shoot the ball, but everywhere I went, she was there blocking me with her hands and arms. Passing the ball backwards, I tried to start our offense anew, but yet again, she was there with her big paws blocking me, forcing me to run in this direction and then that, pinning me in like a rat with its tail caught, running in desperation first in this direction, then that one.
After the game, I just felt I had to introduce myself.
― Well played! Name is Mouse. You?
She took my hand and hugged me in one gracile movement.
― Katharine, but for you, let’s just say the Mouse got caught by the Cat!
Douglas was watching the women around the pool, the perfect behind of a mousy haired, short and lithe one just getting out of the water catching his eye. As she went to fetch a towel beside a taller ginger girl who kept moving her lounger to catch the glimpse of sun peering forth between two tall buildings, he knew he had to talk to her.
― Hello, fair lady! I’m Doug. Is your friend already taken, or do you think you could introduce me to her? he asked while the smaller girl was away fetching something to drink.
― I’m Katharine. Sure, I’ll introduce you.
― Girlfriend, the Dog here was just telling the Cat he’s chasing the Mouse’s tail!
― Honey, if you don’t come out of there soon, you’ll end up as wrinkly as the tiny newborn Mice are!
― Too late, I’m already wrinkly as a Raisin!
― Do you know what makes humans smarter than the other animals?
― No, tell me!
― It’s because their brains are so wrinkly!
― I must be very smart then. I'm a wrinkly Brain, with a wrinkly brain!
― Uh, oh, ahhh, that’s soo–ooo–ouuUUU– GOOD! Doug!
― You might be my little Mouse, but I swear, at the entrance of that sweet little pussy of yours…
― Oh YES!
― …right beneath my tongue, my Mouse has a Rat clit!
As a bonus, a link to some beautiful pictures of harvest mice in their natural habitat.
Comments of any form welcome. Particularly, don't hold back on language and editing issues. I want to be told about it!
This is a try at MELANIE EZELL'S BIG CLOSET ULTIMATE WRITER'S CHALLENGE, the tenth week challenge:
10. Heaven's Gift
idea: Sometimes our prayers are answered in unexpected ways. Write a story in which the character's change is brought about by an act of the deity of your choice.
length: any
This was actually written to be my first post on BC, but since it didn’t turn out to be a real instant change, I had to write something else for the first weekly challenge. So, I tried to fit this short little doodle in somewhere else. Now my friends came over and held a board games night tonight, so I didn't get enough time to work on the week three entry, so here you’ll get this instead. Expect my week three issue to be released when this should have been released.
Well it wasn't exactly a prayer, and whether there's a deity or not involved, the story really doesn't tell.
― …and for your final credits for this course, next week’s exam will be given to you as you turn in your last writing assignment. The topic for this assignment is “How my daily life would look, were I of the opposite sex”. You will only be able to take the exam after turning in this assignment, so be sure to give yourself enough time to complete it in time.
That was, of course, last Friday. Looking at the clock, I see the numbers just change to 22:36, and in roughly ten hours and some change, I have to turn in this assignment so that I can take the exam. I look at the three short sentences I’ve written and sigh. I really need these credits, but inside my mind is a roaring black hole, ripping substance and any illumination from the few ideas that I have managed to get on the topic. In my mind’s eye I look as the last remnants of my muse get caught beyond the event horizon and inevitably dragged in to merge with all my chances to get the credits I need to be able to go to college.
― How I wish I knew just what to write to finish this essay and nail tomorrow’s exam!
Frustrated, the words coming from my mouth with little thought, addressed to this painful universe in general. I threw my hands away from the keyboard in disgust. Had I any idea of the consequences of it, maybe I would make a different wish, but how could I know there actually were someone, or something, out there listening?
With a mounting headache I get up and walk to the bathroom, finding a paracetamol pill, not one of more well known brands but a cheap generica is good enough for me, and down it with a glass of water.
Twenty minutes later, sitting in my desk chair again, I look at the screen as a blurry image of a popular actress and singer starts to emit beautiful ballad lyrics, replacing the noisy all-percussion orchestra that was previously all too loudly drumming at the inside of my skull. The start of a hazy idea begins to flow from my less-than-fully-conscious mind to my fingers as I listen to the private concert of an eighties rock ballad playing inside my mind’s ears.
At the chime from the grandfather clock down in the dining room I look up at my finished essay, close to the upper limit in pages she wanted, and suddenly I get hit by the madness of it. Here I’m sitting, with a long story of a regular day in my regular life and in my regular sex, at midnight the day before I need to have it turned in or flunk a course I absolutely need to get to college. Need to sleep creeping up on me, I get up and go to bed. I just need to turn in the assignment to be able to write the exam, she didn’t say anything about whether it needs to actually cover the subject. Exhausted I get to bed and turn off the lights.
* * *
Waking up on Friday morning, I narrowly manage to get ready in time despite my having set the alarm to half an hour earlier than usual. I arrive at the examination hall just in time to turn in my essay and in turn they hand me the exam and lead me to my designated seat. After much less than the two hours assigned for this test, I put my pen down, looking in wonder at my finished exam paper. So easy?
