By Lora Guy
Cross dresser is caught up in a sudden, massive group transformation in downtown Boston.

Terry made up her mind on the spot. "You look like a Lora. It's perfect."

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The Boston Bubble: Lora's Story

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Chapter 5
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I do have a vague memory of being in the back of an ambulance; of having my sweater cut off by a guy who looked like he was geared up for an asbestos removal operation. But it's all jumbled and fuzzy, the kind of memory that until something confirms it for you, you're not really sure about it. Did it happen or was it part of a dream? Now that I think about it, slowly becoming aware of my surroundings in a hospital emergency room was all the confirmation I really needed for a memory like that.

The first people to deal with me at the hospital must have thought I was really out of it, because it was at least half an hour before I realized they were talking to me when they called me Miss Williams. In hind sight, I really believe it was all of them who were a bit loopy. They must have known that I was brought in from the fire at City Hall Plaza. And the only way they could have known my name was by looking at the identification in my wallet, which clearly showed a picture of a thirty-eight year old man named Leonard Williams. In their defence, I suppose I was the first bubble affectee that they had seen, and they just couldn't fathom that the girl in front of them had woken up as a man the day before. But I have to give them credit. Even though the suits they had on made it seem like they were worried that I was radio-active, not once did they ever make me feel like I was a specimen in a petri dish. Professionals with a human touch.

Anyway, once they considered me coherent enough to understand them, they explained the situation. They told me that I needed surgery on my arm (shit did that hurt), but they had to wait until the next day to give my body a chance to recover from the smoke inhalation. Then they asked if I had any family members that I wanted them to contact. I told them calling Kelly at the restaurant would be best; no chance of an excitable niece taking the message.

At first, all they would tell me about George was that she was in Mass General too. But once I explained that I was the one who had pulled her out of the fire, they opened up a bit. One of the nurses told me she had a pretty bad head injury, and they were keeping her unconscious for now. A little later, that same nurse came back and told me that they had contacted Kelly and told her where I was and why. She also said that because I was an affectee, I was under quarantine and couldn't have any visitors. I wasn't too upset by that... I really wasn't ready to deal with introducing the "new and improved me" to my family.

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Once he saw the ambulances drive away with the girls, Mike Riley got busy. He uploaded eighteen hours worth of images from the Cambridge street camera in to a video editing program. There was so much data, it overwhelmed his editor on the first attempt. Through trial and error, he figured out that he had to break it down into six three-hour segments before he could begin working on it. An hour later, when he was done manipulating and combining all of it, he knew he had two minutes of video gold.

Now, Mike had himself a dilemma to deal with. One of those should-I-or-shouldn't-I things. His quandary was this: if he posted his little gem on the internet for the world to see, there was a chance someone might recognize the camera angle and start asking embarrassing questions. But after watching his creation more than twenty times, Mike made up his mind. He just couldn't resist the lure of "anonymous" fame. A quick fifteen minutes after starting the upload process, people around the world began watching "Bubble Babe to the Rescue" in all of its high definition glory.

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"Hi honey, is your mom there?"

"Yup, just a sec." Like every teen who's ever answered the phone, getting up and going to find someone was not an option. "Mom, it's Aunt Kelly!"

"Hey there."

"Hi. Can you talk?"

"Ya, what's up?"

"I just got a call... Lenny's in the hospital..."

"Oh no, what's..."

"Lemme finish. There was an accident downtown this morning. He's got a broken arm."

"Oh, thank god. I mean... you know... I thought it was something to do with... with the thing."

"Aw Jessie.. you haven't told the girls yet, have you?"

"Not yet. They know what's going on, but they don't know Lenny was there. I figured I'd wait and see what's happening. You know, see if they can do something about it."

"You gotta tell them sooner or later, Jess. The longer you leave it, the more they'll be pissed at you for not telling them. Shit, they'll probably deal with this better than us. They love him to death."

"I know, I know... Ben gets back this afternoon. We'll sit down together and tell them then. Did they say how long Lenny's going to be in the hospital? Should we go see him?"

