For the Love of Life

PART TWO OF THREE

by

Jaye Michael

 

Chapter Three:
Babe Tails

Did I mention that Paul is a lawyer? Have you noticed that lawyers never, ever seem to be able to give a simple, straightforward answer? If there was a fire in a movie theater, you could expect anyone but a lawyer to yell, "Fire!" A lawyer would want to interrogate the fire first to make sure that it was really responsible for the roasting flesh and burning chairs. Paul is occasionally better than that, but this was not one of those times. He stared up at the ceiling as he composed his thoughts, cleared his throat, and then answered me, "In my experience, the most difficult questions to answer are who, what, when, where, why, and how. I cannot even begin to tell you what happened leading up to your collapse, but I can tell you what I saw.

"If you remember, you were extremely angry, probably the angriest I've ever seen you. Again, I'm not certain why you were angry, certainly it couldn't have been anything I said or did," he smiled wanly, "but angry you were as evidenced by shouting, glaring, hunched shoulders and clenched fists."

"Paul."

"Yes?"

"Stop being a lawyer." Paul always hated it when I made the word sound like an expletive. "What happened already?"

He cleared his throat and tried again. "In a nutshell, you fainted and collapsed. I didn't think you'd want to go to the base hospital where all those male orderlies would be giving you bed baths et. al., especially after you blew up about some rubes at the bar, so I brought you to my car to go to St. Joe's. By the time you were in the car, you were mumbling about how you were okay, just very tired and how you didn't want to go to a hospital. Thus, I brought you to my apartment and put you to bed."

I blushed crimson as he told me he'd undressed me and put me to bed, but I wasn't sure if that was because he'd violated some gender-related taboo that I was now supposed to conform to or because I was embarrassed by how my body had changed. For that matter, I'd known Paul long enough that I was fairly sure that he was hiding something. I'd been able to tell ever since he admitted breaking the yo-yo he was supposed to give me as a present on my eighth birthday. A terrible weakness for a lawyer, he was just lucky I hadn't gone into the same profession.

"Thanks, I guess. But what is it you're not telling me Paul?"

"What makes you think I'm hiding something?" he asked indignantly. "I just did you a favor and you sit there in my tee shirt, on my couch, in my apartment, and call me a liar?"

"Paul?" He has this small artery just below his left ear that starts pumping like crazy when he's
lying. "Don't make me bring up the yo-yo incident again."

He actually considered denying it, even after the "yo-yo gambit," but finally he caved in, although I was not too sure listening to his elaboration. In America, we have an art form that started in the hills of Appalachia, was honed during lonely nights on the Great Plains and was finally perfected in the land of the Lone Star. It's called the tall tale and some of the classics involve Picos Bill or Paul Bunyon and his giant blue ox, Babe. Someone else might have guessed what he was going to tell me from the little signals I was getting from Paul and from my own body, but I was a genetic researcher and I knew the difference between a tale and a tail or at least I thought I did.

"Okay, you got me, again," he told me with that boyish grin that helps him win over the jurors, especially the female ones. "It happened pretty much like I told you, up to and including leaving the base to go to St. Joe's, but something happened before we got there.

"You know how Spaulding Boulevard is all lit up thanks to the Common Council's approval of billboards?"

"Yeah." I knew he had been opposed to that and had even spoken before the Council trying to get them to change their minds, but could not see where this was going at all.

"Well, it was a full moon, and we were passing through that stretch of Spaulding, and when we stopped at the light by Fulton Street I turned on the overhead light to see what I was doing as I reached over to check your pulse."

I was tempted to ask him when he'd picked up a degree in nursing but figured I'd just annoy him and he'd take that much longer getting to the punch line, so I just nodded noncommittally to let him know I was still listening.

"At first I thought it was a trick of the light, but then I looked again, more carefully. Your hair was longer. I couldn't tell how long because it was trapped behind you, but it was at least several inches longer, below your shoulder blades–and it was lighter, a platinum blonde instead of your usual dirty blonde."

What are you talking about?" I reached for my head to show him my hair, even after three months letting it grow; it still just missed reaching my shoulders. My hand came back with a handful of platinum blonde hair extending past my shoulder blades and halfway down my back. Knowing that hair is dead material and that it does not grow a foot and more overnight, I quickly scrambled about for a rationale explanation–and almost missed the obvious.

"Nice gag Paul. Which one of your girl friends did you put up to this? By the way, is it a wig or are they hair extensions?" I had tugged gently and it was not coming loose. I was betting on hair extensions because it felt like I was tugging on discrete bundles of hair.

"Neither. I think it's real."

"Paul, you know that this much hair can't grow overnight. It only grows at a rate of about a 32nd of an inch a day. Now come clean already." I was so sure he was still pulling my leg; I didn't even check that telltale artery.

"Then maybe you'd better check out another change. Look down."

"What?"

"Look down,” he repeated and pointed at my chest. “Don't ask. Just do it."

I figured I might as well humor him and looked down. "Two arms, two legs, two breasts; what's the problem?"
But I couldn't resist, I just couldn't let it end there. "Wait a minute. Two breasts? That's not right. How did that happen?"