― Just let me mark your attendance off in the list and you’re free to go. Have a nice day, miss! the invigilator says with a smile I’m not used to seeing on persons of their profession.
I look down at my dress and smile back. Maybe it will be a nice day after all!
Comments of any form welcome. Particularly, don't hold back on language and editing issues. I want to be told about it!
This is a try at MELANIE EZELL'S BIG CLOSET ULTIMATE WRITER'S CHALLENGE, the February challenge:
February: Where No (Wo)man Has Gone Before
Idea: It is 500 years in the future, and mankind has finally begun mass exploration and colonization of our surrounding stars. What kind of adventures does our kind have, and what changes must we face to survive in this harsh new environment?
Length: 1500 words or more.
Limitations: The story must take place outside of the confines of planet earth. TG content must be based on either the ideas of a changing social structure or some other reason that can be attributed to man's expansion into the wider universe.
Probably not quite 500 years into the future, don’t know how far really, but it’s no longer the 21’st century.
This might be a disguised political critique of the folly of affirmative action and enforced quotation of traditional minorities into positions in government or other large organisations. But shhh! don’t tell anyone! After all, this story ends better than those situations do…
― Damn Earth, damn all politicians and those blasted feminists, damn NASA for doing this, damn those bioscientists that developed the body replacement system and most of all, damn my own insistence of never demanding of my crew something I would not demand of my self as well! the Commander was swearing into his glass of — as he had asked the bartender for “something with enough punch to launch my brains out into orbit again” — and drank it all down in one swoop before he asked for another one.
― I take it you have issues with the affirmative action legislation being enforced in space now as well as on Earth, sir? the bartender said in a voice reminiscent of Stephen Fry’s valet character in Jeeves and Wooster — a twentieth century comedy show that had made Mars’s TV networks because of the unlikely similarity between the colony’s governor and Bertie Wooster in the series.
― I have to “volunteer” forty percent of my crew — over seventy crew members! — for acquiring new female bodies because of some feminist lobbyists back on Earth. NASA saying that because the new brain pattern transfer system is so reliable, and the new biodesign bodies can overcome the physical problems with women’s bodies not being able to fill the fitness requirements for astronaut positions, there is no longer any excuse for skewed sex balances among their astronauts. What they fail to tell us is that they are in their right to just change future recruitment policy, not transform nearly half of their current corps! But no, a one time cost like this is so much cheaper than recruiting once again the size of the current corps of women who wants to enter space. Oh no, they have to change us to fit the quota right now, even though they already have about sixty brand new, never sailed ships in dock on the moon because they don’t have enough staff to crew them, and several of my colleagues tell me they are making do with barely enough staff to keep their barges from falling apart!
― I imagine the atmosphere is rather loaded among the crew members since the news arrived, sir?
― You have no idea! Two of the heavy haulers had mutinies already when the commanders decided to try to just appoint who gets changed and who doesn’t. Word is getting around, any commander that doesn’t device a method of choosing that is agreed upon by the crew is likely to be forced to walk the long walk out through a short airlock.
― May I suggest something, sir?
― Go ahead.
― It strikes me that since you are already resigned to being transformed yourself, sir, that you think about it from the perspective of designing a really good body for yourself, to become a woman you will enjoy being. Not just being assigned a random body. If you and your crew are actively doing something to make the situation as pleasant as possible to live with, then your crew might look at the situation in a more favourable light.
― Designing a woman you will not hate being instead of just being thrown into a random body? Some of my men might be able to take that as a challenge, yes. I think I will have to think more on this, barkeep. Good night to you.
― Have a pleasant night, sir!
Walking back to his dirtside quarters in Tharsis One, Commander Gordon Blaze was considering just what type of woman he wanted to be, as he soon had no other choice than to be a woman. Or rather, trying to put his mind into the perspective of being a woman, what would he like his body to be like? Of course, one of the large differences between sexes being the mode of sex, sex was on his mind. He knew from bitter experience that abstinence from sex could be a very hard thing on a man, particularly when coming back to Earth after more than a year and finding his fiancé in the bed of another man. And he knew scientists had proven women to be just as sexual as men, just in a different mode. He had a gut feeling that it would be best to give up any thoughts of maintaining any “manly” sexuality and attitude to sex. If he was going to be a woman, he was going to make sure he was as comfortable in a female sex and with female sexuality as he was right now with male sex and sexuality.
But how much of that was a property of his future body, for which he could at least give serious input on the design, and how much was a property of his current brain patterns which would be imprinted in the new body? Could he control that? Maybe he needed to have a very in–depth look at the process, so that he could present a proposal to his crew.
As he reached the spacer quarters he mulled over what possible things he could or could not affect regarding his future body, and once he had gotten in the door and out of his off duty suit, he fell fast asleep without even getting under the linens.
In his rather confused dreams, he took just about every shape a woman, or man, could take; he repeated the process of being transferred into his new body hundreds of times; and eventually he took a more or less stable and very sensual form which stayed for some rather erotic dreams, most of which he still remembered when waking.