"They said we can't visit him, he's still quarantined. Listen, some people just came in. I gotta go. I'll call you later, OK?"

"All right, love ya."

"Bye."

-----

Under any other circumstances, I would have been embarrassed when she came in. I was sitting in the chair beside my bed watching the sun coming up, wearing nothing but one of those little hospital gowns. And it was impossible to miss the fact that my legs were shaved. When I had pulled back the sheets to get out of bed, it was the first thing I thought of. "Oh shit, how do I explain that? Shit!" But it only took a couple of heart beats worth of panic before it came to me... "Calm down, Lenny. For all they know, all your body hair fell out when the bubble went off."

She came into the room with a smile on her face, pushing a wheel chair. "Well, it's nice to see you with your wits about you. You've been in and out of it all night." Considering what they have to see on a daily basis, it's amazing how cheerful most nurses are.

Returning her smile, I responded with a simple "potty emergency."

She nodded. Then, looking a little sheepish, she asked, "We're not quite sure what to call you. Do you prefer Mister or Miss Williams?"

"Yeah, it is a bit awkward, isn't it. Why don't we keep it casual and just call me Lenny."

"OK, Lenny, pleased to meet you. I'm Rasha."

"Hello, Rasha. Can I ask a question?"

"You just did." She smiled.

"OK, one more. Do you know anything about the other girl that came in at the same time as me? George Garneau? She was knocked out."

"I'm sorry, Lenny. I could ask and let you know later."

I could tell from the look on her face that she really was sorry that she couldn't answer my question. "Thanks, I'd appreciate that."

"OK. Now we need to start getting you prepped for surgery." She took my right arm and started timing my pulse. "Did everything work OK for you in the bathroom?"

"Yup, the plumbing works just fine."

She put a faux-serious expression on her face. "I'm talking about your internals, Lenny."

I just kept grinning. "I know, so am I."

"Oh." She chuckled. "OK." She removed a blood pressure cuff from a hook on the wall and put it around my arm. "Are you feeling any nausea or dizziness?"

"No, no nausea, but I did feel a bit off balance as I was getting to the washroom."

"That's to be expected. You're on a lot of pain medication. That's a pretty nasty break you've got there."

"Tell me about it." I suddenly realized what was strange about her. "Can I ask you about something?"

"Of course you can."

"You're the first regular person I've seen since the bubble who isn't wearing some kind of breathing equipment. What's changed?"

"The big brains in Atlanta gave us the word this morning. They can't find anything to indicate that whatever happened to you is contagious."

My first reaction was that this sounded like good news. But I quickly read between the lines. "Does that also mean they don't think they'll find a way to reverse this?"

Making a note, she took the blood pressure cuff off of my arm. Then she looked me in the eye. "No one is saying that." She lowered her voice and went on. "But between you, me and the wall, I wouldn't hold my breath. No one has a clue what could cause something like this, and you can't cure what you can't find. I'm sorry, Lenny."

"It's OK, Rasha. I've had some time to think about this, and believe me, I've thought about it a lot. I'm sure that this kind of thing will probably ruin some people's lives. But this is what I see. I was a happy, single, successful thirty-eight year old man. Now I'm a happy, single, successful twenty year old woman. It looks to me like I've been given a couple of extra decades to live. Anyone who could complain about that is a fool."

She looked mildly surprised. "Well, I didn't expect that." With a chuckle, she added, "Lenny, you are one of the most positive young ladies I've ever met."

I smiled. I liked the way she said that. "I guess I'm not just another pretty face."

-----

Ken Donelly (with one 'n'; for some reason he liked to say that) was a born and bred son of Boston. During his short lifetime, he had seen three of his dreams come true. The Red Sox had won the World Series, the Patriots had won the Super Bowl, and he had become a reporter for the Boston Herald. He was enough of a realist to understand that no one gets anywhere without hard work, but getting to the top also required an occasional lucky break at the right moment. He knew this to be true about sports. He also knew that this was a fact in the news business.

