"Surprise!" shouted the crowd as Kevin and Terry walked into the living room of their son Bill's home. Kevin surveyed the room with pleasure as he saw all of his family. He smiled as he looked at his children, their spouses, his grandchildren, and of course Terry, his wife of 50 years. My goodness, could it really be that long? It hardly seemed possible. But there on the table was an anniversary cake, which said "Happy 50th Anniversary, Mom & Dad!"

He and Terry gave each other a hug, and then turned to Bill, and said, "Thank you so much for this!" Bill said, "Well, to be honest, most of the thanks should go to Meg; she did all the work." Kevin and Terry both gave Meg thank you hugs and kisses. And then the rest of the family came around for theirs. Soon enough, everyone had been properly hugged.

As is the way at gatherings such as this, the crowd quickly separated, the men into the den, with the big screen TV and the baseball game, and the ladies in the living room. The children were flitting about between the playroom in the basement, the backyard and of course occasionally making brief excursions into the living room and den.

Kevin found a place in a recliner in the den. He enjoyed watching baseball with his two boys, Bill and John, and his son-in-law, Brian. He particularly enjoyed it when his grandkids, Ron, Ginny and Jeffery would come and watch for an inning. His daughter Kristine was Jeffery's mother. Ron and Ginny were Bill and Meg's children. Bill had been addicted to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series when he was growing up, and had married a woman that was an equal fanatic. Kevin privately thought that naming your kids after characters in a book was going a bit far, but he supposed it could have been worse. He thought at least they did pick two characters that had names that were fairly typical names in America; he shuddered to think of what an American girl named Hermione would have to put up with.

As Kevin thought about Harry Potter, and the Wizarding world portrayed in the series, he felt familiar strings of strong emotion as he wished with all his might that magic really did exist. It wasn't so much that Kevin wanted to be a wizard--he didn't really. Furthermore, he certainly did not want to live in a world that had Lord Voldemort in it. In his own childhood, he had grown up with Samantha from Bewitched and Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie, and they evoked the same emotion for him.

John, looking over at him, asked, "Dad, you ok?" Kevin forced a smile back on his face, and said, "Yes, I'm fine, son." John nodded and turned his attention back to the game.

Kevin went back into his thoughts about magic, and the various types of mythical ways that magic could present itself. He thought about Darrin Stevens and Major Nelson, and thought about how stupid they had been to try and stop Samantha and Jeannie from using their powers. Although, perhaps that was the only thing that prevented them from the slippery slope represented by Tolkien's One Ring. But Kevin wasn't interested in power, money or fame. He had one wish, and that was all he would need.

As far back as Kevin could remember, he had wanted the one thing that was simply not possible. Science in all these years still did not provide a solution. Kevin desperately wanted to experience what it was to be female. He couldn't even really explain why. It wasn't that he hated being male, because most of the time he didn't, but then there were times that he would have done anything to be rid of his penis once and for all. This desire had been with him as long as he could remember. His earliest memories of it were when he was in first or second grade.

When he went through puberty, he began cross-dressing as often as he could. Years later he discovered that he went through the classic stages for cross-dressers. He would dress, get aroused, masturbate, and then, feeling incredibly guilty, pledge to never do it again. Of course, that never lasted very long, and he would cycle right through all over again. That cycle was not broken, until he was no longer living at home with his parents where "Jessica" was relegated to stolen moments. He had found that when "Jessica" had time of her own, it was not necessary for her to compete for time with that other basic need.

In one sense he was lucky, since he had eventually found a way to accept that "Jessica" was a part of him, and that she was here to stay. Kevin had known of others that had never been able to accept that, and had succumbed to the guilt, and sunk into deep depression. Somehow, he had avoided that, for which he was eternally thankful.

At one point in his life, Kevin gave serious thought to Sexual Re-assignment Surgery. He read about people that were going through it, and his heart would go out to them. He truly understood their need, and he wished them peace and happiness. But he also knew that it simply was not the right answer for himself. SRS could give him a vagina, but it could not change his rather masculine bone structure, and it couldn't give him ovaries. For him, the desire to be a parent someday was more important.

When he met Terry, he soon fell madly in love with her. They had been dating for a short time, when perhaps after having had a couple of drinks too many, he told her about "Jessica." Terry was, to say the least, surprised but thankfully did not reject him out of hand. She had had many concerns, and over the next couple of years, they worked through them, before they got married. Number one concern for her was that she was decidedly not a lesbian, and did not want to be married to a woman. Kevin, having already worked this one out for himself was able to promise her that he would never have SRS. She wasn't particularly comfortable with Kevin's dressing, and wasn't sure how that would play out in the long term. Kevin promised her that if she married him, he understood that she needed, wanted and deserved a husband. "Jessica" would be secondary, and would have to be worked out between them as the situation dictated.