* * *
― As I’m sure the entire crew is already aware, some disturbing orders have reached us from Earth. These orders concern the quota of women in the permanent crew of our fine vessel. We are the largest ship in NASA’s fleet, and as such, going against those orders, despite their all too apparent idiocy, would be seen as desertion and most certainly would result in a mass mutiny of other vessels in the fleet. Earth has this last century turned entirely dependent on our mining and trade and will not be able to tolerate such a turn of event without turning to war, dirtsiders against spacers. I do not see a positive conclusion for us in such an event. Therefore I am sad to conclude that we will have no option other than follow these orders.
The assembled crew was lethally quiet during their commander’s speech, surprising their commander by not even arguing in the pause he had added for just that.
― Now, the entire crew is aware of my stance on “volunteering” — I will not demand from my crew any actions that I would not myself be prepared to do. One of those things I’m not prepared to take is being thrust into a new body not of my choosing!
There were some murmurs from the crew at this, but nobody raised their voice high enough for the commander to hear their words.
― For this reason I spent the entire day yesterday in consultation with the Mars branch of Copperfield–General Bioengineering and Medical. It is through them NASA has organised the execution of the transformations to take place. For the moment they have enough unused biopods at Tharsis Three to grow custom bodies, after individual input and design, for the entire portion of the crew that is to be transformed. We have a narrow window of no more than forty hours until that option closes, which means that we will have to do the selection of crew members today in order for all to have time to give input on, or even custom design their new bodies during tomorrow and the morning after.
― A description of the technologies behind the transformation may be in order. The body will be grown in a biopod during a time of between eleven and thirteen days. This body will have genetic sequence based in a sample of your own morphed with a baseline from NASA, with some standard health improvements and some genetic improvements that are randomised for genetic variation as well as custom ones available in the design process. This body will have optimal environment and stimulation for growing motor control and sensation, meaning that even a lower muscle mass body is likely to have better responses to your intentions and better condition than any born body. Once the body is grown to the level of imprintability, it will be almost complete in every respect except higher cortical functions in the brain. That means a lot of lower functions such as emotional response patterns, sensory and motor aptitude and talent, speech patterns, and sexuality, will be partially or entirely a property of the body. This means those properties will take natural feminine patterns, but also that you will be able to affect them in the design process. The problematic side is the construction of the imprint. This process is invasive and sadly destructive to the donor brain. You will never be able to return to your original body.
The formerly so quiet crew was at this point chatting amongst themselves. Commander Blaze decided decided it was time for a break for coffee.
― All right, let’ s continue where we left off. I said some features of the brain would be partially or entirely decided by the body. Exactly how much can be regulated in the design process. Copperfield–General recommends letting as much as possible of the emotional parts and the entirety of the sexuality related parts go with the body. Results when large parts come from the donor, as they call the original body, have never been quite satisfactory. There is also the issue of male pride and built–in prejudices. And don’t make any mistake, there is male pride in all of you that will make you intellectually wary of female emotional and sexual behaviours, and this pride will b e harmful for your final body if you let them govern the design. Likewise all males have prejudices against women as a group just as all women have prejudices against men as a group. These are very different between individuals, but they exist and they too will do their best to make you resist becoming a happy and healthy woman. As a general rule, those that went slightly overboard feminine and left the masculinity behind were happier about the transformation than their more restrictive colleagues. That is not to say that you couldn’t be a successful, happy tomboy, but with overlarge male baggage you are more in risk of being unhappy about the change that way than if you take less of your gender identity with you in the transformation.
― But one of the reasons I stand here in front of you today is to be a role model and inspiration. I have put some thought to my form already, and when on–site I took the opportunity to design my own future body. Some considerations I had was my personality — I’m rather internally motivated and internally validating. I’m not using other’s opinions of me affect my self image much, and validating my own actions and appearance through largely personal values and not those of the people around me. Suspecting this is largely an effect of the wiring in the emotional parts of the brain, this was my first point of design. I wanted my new body’s emotional drive to be similar enough to my own that it wouldn’t lead to me losing my personality. Staying with the brain structures responsible for emotional aspects, I decided that one thing in particular was going to be entirely driven by the new body. I will let the new body define it’s sexuality. I’m going to totally abandon my masculine drives here. I asked the technicians to let her natural sexuality develop, I will do nothing to impose a design or a direction to it. My male self would most likely be embarrassed by any reactions she will have in any case, I will not let those impulses of a male who will no longer exist when I am she to override the natural impulses of the female that I will be then. Well, that was the part of the body that I think you all would do best to consider, because with this transfer technique, it truly is a part of your body, not your mind. The reason I’m saying this is because I don’t want to see my crew members to be unhappy because they failed to address a part of their new bodies that is not obvious but hidden deep inside the brain. There were more minor tweaks and guards in the emotional centers that the technicians wanted my input on, but you will not have the benefit of as rigorous design process as I did because of time constraints — the whole part of the crew that needs new bodies will have to do their design work during the same day, and Copperfield–General can only process six new body design processes in parallel at this facility. You will have to have thought about these things already and come there with a clear idea of what you want.