Paul groaned so I went in for the kill. "I'm supposed to have three breasts. Where did you hide my middle breast, you thief?"

"Alright, wiseass. If you don't want to know, go get dressed and I'll bring you home." He turned to watch yet another report of the country's rapidly spiraling crime rate on the television and refused to speak anymore. I made a few half-hearted attempts to get him talking again, but then gave up; it wasn't that good a prank anyway. Standing up, I headed back towards the bedroom to look for my clothes.

"Check the mirror on my inside closet door while you're there," he called out as I was almost to the bedroom and then returned to his studious examination of CNN.

“Why? Is it missing?” I retorted–an absolutely abominable line if I do say so myself, but I humored him by walking over to the closet and opening the door–and saw someone else standing there. She was my height, but she was much more buxom. She oozed sensuality. Even the act of standing still with one hand resting on the doorknob seemed an invitation to unimaginably sensual delights. My mind raced, trying to rationalize it as another trick from my personal Loki, I mean lawyer, but came up blank. It was me; or rather, it was the woman I had angrily described to Paul back at the NCO Club less than twelve hours ago. Dressing forgotten, I stepped slowly backward until my legs made contact with a piece of furniture and I slid slowly to the floor, my back propped against the bed as I stared at the stranger in the mirror.

A couple of minutes later, Paul came in and stood by the door. He watched me sitting there, unmoving, staring at the image in the door. Then, with a sigh, he closed the closet door, knelt beside me and held me. I never realized how much I needed a hug until that moment and I hugged him back with sufficient force to draw a surprised grunt from him.

This seems like a good time to drop back ten and punt … er, punt-ificate. Having accepted with reasonable good grace the presumably more traumatic change from male to female, it might seem strange to have me break down over something as insignificant as a glamour makeover, even if it is one that might have cost a pretty penny given the breast enlargement and facial reconstruction, not to mention the lesser but still relatively astronomical price of hair extensions, dye job and perm. A lot of you men are going think it was just "wunna them thar woman things." ERNNNNT! Wrong. In fact, there were two entirely separate problems.

First, as a geneticist I was absolutely certain that this was impossible. Changes like this don't happen without some external source and there had been none. If it couldn't have happened, it must not have happened, yet it did happen so it must be possible, but it wasn't possible. See? It was cyclic logic, much like calculating pi to the last decimal place. It was the kind of logic that the heroes of cheap sci-fi adventures use to thwart the evil robot in the last reel. In effect, I just couldn't reconcile my years of study and research with the facts of what appeared to have happened.

Second, I had had years to live with and learn to accept my mortality and, more importantly, months to accept the absolute need to accept a change of gender if I wanted to continue to do the research to which I'd dedicated my life. I knew what would happen; I had even developed computer models that had predicted how I would look with surprising accuracy. In effect, I made a carefully planned transition from one me to another me. Yet here I now was, with no warning and no chance to acclimate, someone entirely different.

To be completely truthful, there might have been a third reason. I had accepted my change of gender as a necessity, much like brushing one's teeth to prevent tooth decay or wearing a seatbelt in case of an accident. Once it was over, I really did very little to acknowledge that my gender change had even occurred. I'd worn the same jeans and tee shirts as before, just a different size. I'd worked at the same lab with the same people on the same project as before. I'd lived in the same quarters on the base as before. I'd kept the same few friends as before. You get the idea; I had done the absolute minimum necessary to accommodate the changes that had been forced upon me. Yet, here I was looking like something out of my personal fantasies, read wet dreams if it will help. The way I looked now, I couldn't possibly minimize my new gender. Life with a brassiere wasn't going to be a choice but a necessity; situations like the rather clumsy pick-up attempt at the NCO Club would be frequent and inevitable. Heck, I was jealous that I could not date myself.

Now I'm sure you understand that all this wonderful introspection and analysis came later. What actually happened next was I finally regained sufficient composure to ask Paul to release me and he did, although a bit reluctantly.

Then, I had to convince him that I would be all right for long enough to get dressed. Alone, I put my words to action and dressed. He had left me with my panties on the night before and I had nothing to change into anyway so I left them on and added a borrowed pair of sweat pants to complete my lower half.

Did you ever notice that the more important something is the shorter the word used to describe it? The bra–it was a brassiere when there was a choice–was a total loss, painfully insufficient for my new and improved bust. Realizing that, I dropped the half-baked idea that I had been formulating involving accidentally forgetting to put a top on to tease Paul for sneaking a peek last night.

Knowing that some sort of support was absolutely necessary, I searched around in Paul's drawers–that's chest of drawers for those of you with other things on your mind. You'd think a guy with as many girl friends as Paul would have some female clothing left at his apartment, but there was nothing. All I found was an old tee shirt about three sizes too small. I think elves place them there during the night just so half awake people can struggle with them each morning, trying to get them on and wondering why they do not fit until they wake up enough to check the size on the labels.

The next trick was to tie it. They always look so nice on the magazine models, but it is not that easy, try it some time. I fumbled around with the tee shirt until realized that I needed to cut it open first, which I did with Paul's permission, and got it pulled tight and knotted in front. It wasn't a lot of support, but it was definitely better than nothing.