Ken was as blown away as anyone else when the bubble hit his home town. The caring person in him was terrified for all of the people who had been affected by it. But from the first moment he heard about it, he knew that this wasn't just any event, this was world-wide news. And it was happening right in his back yard. He was in the right place at the right time.

The first reports to come in claimed that a bomb had exploded downtown. Television showed what looked like a huge explosion, yet there appeared to be no damage. Deciding to check it out himself, he button-holed a photographer, hopped in his car and... went nowhere. With I-93 and every major artery being closed downtown, he couldn't even make it up the ramp onto the expressway before he was stuck in traffic. He left his car with the photographer and started walking north toward City Hall. Milk Street was as far as Ken got. The cops blocking the road told him that the entire core was quarantined, but they couldn't tell him why.

Frustrated, his only option was to call anyone he could think of who might be able to tell him something. Although he was a well-liked guy, everyone he managed to get on the phone had nothing but apologies and promises to call him back if they heard anything interesting. After a day and a half of turning over stones and finding nothing under them but common knowledge and rumors, a lead finally came to him from a very unlikely source. He received an E-mail from his nephew containing only two words: "Watch this!" He clicked on the link.

A video titled "Bubble Babe to the Rescue" opened and started playing. It showed a time lapse of people moving around in City Hall Plaza. A small circus tent was erected comically fast, people came and went, the sun set and rose. So far, so what. But then the video slowed to normal speed when a section of the tent roof collapsed. Girls and then smoke came out of the tent. OK, interesting, but... oh, Oh, OH my GOD! Look at her arm! A quick scan of the video showed it had been posted less than two hours ago, and it already had more than two hundred thousand hits.

-----

I think it was hunger that drove my eyes open. The sound of my own stomach growling woke me up.

"Lenny?"

"Yeah."

"My god, Lenny, it's really you?"

What a silly question. Who would I be? I rolled my head over to the right. Jess was sitting in my chair. I made a weak smile. "Hey."

"Lenny, you... you're... I didn't believe them. I thought there's gotta be a mix-up. But it's really you." She was smiling with tears rolling down her cheeks. "Are you OK? Your arm, I mean. Does it hurt?"

I lifted my head and looked down at myself. "Oh yeah, my arm." I looked back at Jessie. "Sling's rubbing on my tit. How do you put up with these things?"

A short laugh burst out of her. "Yeah, you're Lenny."

"Yup, I'm in here. Could you do me a favor? Do you think you could find me something to eat? I think it was the day before yesterday since I had anything."

"Sure. I'll go down to the cafeteria. How about a sandwich?"

"Great. Anything."

"OK. Be right back." She started to leave, then stopped and looked at me. "And Lenny... you look... good. Really good. That surprised me."

I wasn't really sure what to say to that, so I just gave her a crooked smile and sort of shrugged with my eye brows. She smiled back and then left.

I thought I would have drifted off once she was gone, but the two-day hunger that I'd built up kept my eyes open.

About ten minutes after she left, Rasha came into the room.

"Oh, good, you're awake. How are you doing?"

"Hey. I'm OK, but it's hard to get comfortable. I guess I shouldn't complain, though. I wasn't exactly ready to play the piano this morning, was I?"

"Right." "Smiling, she pulled down the blood pressure cuff and wrapped it around my arm again. "I made a couple of calls for you. Your friend George is in the head trauma unit. In plain English, she has a cracked skull. They'll be keeping her asleep for a few more days to help keep her brain from swelling. It's a serious injury, but everything looks positive."

"Is she in this building?"

"Yes, but I know what you're thinking. It's an intensive care unit, Lenny... only family can visit her. She wouldn't know you were there anyway." Just then, Jessie came walking back into the room. Rasha nodded at her, looked back at me and said, "Oh, and I called your sister and told her that the quarantine has ended." Her face lit up with a grin at her own joke.

Jessie smiled. "She was complaining about being hungry. Is it OK if I give her these?" She held up the sandwich and a bottle of milk.