After this the commander brought up a series of graphs of different emotional aspects up on the screen behind him. The decided point, or rather diffuse area, where his new female body would end up, as well as readings comparing his current body’s position as well as the female and male normal intervals, and explanations of what the extremes mean. During this part he simply let the data talk for itself, and the crew members discuss amongst each other.
― Continuing on, both NASA and Copperfield–General have custom designed some particular aspects that either will be part of your new bodies, some of which on an arbitrary basis for reasons of genetic diversity and for reasons of susceptibility to biological weapons, or that will be offered to you. NASA enforces properties that will make sure your new bodies will be able to clear all the physical requirements for astronauts. Mostly you will like this. Your new body will have a strength exceeding an unmodified human of once again your muscle mass, through simple rearrangement off the protein mechanisms involved and through having a benefit evolution never had — they can remove artefacts and structural designs that are suboptimal but remains because of way evolutionary and embryonic development works by gradual improvements based in survival and reproductive ability alone. Nature doesn’t throw things out and start from scratch from a better foundation. NASA does. You will find your sense of smell improved in ways that will help with the running of the ship, such as being sensitive to leakage products from the engines that are odourless to you today. Some of this will also be of inconvenience because there is no way to entirely remove some smelly processes but it is still vital for you to be able to sense when the processes causing them are running amok. There is no change to your sense of taste or hearing. Your sense of vision will be improved by copying various tricks from other animals and putting them together in a total redesign of your eye and retina. Expect to be visually disoriented for a few hours after transfer. There are considerable changes to your sense of balance to improve your ability to navigate yourself in a different gravity and with inertial forces working on you, notably zero gravity and accelerating vessel. Radiation tolerance will be increased substantially, as will survivability in low pressure, low temperature environments. Your tactile senses will also be improved — expect greater sensitivity to touch, vibration, pressure, temperature differences. Luckily for you, they predicted a few problems in pain sensitivity increasing, so they have designed increased pain tolerance. You will not feel any stronger pain from damages than you are today, in fact probably less, but you will be able to feel much finer distinctions. Copperfield–General will have options for genetic or structural modifications to you. For example, our maintenance and engineering crew might want to opt for manual dexterity and ambidexterity. However, there is only a certain amount of brain cortex area to use, only a certain amount of neurons can be thrown at a problem. When you opt for one of the structural modifications, it will come at a cost of less area available for other systems. Please don’t put all your brainpower into manual dexterity but none into your speech centers, you would be sorely disappointed at how clumsy your tongue is at forming words and how bad your brain is at putting together intelligent speech and complex sentences. Detailed information on this, and a simulator of the design software, will be available to you through the ship’s computer network.
The commander stepped back a bit and brought up a naked woman walking, the image centered on her and slowly rotating. Beside that were rotating a detail image of her head and face, and under that a few interesting body statistics.
― Didn’t expect your commander to be put up on the screen naked, did you? Yes, that is my future body. As you can see, one point where I did let my current male sexuality affect her was just this, the shallow surface of her body. She might be a bit busty, but in my defense, the technicians have added underlying stability that will not be felt from the outside, but will remove a lot of the inconveniences of the design. And it’s hot! Likewise I’ve always had a thing for slim ladies, and the waist may be a bit on then constrained side. But again, the technicians are able to make sure it will be of no inconvenience and lead to no health problems for her. She is also quite small. While I do know that strength is a positive for astronauts, so is being nimble and graceful.
The woman on screen was now doing gymnastics and showing just how nimble she really was.
― Her neck, throat, mouth cavity, nose, tongue and lips are specially designed for one of my opt ins, voice control. The natural voice of hers before I did that sounded a bit more like an excited little girl than I was willing to accept, when simulated. So I decided to spend a little extra brain area and body design on her voice apparatus.
A graph of her voice range and waveform diagrams sampling her voice was now showing instead of the vital statistics table that had been showing before.
― All other aspects of her that you can see on screen are merely cosmetic. When we leave Mars next time, that is the body I will wear, so I thought it appropriate for you to see her face now.
At that, the image of her naked body disappeared and in place she was displayed standing at ease in her commanders uniform. It was still rotating, but her face stopped rotating and now looked slightly to the right of the onlooker.
― Being among the transformees is not without perks. NASA has declared they will pay a lump sum to all transformees for the inconvenience and to cover any unexpected expenses related to the transformation. They will also give all transformees a modest raise. All transformees will be issued two new formal uniforms. Three work uniforms appropriate for their assigned position, two thermal radiation suits for spacewalks, new helmets, a set of exercise clothes of various types, and a new wardrobe of ten full outfits for off duty use and extra sets of underwear and sleepwear. They offer to expedite the paperwork involved in the identity change, though if you are not an Earth citizen you can choose to do that through Mars or Lunar authorities.