I checked myself in the mirror to see how I looked and almost decided to leave it that way, nipples poking through the thin cotton material, but reconsidered. I was looking to get home, not inflame lust. As you may have gathered, until now I had tolerated being female and had tried to make it something other than the primary focus of my life. I really didn't want to start now, so I went digging through Paul's clothes again, looking for something to wear over my handy-dandy new bra.

My cover up ended up being one of Paul's old flannel shirts, also tied off, but this time at my waist. Luckily it was early fall and it was getting a bit cooler so I wouldn't roast. Unluckily, I still looked like a walking advertisement for sensuality. Regardless, it would have to do since I was out of options. With a shrug of my shoulders, I headed back into the living room, returning to my same spot on the opposite side of the couch from Paul.

"Paul?"

"Yeah?" He acknowledged my question, but kept his attention on the news.

"Do you have any idea how this happened?" I surprised myself that I was so calm.

"I was hoping you'd tell me."

"And I was hoping you'd tell me. I realize this is no gag. The hair is real and so are the breasts. I want to say it's impossible, but the proof is right in front of my face." I watched his lip turn up into a leer momentarily, then his eyes studiously locked back onto the television, and realized he was thinking that I was right about the proof being in front of me, but that he felt it was a bit lower down on my anatomy than my face.

"I can't help you there, Georgie-Girl. You're the researcher, not me. I'm just a simple country lawyer." He still wouldn't look at me.

"Is there some reason why you aren't looking at me when I talk to you? And stop calling me Georgie-Girl. You know I hate it. When this happened I agreed to go by the name Kristen, in honor of the name my mother would have called me had I been born a girl."

"I prefer not to at the moment."

"What? You prefer not to look at me or not to call me something besides 'Georgie-Girl?'"

"Both."

I was flabbergasted. "Paul! What the hell is going on here?"

He finally took his eyes off the television, but still wouldn't look at me, instead staring intently at the coffee table. "I…you…it's..."

Now I was doubly flabbergasted; a lawyer, especially Paul, at a loss for words. The world was truly coming to an end. "I didn't quite catch that Paul. Did you say, 'You worship me for my brilliance and wish to humble yourself before me?'"

Now he added a crimson face to his stutters. This was going to be one for the annals. I'd never, ever gotten him so thoroughly flummoxed before. The only problem was I still didn't know how I was doing it. As I pondered how to press my advantage, I was shocked when he got up and stalked into the kitchen and then out the door, leaving me alone in his apartment.

Damn. What the heck just happened? This wasn't how the script was supposed to go. We were supposed to banter back and forth, sometimes one teasing the other and then the reverse. It was always gentle jabs, not knockout punches. We were best friends, blood brothers. We "grokked" each other. It had to be a gambit, a feint on his part. He was going to walk back in momentarily, laughing about how he'd "gotten" me. That theory was quickly shattered by the sound of a car driving away.

Running to the window, I saw that it was his car.

What had changed? How had things gone so wrong? It had to be...it had to be…my body. That's what was different. Not me. Not him. Not the apartment. Not our banter. My body.

I look back now and realize I was in a near panic state. I had somehow alienated my absolute best friend, my secret brother, the only person in the world I could tell anything. And it was all because my body had somehow done the impossible.

I wanted my best friend back and I wanted my old body back, more than wanted it, I needed it. I couldn't go through life as this overstuffed bimbo. I just couldn't.

By now, I was crying so hard, I couldn't see. I just kept repeating my new mantra. My body. My old body. I want my old body back. It doesn't matter which. Even my old female body.

About that time, I felt the pain start.

 

I did not faint again, although I wished I had and death even seemed desirable for a short while. The pain was excruciating. It was not the dull pain of a headache but the mind-numbing agony of the worst migraine imaginable–and it did not just settle in one part of the body, it was everywhere at the same time. I survived by rolling onto the floor and into a fetal ball. Then I clenched every muscle I could, as tightly as I could for as long as I could. When I could finally open my eyes and drag myself up onto the couch, it was all over but the hunger.

I did not know when he returned, but Paul was back. He sat unmoving, paralyzed, with a horrible rictus of a smile stamped on his face. I could guess what he was thinking, although I hoped I was wrong. “Damn that hurt.” My voice did not sound any different, but I had not noticed a difference the last time either. I guess it is true, you really cannot recognize your own voice.

Reaching for my hair, I discovered it was short again, just above my shoulders and dirty blonde instead of platinum blonde like before. The lumps on my chest were smaller too. Further investigation was going to have to be postponed pending some serious binge eating.

I staggered to the kitchen only to find I had eaten all of Paul’s food after my last transformation. Either I was going to go out to get something to eat or I was calling out for a delivery. I was so hungry I was ready to just grab my money and head out. I might have, except my new clothes no longer fit and I knew it would do me no good to be arrested for vagrancy. With a tee-shirt for a bra that was so loose and oversized my breasts were flopping about, frequently on display, and pants that were so loose I would have to constantly hold them up somehow or provide a public exhibition of another portion of my anatomy, that was a highly conceivable possibility.