In the end, they had worked out rules that they both thought they could live with, and they decided that they could make a try at marriage.

Kevin smiled as he thought of that. He thought to himself, "I guess after 50 years, I can say we succeeded." Over the years, the role that "Jessica" played in their marriage went through many changes. The one constant was that when Terry or the children had needed Kevin, Kevin was Kevin. He had kept his promises all these years.

But as Kevin got older--he was now in his early 70's--facing his own mortality, the desire to experience even one day as a woman became almost unbearable. It was the itch he couldn't scratch. Kevin had been a fan of Robert A. Heinlein, and particularly enjoyed Time Enough for Love and it's sequels. He especially liked the concept of rejuvenation. When he was younger he had told himself, that by the time his life was winding down, science would have figured out how to do rejuvenations. One of the characters in the book is given the option to be rejuvenated as a man or a woman, Kevin had decided that he was willing to spend one lifetime as a man, but if he got a second, it would darn well be as a woman.

However, science had not progressed at all in this direction. Which was probably a good thing, since they had also not solved the speed of light barrier, and the planet really could not support people living multiple lives. So Kevin was resigned to the fact that he would never experience life as a woman. Which brought him back to the question of magic. Oh, what he would do for that one wish.

As he was thinking that, Terry came in from the living room, and sat across his lap, giving him a hug and a kiss. "Happy Anniversary, darling." she said.

"Happy Anniversary, my love." He replied.

"Who's winning?"

"Ummm.... "

Bill spoke up, "We are, six to two, Mom. Top of the eighth, two men down."

"Great!" she said to Bill.

To Kevin, she asked, "Honey, why don't you come on out to the living room, and spend some time with the girls?"

"Ok," he said and they got up and headed into the living room.

"Hi Dad, Mom convince you it was time to spend some girl time?" Kristine said with a smile.

Kevin, smiled back at his daughter, as his two daughters-in-law laughed. "I don't know about that, but I certainly do want to spend time with my girls too."

"Well, have a seat, can I get you some coffee?" asked Meg.

"That would be very nice, thank you."

"Mom, can I get you some more or anything else?"

"No thanks, Meg. I'm fine," answered Terry.

"How are the boys making out?" Kevin's other daughter-in-law, Jennifer asked.

"Oh, they are fine. Into the game, and we're winning, so they are happy enough," answered Kevin.

As the conversation steered to the exploits of Ron, Ginny and Jeffery at school, with Meg and Kristine telling competing stories alternating between utmost pride, and deepest embarrassment, Kevin again fell back into his thoughts.

Just as he enjoyed spending his time with the boys and the game, he enjoyed being welcome into the ladies' conversation. All of them had spent time with him as "Jessica" and again he was thankful that he was blessed with that level of acceptance. He knew far too many others like himself that had lived their whole lives hiding themselves from everyone they loved. He remembered how hard it had been when his own parents had been alive and he had had to hide himself from them. He hated it: he knew it was the right thing to do, but he hated it.

He had hoped, of course, that by this day and age society would have gotten over the prejudices that would cause people to hide their natures but, unfortunately, some things were still just not understood. Cross-dressing and Transgenderism were still not widely accepted. But he and Terry had done something right with raising their children, and not only were they all open-minded and accepting, but they had each found spouses that were as well. Kristine had actually broken off an engagement with a man when she discovered that he was not. Kevin had felt bad about that, but Kristine had told him in no uncertain terms that she was glad that she had found out when she did, as he was not the kind of man she wanted to spend her life with. Kevin felt much better when she found Brian, particularly since he found that Brian treated Kristine much better then her previous fiancé.

"Dad, are you Ok?" Kristine asked. Kevin jumped, startled from his thoughts. He looked over at Kristine, and saw concern on her face.

"I'm fine, honey; sorry, just thinking about things," he assured her.

"Can you come with me up to my room? There is something I want to show you."

"Sure, Kris, no problem." So he got up and followed Kristine up to the guest room.

"What's up, Kris" he asked when she closed the door.

"I want to talk to you about Jessica."

Kevin, sighed and said, "Kris, it's my fiftieth anniversary party for being your mother's husband. I don't think that Jessica has a place here today."

"Baloney. Jessica is just as much a part of you, and of this family, as Kevin is."

"Maybe, but your mother married me as Kevin, not Jessica."

"True, but Jessica is my mother's wife."

"I'm not going to debate that with you. Very well, what is it you want to talk about, Kristine?"