― So, to the final matter at hand. Deciding who will be transformed. The first thing I tell you is that any volunteers, I will take. The technicians tell me they can nearly guarantee your will feel comfortable in your new body as long as you don’t do something they recommend against in the design process. Go against their recommendations at your own risk. The second is, I will conscript no family father, nor will I take a married man from his wife. There will not be any record of who has chosen to volunteer, but a rough number of volunteers remaining to fill the quota will be listed. Not exact because I will allow you an hour of considering your choice after having signed up, allowing you to draw back if you change your mind. If the percentage is not filled by the morning I will be forced to conscript some of you, which will be done by an entirely random process among those men that I did not just exclude from conscription. Is there anybody among you who find this process of selection unacceptable?
The crew’s silence rang out through the room.
― Then I leave you all to consider the future of your life and the rest of the crew. Remember, the consequences for going against NASA on this would be dire. I hope that by the morning, I will find myself with enough volunteers to not need to conscript any of you. Thank you.
* * *
That was a hard night for many of the crew, the following two weeks, nerve–wracking for the volunteers, and the days of brain transfer more than a few crew members needed badly to be calmed down. Finally came a period of two weeks in which the crew learnt to deal with their new bodies and how that changed their execution of various tasks, dynamics within the crew and figuring out new dual gender arrangements to things that had previously been nearly entirely single gender.
As it left Mars for a transit to Luna before it’s next four years long survey of the inner asteroid belt, The Decider flew the first female–majority astronaut crew in NASA history.
Years since I last published anything I wrote. So this is going to be a semi-new thing for me. Let's see if I can give justice to MELANIE EZELL'S BIG CLOSET ULTIMATE WRITER'S CHALLENGE, the first week challenge:
1. In the Blink of an Eye
idea: Write a story with an instantaneous transformation. Aliens, magic, weird nanobots, the method is up to you, but the change is instant. Explore how the change affects the character's views of social situations and day to day activities.
Length: 2000 words or less
The ageing reporter was standing in front of a chain link fence on top of the ridge of a crater, looking down at the frantic activity of the military personnel below. Several arms of the service were involved and just about every rank and specialisation could be found. Particularly engineers and technicians for the equipment around the unknown object were milling around.
The object was a metallic blob, maybe twenty metres high and a hundred and twenty wide or so. Originally since it impacted the ground and created the crater it had just sat there, but recently it had started swelling, and all dust and grit had somehow left it's surface, leaving it's surface more perfectly reflecting the light than any man-made object ever had. All tries at identifying it's nature through radiation, vibration or mechanical measures had failed, the object returning all energy affecting it, even amplifying it. It was particularly noticeable for radio waves, since all the radio traffic in the area that hit it continuously had by now reached a level where the object was with a delay of microseconds returning the radio waves at thousands times the strength of the original emission.
The reporter was interviewing some scientist that had been called in from ESA, who was talking about how they were going to try more radical techniques and explaining how the low-radiation nuclear impact they were preparing was going to give them more data as to the nature of the object. As he was talking however, the object was rapidly starting to glow, until after a few seconds the screen was all washed out by the white light.
Half a minute later the camera was again starting to be able to show an image. An image of a young woman standing in a way too large suit looking a lot like that of the reporter, pants around her ankles, standing near another woman in a too large lab coat. Inside the crater, only a black sphere the size of a small car remained in the place the original huge object, and all the personnel around it seemed to no longer fully fill their clothes. Remarkably many of them were women, and of those few that were not, their clothes problems seemed the opposite of the women.
The changes didn't stop at the camera side of the broadcast however. As the white light reached the viewers, they too undertook the strange changes that had affected those in front of the camera. Even recordings of the events caused the changes when played back in front of those that had not yet seen the light. Even then, it took at least four hours until those in charge of various news networks around the world stopped playing up the recording in their headlines.
As the event got more in control, and reports of it's effects started to come in, astonishing numbers were being given. Only a third of the leaders of the world remained their original sex. Depending a lot on the local time when the event hit the news, and the percentage of the population that had a TV, populations around the globe had between nearly half to nearly no transformees. Thanks to the internet and it's video sites, what could have been limited to a single occurrence event turned into a continuous process.
It was rapidly discovered that the transformees were, except for those that had not hit puberty yet, all regressed to a biological age shortly after puberty, and in perfect health.
* * *
“Miss Reginald Spencer to report to the principal’s office immediately!” echoed through the stone corridor from the PA system.
Reginald giggled to herself and went to her lockers to deposit her pack before she went to the office. As she arrived, she was immediately pointed to the headmaster’s room by the secretary.
“You’re expected. They're in there.”
As she closed the door behind her, she looked at the two teenage girls in stuffy, old ,and very much too large, suits.
“Miss Spencer, can you explain to us why we found ourselves like this after setting in for work today, and why you can be seen in the security tapes leaving the office last night?”
“Oh, I only rigged the Solitaire game with showing a quick glance of the light if played during office hours, Ma’am! If that is grounds for firing Fa… Mother, it should be punishable for any other employees, right?”