Showing remarkable restraint, I called out to Paul to see if he wanted anything before ordering, but got no response. The delivery boy was going to get a good tip considering I had ordered enough pizza, wings and soda for a small platoon. There was little I could do now but wait, and I had always hated wasting my time hanging around, doing nothing. Another quick shower and my old clothes were next on the agenda for the day so I headed back through the living room and on through to Paul’s bedroom. Besides, doing something, anything, might help take my mind of the intense hunger I was feeling. At one point, I remember wondering if this is what a vampire in need of blood would feel.

On the way to the bedroom, I checked on Paul, who still had not moved and still did not respond to my words or gentle shakes. I was starting to worry about him, wondering about shock, yet I would have thought his legal training would have prepared him for the unexpected and this certainly fit the bill in that area.

The comb had just touched my hair when the doorbell chimed and I called out to Paul asking him to get the door. My only answer was another chime as the delivery boy started leaning on the button. With my belly growling loudly enough to drown out some of the melody, I dropped the comb, grabbed my purse and ran for the door. Shoving a wad of money into his hands, I grabbed the food and dove in before the door had completely closed on his surprised face. I suspect I would have been just as willing to injure him severely if he had failed to hand the food over.

About half way through the third large pizza, I was sated enough to wonder why Paul had not joined me. It was an afterthought, but I was also wondering how I was able to eat as much as I had without bursting at the seams. I called out a couple of times, but Paul never answered so after I polished off the third pizza, I grabbed some wings and wandered into the living room to find him–or at least that was my intent.

He was not in the living room, or the bedroom, or the bathroom, or even the balcony. There was no note, but when I remembered to look, his keys were missing from the bowl on the kitchen counter by the refrigerator where he usually tossed them, along with his change and his wallet. Actually, considering the condition of the kitchen after my two eating binges, it was almost surprising I had not eaten the bowl and its contents.

There had been times in the past when Paul had needed to think things through, like when he found out he was adopted or when my mother had died. In the first case, I had found him hiding in our favorite tree in a near catatonic state–at the time, I’d just thought he was fooling around–and had managed to break through to him by offering him my mother. That had worked and we had grown even closer, often joking about being secret brothers. In the second case, when my mother died, I was having my own problems and could not be much help. He had missed school for a week and his father had been on the verge of having him committed to a children’s psychiatric center when he finally came round. I was so upset that I had vowed never to let someone I knew of be placed in a position of such hurt and, so far, I had kept that promise to the best of my ability.

I was betting that Paul had gone somewhere to do some serious thinking, but was unsure where as our tree had been torn down several years ago as part of a land development project. Therefore, if he was not here in his apartment, the only other place I could think of that he might have gone was to his office. A quick call there got the answering service and, like most answering services, it was not helpful. I am not sure, but I think the people that answer the phones at answering services are trained by the three monkeys.

Even if I could not find Paul to see if he needed help, I still needed to figure out what to do about my own situation. Paul’s assessment of my situation was sadly on target and some fast research was essential. That left me only one viable choice. I called a cab and headed back to the base and my quarters.

The ride was not an enjoyable one. The cabbie kept staring back at me in the rear view mirror instead of at the road. There were at least three near misses as a result of his inattention and I kept checking myself to see if something was wrong with how I as dressed and feeling uncomfortable from his intense examination. It had been a while since I had taken a cab, before I got sick, but I never remembered running into any cabbies like that before and wondered if he was on drugs or something.

I probably should have explained earlier, but I am not in the military and I do not work for the military. I worked for BioLogInc, with a very small “n” as they preferred it written, which was a profit-making division of the state university. They paid me and they paid my research bills, including renting the space at the base. They chose the base because it was in closure mode and the space went for a pittance, not because my research was a security issue.

Back home, I left a message on Paul’s answering machine at the apartment and another message with the service for his office. Then, feeling exhausted, I went to bed, even though it was only about three in the afternoon. Unsurprisingly, I slept around the clock, not waking again until a bit after nine that Sunday morning.

I ate a thankfully normal breakfast, if you consider a grown man, ah woman, eating Frosted Flakes ® normal. Then, I left yet another set of messages for Paul–I was beginning to wonder if he was intentionally avoiding me–and did some long overdue housekeeping.

It was not that I was wasting time, or putting off the inevitable. I had at least until Monday after next to decide how to stop the human testing, so that was not priority one. I find that when I do routine tasks, like vacuuming or cleaning the bathtub, I can let my mind work at it’s own pace on problems, wandering about unimpeded by my usual attempts to organize and channel it. In effect, I was actually developing a plan of attack for the research I would need to do to discover how I was able to change shapes and evaluate the extent to which I could do it and the housekeeping just happened to be getting done also. By the time the bathroom was clean, I had decided how to proceed with my personal testing program.

There had been multiple variables to be considered for my personal testing regimen. I needed some place secluded enough to avoid being seen, especially if I was going to be different people. It had to be near a hospital in case something went wrong. I would have much preferred to have someone I trusted, like Paul, with me, but he still had not called back. Felix and José were out of the question. Aside from the fact that I’d try to kill one of them if they kept arguing twenty-four seven and I couldn’t get away, even for a few days, it was going to be a major challenge to convince them I was sane when I told them it was necessary to stop the human research studies. If I then had to tell them some story about how I had become a different person a lá¡ Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde they would be completely helpful, as they drove me to the nearest padded room. It also had to be near enough to the base that I could get there within an hour or most, assuming I still wanted time to study my new ability instead of just take a brief vacation.