Rasha hung up the cuff. "Sure, just let me get out of your way." She made a couple of notes, then moved toward the door.

"Oh, Rasha, wait." She turned back to me. "When are you going to be kicking me out of here?"

"Normally, you'd be out of here this afternoon. But because of you're 'unusual' condition, they'll be wanting you to stay overnight."

"Ok, thanks."

She smiled, nodded at us and left.

As Jessie was unwrapping the food, I looked up at her. "You called me she."

"That's the pronoun that seems to fit."

"Who knows about this?"

She handed me half the sandwich. "Everyone. Ben got home yesterday, and when the girls got home from school, we sat them down and told them."

"How did they take it?"

"They'd heard about everything going on... shit, the world knows what happened. But they had no idea you were there. The word 'awesome' came up a few times."

"Really?"

"Well, at first they wanted to know if you were OK. We told them about you being here, but that it had nothing to do with the change." Her expression got serious. "Len, please don't be mad with them. They're still just kids. They think it's the coolest thing in the world that someone they're close to is involved in this. They're not really thinking about what you're going through."

"No, Jess, wait. It's OK. Really. I was worried that they would look at me like a freak."

""You bone head. You're their favorite person in the world." Jess opened the milk and handed it to me. "You should have seen their faces light up when they realized that you were going to need to buy clothes. They're already making plans about where they're going to take you shopping."

A giddy feeling rose in my chest. "Really. Oh thank god. You know, out of everything going on, the only thing I was really worried about was how they would take it."

She handed me the other half of the sandwich. "Ben's picking them up early from school. They should be here any minute."

Although it was a relief to know they were fine with my situation, I still felt butterflies at that. All I could manage to say was, "Oh."

Jessie picked up on my nervousness. "That's OK, isn't it? We thought you'd like to see them."

"Oh, no, right, yeah, I mean, that's good. I... It's just that you caught me off guard with that. I'm just worried that it could be an awkward moment. But it's good, really. Let's just pull that band-aid off."

Just as I was washing down the last bite, Ben came in followed closely by Brenda and Terry. Ben's smile flashed to surprise as he stopped at the foot of my bed. "Holy cow!" was all he managed to get out. The girls ignored him and came right up to the side of the bed.

They were a boquet of smiles and wide eyes. Terry managed to say something first. "This is so cool. I didn't expect you to be so pretty!"

Jessie tried to put a stop to that. "Come on, I'm not so sure your Uncle Len really wants to hear that right now."

Brenda came back with, "She's right though, Mom." She looked at me. "You don't look like a Len any more."

Ben found his voice. "In the car on the way over here, the girls were talking about that. They were wondering what they should call you."

I looked at him. "Let's just stay with Le..."

Jessie interrupted me. "How about Lora?"

Both girls squealed with a chorus of, "Oh, yeah. I like that!"

Trying not to show that my heart had stopped beating, I turned and looked at Jess. "Where did that come from?"

"Don't you remember, when you were little? Mom always said that if she had a third girl, she was going to call you Lora?"

"Really? I don't remember that." And it was true, I honestly didn't remember.

Terry made up her mind on the spot. "You look like a Lora. It's perfect."

Brenda chimed in with, "Yeah, c'mon, please? I really want an Aunt Lora."

Ben hammered the final nail in the coffin. "You know you've never said no to these two in your life. Why don't you just get it over with and admit defeat?"

I looked at the girls. "You're not going to let it go until I say yes, are you?" Their smiles were saying it all. "All right. Just don't get mad at me when I forget to answer to it, OK?

The brouhaha was interrupted by a boyish looking man coming into the room.

"Hi, Leonard Williams?"

"That's me."

Smiling, Terry piped in with, "We just decided. She's Lora now." I cringed slightly at that.

"OK, pleased to meet you Lora. My name's Ken Donelly, with one 'n'. I'm with the Boston Herald."

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Hey folks.
Thanks for sticking with me.
Hope your having as much fun reading it as I am writing it.
And thanks for the feed back... it makes the effort worthwhile.

☺... Lora