"It is clear to us all that, of late, Jessica is not content with her role in your life. We want to help, because we cannot just stand by watching you in pain and not want to try and do something about it."

"Honey, I appreciate that, really I do, but I'm fine."

"Dad, you talk a good game, but that's not true. Don't deny it; we all see it. You get lost in your thoughts, and we can see the pain in your face. It's true we don't understand your need for Jessica, but we do understand that you need Jessica, and that is important to us all. Including Mom. She has been married to you for 50 years, and she has grown too, you know."

"Yes, I know she has, and it's a never ending source of amazement to me that she has put up with me all these years. Most women would have kicked me out before we even got married."

"Maybe. I wouldn't have."

"That's different. You were raised with it. But you don't know that anyway. It's not like you married a cross-dresser."

"Only because I fell in love with a man that was not a cross-dresser. I wasn't looking for one, that is true, I was looking for a nice guy, and had he been one, it would have been fine with me."

"Maybe so. But what is your point? I don't see that there are any solutions to my problem. Basically, I'm resigned to the fact that I will never experience what it feels like to have a female body. There are no options available on that. I had hoped science would give me a chance before I die, but it's not very likely. I suppose I always knew that, but when I was a young man, I could tell myself, I just have to live long enough."

"What if I told you that I was given a very special coin?"

"Oh please, not that old saw. Half the fiction stories written use a magic coin as the plot device."

"Alright, you are right. But just for the sake of argument, what if I could grant your wish, and make it so you had been born a woman?"

"First off, if I were to get to make a wish, that is not what I would wish for."

"No?" Kristine looked surprised.

"Ok, I'll play along with you. I've seen It's a Wonderful Life, too, you know. If I was born a woman, then I would never have married your mother, and you and your brothers would not exist. And since you lot would not exist, you would not have married, and had my three grandchildren. No matter how much I might wish to have been female all my life, that is too high a price."

"Well, I guess I would have to agree with that, I hadn't really thought that through. So what would your wish be, surely you have had a chance to figure out exactly how to word it by now."

"Oh great and powerful Jeannie of the lamp, hear my wish..."

"I'm serious, Dad."

"Oh, all right Kris. I am torn on it, to be honest."

"Really, how so?"

"Because I don't want to lose your mother in the process. But, if I become female, I would, so the question I can't help asking myself, is do I want it bad enough that I could live a second lifetime without her, or at least not as a spouse. I don't think that I would, but it really is academic, since it is not possible."

"What makes you so sure that you would lose Mom?"

"Because she isn't a lesbian. She is most definitely not interested in woman."

"You would be making a wish."

"I could not make a wish that would change your mom, against her will. I couldn't live with myself!"

"I did not say anything about changing her against her will. But Mom might surprise you, and maybe, just maybe, she would be interested in being your husband the second time around."

"Well, that would certainly be strange."

"With all due respect, Dad, that would be the least strange part of it." Kristine smiled to soften the comment.

"True enough. But again, it's hypothetical. There are no magic coins, or Genies. The closest we can come is through surgery, and at my age, that would just make me a very old woman; it wouldn't give me a second lifetime."

"No, but it might give you some peace of mind."

"And more importantly, if you stipulate that Mom would also go through it, my understanding is the Female to Male surgery is much less effective. And on top of that, there is no way we could afford it, even if we could somehow convince the doctors to approve us as candidates."

"Well, I agree that surgery is not really a viable option."

"So that begs the question, what is the point of this discussion? There are no miracle solutions to my problem. It's just something I have to accept and, usually, I'm fine with it. There are days, when I admit, I want it so bad I just want to go into the kitchen and grab a knife and do it myself. But I would never do it. First off, I am a chicken when it comes to pain. Second, I have a responsibility to you all and, more importantly, I am proud of my accomplishments. You all make it worth my while."

"The point is that we hate to see you unhappy, and we want to find someway to ease your pain."

"Honey, pain is a part of life. We all have unfulfilled wishes. I'm a big boy, and can handle this. I suppose I should apologize to everyone though; I guess I have not been as good as I thought about keeping this to myself."

"You shouldn't have to keep it to yourself; we are your family."

"I'll try to do better. In the meantime, I'm thinking that there is a really wonderful looking cake out there, and my names on it. I think we should get back to the party."

"Ok, Dad, you go ahead. I'll be down in a minute."

"I love you, Kristine. Don't worry about me."

"Love you too, Daddy."

As Kevin walked from the room, Kristine went over to her jewelry box. She opened the box, and took out an old looking gold coin, and said, "Not today, I need to work this wish out, just a little bit more." She put the coin back in its box, and headed back to the party.

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