When I put it all together, the obvious answer was the old family camp on the Sacaguea River. Our families, Paul’s and mine, had spent summers there in happier times. It was only a half hour away from the military base on the other side of town, so it was less than fifteen minutes drive from the university hospital, located I the center of town. Yet, the camp’s nearest neighbors were about a half-mile down the road and hidden from sight by a stand of trees that surrounded the camp property. I almost changed my mind and began looking for another place when the memories of life in easier times, when my mother was still alive, crashed down on me, but I did not have time. This would have to be my Menlo Park.

I left a message with the lab answering machine saying I needed to get away for a few days and think about a paper I was considering. Felix and José would understand; they were part of the “publish or perish” system that exists in most colleges and research facilities. That done; I grabbed some clothes and a toothbrush. Then I was off. My only stop was the supermarket near the strip where I picked up a carload of food. I was at the cabin before I knew it.

The cabin was as I remembered it, a small three-season home at best. It had framed out walls with exposed construction members rather than anything like sheetrock or plaster on the inside. All the heat was provided by a potbelly stove in the great room and, on cold nights, you opened your bedroom door and used a lot of blankets–or froze.

It was night when I got there and I quickly fumbled in the moonlight for the key in the fake rock by the front door. Once in, I went to turn on the main circuit breaker only to be surprised to find it on. I could have sworn I had gone through the whole place shutting everything down about two years ago when my father had died and the estate had been settled. Since then, I had not been back, instead leaving the cabin as a personal shrine to my memories; pictures, clothes, toys, sporting equipment, even a small but valuable collection of comic books, all as it had been when the estate had been settled. Making a cursory glance around the great room, nothing was obviously out of place so I shrugged it of, assuming my memory was at fault.

Next on the agenda was to bring in the groceries and do some light cleaning, just enough to make the place minimally habitable; after all, it was to be a temporary research site, not a long-term living arrangement. I had not brought a lot of food that would need to be refrigerated because it would take so long for the old refrigerator to cool down any perishables might be spoiled first, so I was even more surprised to find it plugged in, cool, and nearly full of food. The place was also a lot cleaner than I had expected it to be. The obvious explanation was that someone had been here–recently.

At this point, I had a really unpleasant thought; someone could be using the place right now. “Has someone been sleeping in your bed, little bear?” Even if I changed “bear” to “bare” the thought was NOT funny, especially when I remembered what happened to Goldilocks in the original Grimm tale. Suddenly, coming here did not seem like such a good idea.

I think it is safe to say that so far I had consistently minimized the impact of my change of gender on my life. Some clothes, the monthly purchase of sanitary care products, and slightly longer hair had been the extent of the accommodation. Even then, the choice had been to allow it to grow rather than enter that bastion of femininity, the beauty parlor. If it was not absolutely necessary to survive, I had ignored it. Thus, I used no makeup, did not date guys (or gals for that matter), and I had no sex, at least not with a partner. But now, a concept totally foreign to me for my entire life had forced itself to the fore; a concept that women live with daily, rape. I could be raped.

Before you ask, yes I did live elbow to elbow with several thousand horny eighteen year olds, at the peek of their sexual arousal, on that military base. But believe it or not, a military base is actually one of the safest places imaginable for a female, especially a female who appears to have rank by virtue of being in charge of a major research operation. The manual says you don’t mess with your own and there were ten youngsters who believed the credo and would be glad to help correct a straying mate should it be necessary for every one who might consider straying.

The thought of rape was a wonderful motivator. Food forgotten, I crept back into the great room, flicking off the kitchen lights on the way. Hugging the wall, I slid towards the front door and the baseball bat that was a permanent fixture behind it. It was surprising how much safer I felt with my fingers curled tightly around its stock.

Bat poised in the air before me, I turned off the rest of the lights and waited for my vision to adjust to the low level of light provided by the moon’s wan glow. While I waited, I considered my choices and again the decision was simple, if surprising, once I had clarified the problem. I was leaving. The risk of rape overrode my need for answers.

I suppose this was an inevitable choice at the time, but in hindsight–you know where you check back to confirm you have made an ass of yourself–it seems strange. I think the problem was my denial of my new gender. Women who grow up as females are forced to adjust. They learn to recognize that rape is always a possibility, but they also learn, of necessity, to accept the risks, adjust their behavior to realistically minimize the risks, and move on with their lives. Additionally, and also of necessity, they are intimately aware of the risks of pregnancy associated with rape. They learn to cope. I had not. Until that moment, I had still been operating from my years of male experience. Rape was bad, but it was something that happened to others.

Back to the wall, and still tightly gripping the bat with my right hand, I slid my other hand to the doorknob. Once I had a firm grip, I prepared to bolt out to the car. A deep breath, then another, and I was off.
The door slammed open and then shut behind me from the force with which I yanked it open as I rushed through it. In an instant, I was down the steps and at the car. The bat went flying toward the passenger seat, finally coming to rest on the floor. I threw myself in after it, scrabbling to the far side of the car to lock those doors and then back to lock the driver’s side doors. Forgetting my seatbelt, I dug into my pockets for the car keys–and stopped short. They were still in my purse on the kitchen counter.