New week, new challenge, this time being the : MELANIE EZELL'S BIG CLOSET ULTIMATE WRITER'S CHALLENGE, the fourth week challenge:
4. Reunion
idea: Write a story concerning the first meeting between an openly TG individual and a friend or relative they have not seen in a long time, focusing on the difficulties of reestablishing relationships after a long break, with the addition of overcoming any shock caused by the one character's gender expression.
length: 1500 words or less.
I shouldn’t read Drea’s stories before finishing writing my own. Gives me such a feeling of inadequacy…
Nineteen years. Will he even remember me? I wondered as I removed my third wrecked try at make up this morning with hands that wouldn’t have been able to keep more than a fraction of the contents of my mug if I had tried to take a sip of the now cold coffee. For the last three months I had tried to track him down, after his lawyer had turned up at the will reading for our aunt Margaret. She had not been cooperative when I had asked to please tell me how to get in contact with my brother. I had pleaded on my knees for her, but she had told me she had strict orders to keep her client’s whereabouts secret.
At the age of seven, one day a social services woman came to our house. Our parents were dead. Their camp in Chad had been raided, and some of the stray bullets had caught them as they were trying to shield the patients. None of our relatives wanted two more kids on their food and clothing bills, so we were taken to foster homes. I never heard from him for all these years, till his lawyer turned up. An old wound, but still enough to get me in tears.
Three months of searching for him, using whatever clues his lawyer’s speech and stray comments had given me, eventually I met a woman who claimed to know him, who had been in his class in middle school. And so now, eight hundred miles from home, I was finally going to meet him again. What would he think of me now? I had asked his lawyer to tell him about me, and that I was asking to meet him. I had told his former class mate the same thing. Last week I found a letter in the hall, actually stuck under the door instead of in my mail box, containing tickets here and the name of a restaurant and a time and date.
Despite my nervousness and emotional state, I eventually finished make up and dressing. You can do this. You can do this. You can do this. For every repeat of my mantra, I felt even more sure it was a lie. I checked my watch. Fifteen minutes to get downstairs and walk two blocks. I knew I was cutting it short with only giving myself three hours of preparation. I quickly left my hotel room and walked towards the stairs, knowing that if I stayed any longer my insecurities would rise to be insurmountable and I would flee back into day dreaming about my brother being nice and supportive and all cuddly instead of going out to meet him in reality and get all my hopes dashed. And not just my hopes, either. Every step of the way of my transformation, at any time life turned miserable or tough or sad, if was my fantasy brother, the imaginary friend I had made based on my memory of him, that egged me on and made me go out and fight for my right to be who I really am inside. What would I become if he turned out to not be like that? It was my very self confidence I had painted into my image of him. If that image was ripped from me, what would I have left?
I reached the stairwell and walked down, counting every step. I always do. Even if it’s on the twentieth floor. I have trouble with elevators since I was first stuck in one for seventeen hours, back in my teens. It was in an office block and Friday night and Saturday morning. Eventually a janitor came to use it, saw me bleeding and broken on the floor of it and called the ambulance. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
Across the street, across another street, and there I was. Hand shaking as I was reaching for the door of the restaurant. My whole body trembling, in fact. It took me a minute or two to compose myself and enter. A waiter came by, and I asked if anybody had made a reservation in my name. Nobody had. My brother’s name? No. The old classmate of his? No. I was searching through the tables in the part of the restaurant visible from where we were standing as I saw somebody I recognised. My brother’s lawyer. Racking my brain for her name, I finally got confirmation that I was expected.
As I came closer to the booth with the table I saw the old classmate was seated there, too. But not my brother. The lawyer smiled at me and asked me to sit down.
“Nice to see you made it. I was afraid you might not turn up and we might be waiting for you in vain.”
“And miss the chance to meet my brother again, after nearly two decades of forced separation?” I said, her comment hitting a little too close to home for my comfort.
“You must understand, you are asking to meet a person who you have not known for the major part of both your lives. Only a few years of childhood. Family ties may be weaker than you consider them, for all my client knows of you, remembering a childhood brother and not ever meeting any sister, you can see why it is only by your insistence that we arranged this meeting for you.”
The word doing nothing but enhance my feeling of dread at maybe losing the imaginary friend that had stood by me and helped my get through my life to be who I was today, replaced by a brother who cares not for me as his sister at all, I felt tears of despair just at the threshold of bursting out.
“I… I… appreciate … that you have given me this… this chance to meet my brother again. And I don’t want to sound too impatient, but… I notice he’s not here at the table. He is coming, isn’t he?” I think all my insecurity and feeling of distress was seeping into my voice.
“Your brother couldn’t make it today” a woman’s voice told me as a figure stepped out from behind the screen shielding this booth from seeing into the next booth. “…but I was hoping that maybe, just maybe, I could stand in his place today?”
I looked up at her, my wet eyes not seeing her very clearly. No, she looked more like I was looking at myself in one of those funny mirrors in the house of mirrors in the theme park. As I rose from my seat, she threw her arms around me and hugged me. The dam I had been building burst, and tears ran down to drop onto the shoulders of my identical twin sister. But the feeling behind them was quite different from my expectations.
