I turn on my ‘minder before I’m even aware of my surroundings. It’s habit after all. Something feels off, but I can’t quite place it. My sleep addled mind finally realizes that the weight on my chest isn’t depression this morning. I still have breasts.

I know it’s still only temporary, but I smile up at the ceiling and slowly open my eyes. My breasts. The thought in and of itself is glorious to me. It would only be better if I could be thinking about another piece of anatomy that was denied to me.

I don’t let it get me down. I get up and smooth out my sheets and then check the time. I still have a couple of hours before my appointment, so I figure it’s more than time to get some ‘girl time’ in. I initiate the dry-wash on my bed and head into the bathroom to get my first bubble bath in years. It’s just a cap-full of my unscented body-wash, but it does sud up nicely. The slick feel of the water and bubbles on my new bits is so wonderful. Not is a sexual way, but in a self-validation way. I hope that I still look like this for my entire session today.

This is tougher than I ever thought it would be. I hope my parents know the problem that they’ve stirred up with this. This partial preview that I’ve gotten does not make me want to be myself any less. It only makes me want to be myself more.

The ache I feel at the loss is even more intense than the night before and I cry again.

I get up and dry myself off and realize something. I only have the one thing to wear. It makes me smile. I really like the dress, and it looks good on the current me. My bra and panties are dry, so I slip them on. It’s like coming home. I put on the dress and try to slip the earrings back in…but there are no holes.

I look at myself in the mirror, trying to find the half closed ones that are where they were…but my lobes are perfectly smooth. It’s as if I never got them pierced. I consider for a moment self-piercing with these studs, but I relent.

I have no makeup to put on, but I do have a hair clip that Angela gave me a couple of months ago. I gather up the top portion of my hair into a pony tail, leaving the bulk of it free beneath. Then I go about the task of gathering clothing up for after I change back.

I pack it into a small bag that almost looks like a purse. I smile at the thought. So many things make me happy today that I don’t know what to do with the emotion. I grab my keys, and throw my wallet into my almost-purse and head out the door.

I run my hand over the roof of my car and look at my nails. The extensions were covered in a light iridescent color. I check the time and realize I would be thirty minutes early to my appointment. I drive to the mall and head to the makeup counter in JC Penneys.

“May I help you, Ma’am?”

I smile brightly at the young woman behind the counter. “You don’t by any chance still have electric blue nail polish, do you? I used to get it when I was a teenager, and had a nostalgic longing for it today.”

“Let me check.” She taps into her store inventory link and stares off into space for a moment. She’s back with me before I even have the time to get impatient.

“Yes, we do, and I don’t even have to go into the back to get it.”

I wonder sometimes if all of this ready access to information hasn’t made us all a bit lazy. It seems to me that even ten years ago, people took the time to get to know what inventory that they actually had in a store. I pay the woman and take the small bottle out to the car with me. It goes into my purse as well.

I smile at the thought. I’ve been a woman for a little over twenty-four hours and already my purse is gathering all sorts of odds and ends.

I drive to the clinic and sit down in the waiting room. The bottle is in my hands and open almost as soon as my derriere collides with the seat. I apply the polish to my talons, and survey the results as they dry. The blue doesn’t, quite, match my outfit, but I don’t really care at the moment. It will clash less with my grey t-shirt and jeans when I go back to being Cray.

“Cray Allenwood?”

I stand up and walk back with the nurse. She takes my weight, blood pressure, and temperature and then leads me to the Doctor’s office. As I wait, I wonder if maybe it isn’t time to find someone in a private practice.

“Look at you!” Dr. Waters says as she walks in through the door.

“Good morning, Dr. Waters.”

She smiles at me. I think my grin is infectious.

“What’s all this, then?”

“My parents got me a Femin-U potion yesterday.”

“I’ve not heard of that. New nano-tech?”

“Apparently. They heard about it on Thursday night, or yesterday morning.”

“And they’re okay with this?”

“It’s supposed to be temporary.”

“Ah, hence the rather large purse you have with you.”

“I like the size of my purse.”

“With anyone else, I’d question it, but you are such a large woman that it seems to fit.”

I blush at the statement. She called me a woman.

“Before we get started, I’d like to download the data from your ‘minder so that I can go over it over the next couple of days.”

While she hooked in and began the process, I remembered once again why I’d had one of these implanted in the first place.

Simple devices, actually, these Data Recorders, Trackers, and Reminders. They're used almost exclusively by the department of corrections. Some high end professionals have simplified versions of them installed, without the GPS feature, because they can be very useful.

Mine was installed when I jumped in front of a bus a couple of years ago.

The driver’s reaction time was better than I’d hoped it would be. I’d been charged with public endangerment and been put on indefinite probation.

The minder captures surface thoughts and translates them into text in a small storage cell. It can hold about a week’s worth of information. It can also remind me of appointments. Like my weekly therapy session with Dr. Waters. If I’d know that it would give me a perfect reckoning of the time, I would have gotten one implanted long before I was required to.

“So, Cray, how do you feel?”