Once again, the reflexes of a lifetime had betrayed me. I made a promise to myself then and there to explore and acclimate myself to every aspect of femininity as soon as possible–assuming there was an “as soon as possible” and assuming I was, for some reason, unable to reclaim my original gender.

Did you notice how, even then, I was still denying some of the realities of my gender? One of the possible outcomes of rape is murder. As a man, I trusted my physical strength and size to permit me to handle dangerous situations with the impunity of the immortal we all think we are. As a woman, I was not as strong as I had been as a man, or for that matter, as most men. Of course, I had acknowledged it in terms of cursing a difficult to open jar, but not in terms of being generally weaker than a man. Certainly, I had not acknowledged it in terms of a man being a serious threat to my life.

Now, however, I was in a very exposed position with little more than some safety glass and a baseball bat between me and a potential rapist. The situation was untenable. I had to do something. I was going to run into the cabin, grab my keys and run back to the car. Then I could get the heck out of here like I had originally planned. Another couple of deep breaths, my hand poised on the door handle, adrenaline surging thorough my body, and I was ready to go.

“TAP! TAP!” The sound was like twin rifle shots in the confined silence of the car and I jumped, my head bolting towards the front, passenger-side window and the source of the sound. I saw a face, a male face–and screamed in terror.

 

Half way through the second scream, I changed from terror to joy. It was Paul. I did not even think about it. The baseball bat was again on the floor, the car door was open and I was hugging him like a long lost son. I was out of the car so fast, he barely missed being hit by the door and I guess he was still off balance when I threw myself at him to hug him. We ended up rolling on the ground, still hugging each other.

I am not certain how it happened, but he ended up on top, looking down at me with a silly grin on his face while I smiled back up at him. Just when it was beginning to get uncomfortable and I was going to ask him to
let me up, he bent forward and kissed me.

Now, everyone knows that men, real men, do not kiss each other. The thing about quiche is wrong. I know that some of them occasionally do eat quiche. Heck, I even eat it once in a blue moon or two. The kissing thing, however, was still a problem and I froze in shock.

Paul felt me go stiff and immediately stopped. He was close enough that he could see the panic in my eyes. With a muttered, “Oh, shit.” He quickly got up and then helped me up. Without a word, he stalked into the cabin, leaving me standing alone and confused, by the car. Given that the keys were still in the cabin, I really did not have a choice so, admittedly hesitantly; I brushed myself off and followed him back into the cabin.

I found him in the kitchen unpacking one of my bags of groceries. Still without saying a word, he opened two beers, handed me one and marched into the great room. My purse, with the car keys in it, was staring at me from the kitchen counter. It was a tough choice, but I followed him into the other room.

We sat silently drinking our beers and wondering what to say, where to start, or if we even should start. I can only guess what Paul was thinking, but I know I was trying to figure out if there was any chance to recover the friendship we had had, at least that is what I was telling myself at the time.

I knew we were in trouble when he went for a second round of beers. At this rate, I would pass out drunk before he got ready to talk. It looked like it was time for me to shake him out of another major introspective spell. The only problem was that I was not sure I wanted to this time. This conversation was bound to be the weirdest we had ever had.

“Paul?”

He jerked like he had been struck. Still he said nothing, but at least he was looking at me now.

“Paul, listen to me. We need to talk. I will not try to tell you this is anything less than the weirdest situation I have ever been in. It is. However, we have been best friends way to long to loose that. So, how about it, are we going to talk or are you going to try to drink me under the table?”

A soap opera moves the plot along faster than it took him to decide whether he was going to answer or not and I was getting ready to explode from the tension when he finally made up his mind.

“You’re right. First, I need you to understand that I am sorry. I never meant for this to happen.”

There he went again, being a lawyer and confusing rather than clarifying things. Was he talking about the kiss, surprising me, disappearing from his own condo, coming here, or something else? This was NOT the time for pranks or verbal sparing. I vowed, probably for the first time in our long relationship, to keep quiet and just listen.

“We’ve been best friends for more than thirty years” Paul hesitantly explained. “I have cherished and valued our friend-ship. There are times when I do not know what I would have done, how I would have survived, without it. I don’t know how I will continue now if I have lost it.”

“Thank the heavens for that,” I thought. “He wants to keep our friendship. Now, can we keep it? That kiss was definitely weird–better than I would have expected–but still weird.”

“When I found out I was adopted, the world nearly collapsed around me. That may not be what happens to most people, I do not know, but it did to me. Not that my adopted parents were bad people, you know that they were not, but I was no longer who I thought I was. I was now someone I did not know any more. My whole world turned upside down–at least for a while.

“You and your family saved me. You gave me an anchor to grasp onto until I could regain my equilibrium and realize that my adoptive parents were still there for me, still loved me, until I could ‘wake up and smell the coffee’ as they say.

“In other words, I owe you more than you can probably imagine. The bottom line is that I will be there for you how ever you will allow me to be there, period. No questions asked. Guaranteed.”