Comments of any form welcome. Particularly, don’t hold back on language and editing issues. I want to be told about it!
Weekly challenge again. Let's see if I can give justice to MELANIE EZELL'S BIG CLOSET ULTIMATE WRITER'S CHALLENGE, the second week challenge:
2. The Uncomfortable Truth
idea: Write a story from the viewpoint of a non-passing transgender individual. This can explore any facet of the transgender spectrum, but try to focus on either the stigma of being one's self in a culture that values appearances or the difficulties of not being able to express ones inner self.
Length: Any
Hard to do this topic in a non-depressing way, so I wanted to disconnect it from the real world a bit. So I decided to try to do this in the boy-having-trouble-passing-for-a-male way. With magic.
This could probably do with an editor checking it over and then a total revision, but I'll post it anyway...
I looked at my image in the mirror and nearly fell in tears again. This time it was my eyebrows. Every time I try to do something for my appearance, the magic beats back. The more effort I spend, the less I'm able to be myself. Such is nature of the enchantment. Despair again rose to fill my throat. It all started with great grandmother, I'll tell you the story. She was blessed, you see. Blessed and thereby leaving me cursed.
~~~{~~~{~~~<@~~~{~~~{~~~<@In her youth, there was an old seamstress living just outside of town. Old and withered, but all clothes she made, the people swore they lasted three times as long as any other garment, didn't stay dirty no matter how badly soiled they were, and they never lost colour nor that slight flowery aroma the colourings she used gave them. But then came the reverend, and he began gathering followers in town, and inciting riots and torch mobs against those not of the right faith, followers of Beelzebub as they were. Eventually the old seamstress crone was the target of their aggressions. A mob marched on her house, torches held high, eventually putting it on fire when failing to gain entry and bringing her out.
That day great grandmother had been given some money for a new dress by her mother, and she was with the seamstress to fit it, when the villagers arrived, preacher at their front. A rock thrown through the window hit the old woman in the neck, and she fell to the floor with blood starting to seep from a long cut the stone had caused. The girl had managed to get the trapdoor to the old cellar open and gotten the unconscious lady down the ladder, closing behind her. As the house burned to the ground above their heads, she had carried her through the cellar and up through the ramp to the outside. Waiting for the villagers to leave, she somehow managed to get the old crone all the way through the forest and through alleyways all the way back to her home.
Grateful over great grandmother saving her life, the seamstress asked her if there was anything in the world she wished, anything at all, be it riches, prosperity, handsome prince — well, as close as comes in America anyway — for husband, anything. Her answer was that she very much would like to get a new dress, she was outgrowing her current, and she'd lost the money to pay her new one. Her mother, knowing the reality of the offer her daughter had gotten, told her to not be silly, wouldn't she rather have eternal beauty for for herself and her daughters?
And that's when it all went so wrong. Because the seamstress answered “Of course, Child, you will have your new dress, I promise you this. For the Goddess rewards those that are kind to her servants, and blesses the children who are unassuming and modest. I think I can do one better for you. In the name of the Goddess I extend this blessing to you and all your descendants. May you be blessed with never withering beauty, grace and wit, attractiveness to the men you desire, and freedom from ails and aches. May the skin of your face be smoth and unmarred, eyebrows well defined and elegant, eyes large and clear and deep and captivating. May your hair always stay long and voluminous and shiny, stay ordered and well kept and never be of inconvenience. May your body be free of unseemly hairs and marks. May your bosom always have sway over the gentlemen, your waist stay slim, your hips form well to carry children, your legs be long and graceful. And may you always wear the most exquisite smocks, always pristine and whole, neither too cool nor too heavy, never indecent but neither unwieldy — smocks worthy of a real lady of your time.”
Great grandmother stood there, still a girl on the border of becoming a young woman, with a new prettiness to her features, shining of health and vitality, in her beautiful silk gown, watching the old witch exit the door and leave the village to never return.
My body betraying me, giving after to the magic, it was all I could do to stop myself from crying. I might look like a girl, but I detested the vision I presented and the feminine patterns of movement and speech that my body and voice took as their nature when not watching over myself. I was not going to give after to girly shows of emotion. Boys ground their teeth together and kept trudging on. And while my body looked anything like a boy’s, my mind was solidly male.
Swallowing down the tears, I got dressed, not in the clothes I would have worn had it been up to me of course, and down the stairs to where Mom was preparing breakfast.
“Oh Sweetie!” she said as she rushed to hug me. Nothing needed to be said for her to know how I felt about this my most recent change. I don’t think she even got time to see what it was, just how upset I was.
Just then Sis came down and made it into a group hug. She’s great. If it were not for her, I’m not sure I would have survived to this day. She’s given more than one bully a black eye or a broken arm. And somehow, looking at her always cheers me up, because however girly my appearance may be, she’s more so. I’m at least not quite as far gone as she.