Why did the phrase “one thousand percent” suddenly come to mind? No reason, just an errant thought. This was Paul, not some politician.

“And I will be there for you,” Paul continued as I began to feel a warm glow of companionship. “It’s just that something has changed, something basic, and it’s making it extremely difficult to keep the promise you just heard me make.”

Great. My stomach knotted, glow gone, even though, deep down, given my absolute belief in the universality of Murphy’s Law, I had known the other shoe was going to fall. I felt the need to become small and unobtrusive, but the best I could do was bring my legs up onto the beat up old stuffed chair I was sitting on and hug them tightly to me.

“I’ve been lying to you and I don’t want to any more.”

“Bu…”

“Please,” he did not move, but his eyes pleaded with me. He had beautiful, deep, innocent, trusting eyes. “Let me finish before you say or do anything.

“I’ve been lying to you. I was not recently on a difficult case. I have been here, in this cabin, with all the wonderful memories. I needed to think, really think about us.”

Yup. It was going to be that thousand percent, just like McGovern and Eagleton. I am about to lose my best friend and I don’t even have a clue as to why. My eyes became moist and I surreptitiously wiped them against my knees.

“When you changed…”

I groaned and then hoped it had been silent, but I was not certain. It might have slipped out as Paul was examining me strangely. First, that damn cancer was going to kill me, now it was going to kill the best friendship I had ever had or could ever hope to have.

“…it changed our relationship. I didn’t want it to and I tried to ignore it, but I couldn’t.”

Yup. It is over. I do not know why, but it is. My knees were beginning to feel damp from the frequent efforts to dry my eyes with fabric of my jeans.

“You see. I loved you like a brother until the change and then I fell in love with you as a woman.”

My head jerked up and my face went carefully neutral. No tears, no curl of the lip to show happiness, sorrow, or even anger and no glow of attentiveness in my eyes. I was barely breathing. A mannequin would have seemed more alive. It was a trick I had learned from Paul, who had learned it as a way of surviving as a trial lawyer. Most people interpret this kind of facial expression and body language as a severe rebuke and start talking, sometimes unwisely, in order to repair the damage. It is the closest thing to a “Perry Mason”-style trial ending that I ever saw happen in real life as the person on the receiving end blabbered until they realized they might be saying too much. Nevertheless, that is not why I did it, I was so shocked that I shut down in order to backpedal frantically and figure out what Paul’s words really meant.

Most people would smugly sit there as they read this and say something like “Jeez, what a maroon.” The whole story had been leading up to this point and, in hindsight; it is obvious to me also. At the time; however, I was still making that same fatal conceptual mistake. I kept thinking of my self as a male. Sure, it was faulty logic and sure, I had been given multiple reasons to review and revise my thinking in just the last several days, but intellectualizing something and letting it sink into you at a gut level are not the same thing. I liken it to the folks in Ireland, the Middle East or any of a dozen other sites around the world, who know that they would be better off without the death and destruction, but who cannot change the way they think so that they can move on and find a path to peace. On the other hand, maybe they can, but the old emotions, the hatreds, the scars, are just too deep and they do not want to change. It was still wrong, but I can similarly justify–or at least explain–my behavior. Regardless, I was still blinding myself to reality. I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts; I missed some of what he said next.

“…to hurt you so I’ll leave and get out of your life. I hope you can forgive me one day. Once I am settled, I will send you a forwarding address. I hope you’ll keep it…and maybe…one day …use it.”

He stood to leave, shoulders hunched, a broken man. My best friend was walking out of my life, when I needed him most, all because of some stupid gender change. I briefly marveled at how such a seemingly insignificant thing could possibly make such a tremendous difference. Nevertheless, my primary emotion was anger. He was making decisions about me, about us, without even giving me the chance to express an opinion–whatever my opinion was.

I snorted derisively. “That’s all you can come up with–to leave? I thought lawyers were supposed to think ‘outside the box,’ to be creative, to find the solutions that elude everyone else. For that matter, what kind of fair weather friend are you that you would walk away from thirty years over anything?” I was trying to hurt him; he deserved it for running out and, from the flush that rapidly spread over his face, I had succeeded admirably.

“Damn it! There is no other solution. I can stay here and agonize over how I need you desperately but cannot have you while second guessing every interaction, hoping–no praying–for something that is not there. Or I can leave. If I stay, I will not be able to function and I will destroy something I cherish, will cherish, forever.

“Did you ever wonder why I never settled down?” Paul asked, seemingly out of the blue. “It certainly was not for lack of opportunity. It was because I never found the right woman. I was looking for someone who could be a friend first and a lover second. The problem was, I always compared those friendships to ours and none ever came close.

“When you became female–not some ersatz female via hormones and surgery, but a real, genetic female–I was ecstatic that you were alive and I helped you through the legal processes because I could. However, the more time I spent with you, the more I realized that something very basic had changed. I was talking to a female and she was a friend, my best friend–and she was you.

“Now, we’ve both been straight all our lives and I knew from talking to you that you still viewed yourself as a male. As such, any relationship beyond friendship was impossible. Yet that’s exactly what I began to want, to dream of, to need, more and more.

“As I told you earlier, I lied when I told you I was busy with a case for the last three months. I was here–thinking.

“When I arranged that date…”

For some reason that word made it through the haze in my mind. It was a “date.” I was surprised to find that I liked the idea more than I expected and I smiled in response, buy Paul was still staring off into space as he spoke.

“…I had planned to explain this all to you, but then you changed.

“Now, maybe I should apologize for my hormones, but the change–when you suddenly turned onto a blonde sex goddess in the living room of my condo–made you into my image of the perfect woman, or at least the sexual partner of my dreams. It threw me for a loop. You had just changed the equation yet again and a relationship that was already difficult became impossible. I had to have you. Even glancing at you made me want you; want to rape you, my best friend, on the spot.”

“You mean you didn’t think I had become some horrible monster?” I was shocked. This entire time I’d been waiting for him to say I was no longer human and he was afraid to be anywhere near me. In the blacker recesses of my mind, I wondered if our friendship would be worth a fifteen minute head start before he called the authorities to send out the dogs and hunt me down.

“What would make you think that? Didn’t you see my hands clenching and unclenching in my lap? Can’t you guess what I was doing?”

“I thought you were just... No. I guess I didn’t.” First, I was actually relieved. Next, I realized I was also insulted, hurt that he did not love me as I was, but as some image of perfection. Then, I realized how foolish that was. This whole issue arose only because he did love me, regardless of whether I was male or female, average or zaftig. He loved me, the inner me. The exterior was just window dressing. This was information that most people would never know and would live their lives all the sadder for that lack of knowledge.

“Well I was. I was dying to kiss you, to hug you, to hold you. Instead, I got out of there before I did something we would both regret. Something that our friendship could never, ever, in a million years, survive. I came here again, to think, to evaluate my life, to try to figure out how I could be such a sick and perverted person.”

We just glared at each other; well, he glared, I was…bemused? It was a strange emotion for what we both knew was a major turning point in our lives, yet I knew what I had to do. No matter how this ended, I could not let him walk out of my life without talking it through. I cleared my throat to get his attention and then softly, tenderly, I beckoned to him, “Come back and sit down. Please.”

When he finally sat, on the couch, it was near the door and looking like a deer ready to bolt if it was spooked. Realizing that I would not be getting anything better, I began. “Paul. You have had your say and I listened to you. Now I hope you will do the same for me, as there are several points I need to make.

“First, I love you dearly and have for many years. You are more important to me than anyone else in my life. You are like–no, you are–family, secret bothers together.

“Just two days ago something impossible happened. I do not know how it happened or if it can or will happen again. I do not know if it means I may be able to regain my original body. Until then I would have said it was impossible, but lately it seems that word is highly over-rated. I do not know what the long- or short-term risks are. What’s worse, I need to develop a really good justification for stopping or at least delaying further human testing, currently scheduled to start to two weeks, or risk having the same kinds of changes happen to other people.

“I mention this, only to explain that while some might think them important, they are secondary to other changes in my life. Just an hour or so ago, I came to the belated conclusion that I was denying how pervasive and significant gender is in our lives. Regardless of how this turns out, I have promised myself I would embrace life again instead of denying it.

“I can’t tell you that I will marry you and have your children. I know I am not ready to consider sex with another person until I know what I am looking for in another person. Heck, right now I don’t even know what gender I’m going to end up, let alone the gender of my sexual or life partners. If you can bear with me long enough to permit me to discover what’s happened to me and what it means for me…for us, we’ll both be able to move on knowing that whatever happens was meant to be. It’s not a lot, but it’s the best I have at the moment, and I’d hate to lose what we’ve had for all these years without even trying to save it.”

I was done and maybe we were too. I had not offered much, but I hoped and prayed it was enough. I needed his help and his support desperately. As he sat there considering my words, I bit my lip and wondered if I should offer more, if I should, or maybe it was if I could, offer myself, to make certain he stayed.

“So you’re offering me the chance to continue the pain I’ve been feeling for the last three months, possibly indefinitely, to torture myself looking at and being near someone who doesn’t share, or even understand the meaning of, the love I feel for her. The only carrot you dangle is the possibility that your feelings will change over time, now that you know how I feel.” He wasn’t angry as I might have expected, he was resigned, tired, as if he had run a marathon and had nothing else to give.

“What I’m offering you is the chance to keep a lifelong friendship and maybe more.” I thought furiously, trying to determine what I could say that would keep our friendship intact. It was not the “guys thing” that was tearing it asunder; it was the “guy-gal thing.” I had to change my perspective if I was to succeed, but he wasn’t giving me any wiggle room. It was frustrating and I guess my next words showed it. “What do I need to say, that I’d appreciate it and I’ll show my appreciation however you’d like?”

His face turned red and he was glaring again, but he did not leave. “I’ve never forced myself on anyone and I don’t plan on starting now.”

“Then, like I just said, your choice is to stick around and be patient while I try to work things out and maybe retain a friendship you hopefully value, maybe more, or walk out and possibly doom us both to unhappiness at the least. What I am telling you is that I need your help to find myself, for I truly am a ‘stranger in a stranger land.’”

End -- Part Two of Three