Breakfast was a fast affair, and Dad got down the stairs just as Sis and me finished.
“Good luck today, son!” he said as he ruffled my curls. “Show them all it’s all about skill and not appearances.”
School today was a special day. Morning classes were all cancelled so all pupils could partake in the team try outs for this season. Our school was large and had a team partaking in just about every sport from football to figure skating. I was determined to make the judo team. And maybe the sprint team if joining both was possible. I had a lot of training in that, running from bullies.
Sports were one of the few reprieves I had from the full brunt of the magic. Apparently the enchantment had some respect for uniforms. All sports outfits I wore followed the rules of dress in that sport, even if the magic perhaps fiddled with just how well they fit and how nice they looked on me. As I was entering the dressing room, one of the seniors I knew had been on the football team last season threw the door open, nearly in my face.
“Sorry, beautiful!” he even looked sincere when he said it. “I think you want the next door over in any case, doll.”
“Next door over? But that’s where the girls change… No, I’m pretty sure this is where I’m supposed to change.”
“You’re a guy?” he asked, eyebrows twisted out of shape. Apparently there were some who had not yet heard of me in school still.
“Of course, wouldn’t be changing in this room if I was a girl, would I?”
His eyes travelled my entire body from head to feet and back.
“How can anybody looking as great as you be a guy?” he asked, looking genuinely confused.
“Well, you know this sex thing? It’s all about what is in your pants. It doesn’t matter what the rest of your body looks like.”
“But you’re hot!”
“Thank you!” I answered his not-too-bright line of thinking with an eyebrow wiggle. “Now you’re blocking the door. Can I pass?”
“Uhh, sure”
After passing the first obstacle for getting into the try outs, I noticed how the entire dressing room was looking at me. I ignored them and took a looker in the far corner. Incidentally, it turned out the big block of muscles that had blocked me from getting in the door had the locker next to me. Despite him obviously having finished dressing, he came over and sat there for the whole time I took in dressing. His eyes went wide when he saw my bra and panties, but the obvious bulge in them caused him to look the other way.
Once or twice in the dressing room I saw a few of the more obnoxious bullies looking daggers at me, but with one of the seniors on the football team beside me, nobody made a move on me.
“Well, thank you for intimidating the neanderthals back there”, I offered him my hand. “The name is Michael. Michael Brian Radcliffe Rayson.”
“Uh, Lance. Lance Evans. Sorry about before. So, which marital art are you trying out for?”
“Judo. Been doing it since I was big enough to walk down to the sports center.”
“Well, gotta get out there or coach is going to flay me. Catch you later.”
“Not if I see you first!” I said, then gave a little laugh to tell him I wasn’t serious.
Judo try outs were more like a relaxed tournament. I did pretty well, considering all. The teacher telling me it was so good to have a girl of my skill there was about the only downer. She looked a little weirdly at me when I told her that “I’m not a girl, and my name is Michael”, but after a second or two she just nodded and told me she’d be seeing me Mondays, Wednessdays and Fridays then.
I made it to the sprint try outs through inventive dodging in the dressing room. I had a bit of trouble with being put in the right group, as the coach directly had put me in the girls’ heats. It took a lot of arguing and even showing him my student ID with photo and a distinct M in the sex field to convince him. The atmosphere among the runners was substantially tense around me after that. But after my finishing third in the 400 meters category both in the first and the second heat, I made it. Their practice time was after school hours, so I could join both.
Trouble came in the showers however. One of my Cro–Magnon sprinter colleagues decided it was fun to grab my breast and squish it. I was a bit stunned at this, so he hit the floor three seconds later and was just lying there. After a bit of a panic among all the naked guys, one of the PE teachers came and took him to the nurse, wrapped in a towel. The rest of the guys kept their distance from me after that.
It was second period after lunch when the anticipated call for me to report with the Administrators’ offices immediately ran out through the PA system. I got my stuff and left for the offices. Well there, I was pointed to the larger of the conference rooms. There I was met by the headmaster, the school nurse, the boy that had attacked me, both his parents, Dad, and three of the PE teachers. The first twenty minutes of the meeting felt like a trial, and I was accused of being a serial massmurdering, streaking faggot girl who went whapping innocent guys left and right for my own enjoyment. It took about two hours to put things straight, including a call to Dad’s attorney and threats of bringing legal action to the school. Eventually the boy apologised to me, I told him that I was sorry he got hurt but that it was his own fault for sexually harassing me in the showers, and if he did it again I would gladly point the lawyers his way. His parents got a bit upset about that.
I would have to use the special individual changing rooms and showers that school had for girls who were feeling a bit off because of their period in the future. And both of us got detention for a week.
Getting home after that turned into a hugfest, and I fell asleep on the couch relishing Sis combing her fingers through my hair. Normally I would abhor so girly a reaction, but I badly needed the relaxation, and it just felt so good.
The next morning, I woke up not to the bruised breast that I had the night before, but to yet another cup size. This time I couldn't hold back my tears any longer.
And so I'm cursed. Cursed by a blessing.