“I could just say ‘great’ but I know that’s not what you’re looking for. I feel like myself, I mean really myself. I see the world and it just feels more vibrant to me. It’s like…for the first time since I really noticed that there was something wrong with my body…it’s like there is color in the world again.

“You know, when there is a long cloudy day? And you are outside, and everything gets so washed out, but it is cloudy for so long that you get used to how washed out everything is? Well, you are thinking, this is normal. This is how everything is supposed to be. And then, for a moment, the sun pierces the clouds and the world comes alive again?

“That’s what it feels like right now. I realize how far away from normal my life really is. I live in this gray world and for the first time ever the sun came out and everything is alive.”

“Cray…”

“Liadan, please.”

“Liadan?”

“Angela gave me the name. She thinks it fits. I like the sound of it.”

“Liadan, then. I’ve said it before, but I have to say it again. You need to transition. You will end up killing yourself otherwise.”

“You can’t know that…”

“I see you sitting here before me, for the first time a truly content person, and I do know that. You’re not going to be able to go back, Liadan.”

“I will, I’ll just…” I stop and I think about it and I realize that she’s right. I can’t go back to being Cray, not really. For the first time in my life, I’d actually allowed myself to be the woman I felt inside. I’d taken a bubble bath this morning and just soaked. I’d painted my nails!

I'd become a vibrant blue, like the polish on my nails and I was going to just go back to being gray?

“Liadan, I think that I need to meet with you more than once a week for a while.”

“But…”

“No buts. I know you can afford it. And even if you couldn’t, I’d afford it.” She hands me a business card. “Come by my office on Tuesday.”

“You don’t work here?”

“Heavens no. I volunteer here once a week,” she said with a smile.

I don’t know what to say. I’d made assumptions, but I'm wrong on two counts. The second was that Dr. Waters really did care about my well-being. That one gets to me and I begin to cry a bit.

I feel the almost pressure of the change come onto me, and I struggle to breathe. It’s easier than yesterday, though, and I’m not completely flattened by it. My beautiful breasts are absorbed back into me, and my fat moves around again. I actually watch as the hair on my arm shifts back into the thicker, darker, male variant.

Dr. Waters is looking at me in shock. “You said an over the counter potion did this?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Get changed. I think you’ve lost a little more weight.”

I change into my Cray clothing. It’s not as bad as I thought it would be. The nails remind me of who I really am, and every time I see them, I smile. We go and get me weighed, and I’m down another ten pounds.

Apparently it’s easier to change from a girl into a guy.

“This is reckless. How could anyone put a product on the market that causes you to lose thirty pounds in twenty-four hours?”

“Twenty-nine and change actually, Dr. Waters.”

She looks at me with a question and I just tap the side of my head.

She smiles, “Of course. You have a record of the time always with you. I doubt this could happen to a better person. I’ve got a record of the change already.”

“Doctor?”

“Your ‘minder tracks hormone levels, well, all of your blood chemistry actually. They do it with any ‘medical’ condition. Helps psychiatrists track whether or not their patients have been taking their meds.” There seems to be a little disgust in her voice as she says this.

“Ah.” I say, when what I’m really thinking is that I’ll be glad when I can get this thing removed. The downside to nano-tech, in my opinion, is that the realm of what is possible is entirely too great sometimes. Just because you can do something, doesn’t always mean you should.

We head back into the office, and I sit down again. I stare at my nails for a moment or two to center myself.

“So, you got your nails done yesterday. I’m surprised you didn’t get your ears pierced.”

“I did, actually. They healed overnight.”

“Not unheard of, but a little strange. Liadan, as I was saying before. You need to stop this. You need to let yourself be…yourself.”

“I’m Cray…”

“No, you’re not. You’re always Liadan. You’ve been Liadan for as long as I’ve known you. Haven’t you ever wondered why you’re probation keeps getting extended?”

“A little.”

“Because you’re still a threat to yourself and others.”

I look at her, my mouth open. I’d never thought that it could be her fault that I still had to come here. Not that she’d admitted to anything, but the implication was there. I don’t usually cry, but I begin to cry again. It isn’t that I'm sad, or anything, I just feel…loved. Dr. Waters loves me. Not in any sort of sexual way, and I'm really not into women in that way, but in a way that left me feeling comforted even sitting across the room from her.

I cry silent tears that leave me feeling washed clean.

A smile lights my face when I'm done. “So, you’re going to keep me on probation until I transition?” I ask with a smirk.

“Of course not. Just until I’m convinced that you’re not going to kill yourself. Do your parents even know that you did this?”

I blushed and looked at the floor. This was one of the little things that I’d kept to myself. Good little boys and girls don’t want to change gender. Good little boys and girls don’t feel this depressed. And, most especially, good little boys and girls don’t try to commit suicide.

They knew that I was in counseling, but they thought it was to become a good little boy.

Well, two out of three aren’t bad.

The familiar panic grips me as I begin to consider the very real possibility of losing my family if I chose to go forward with what I needed to be myself. My chest tightens, and the fear takes me, and soon after the depression, and I lose that smile that had been with me since yesterday morning.

“Oh, sweetie. I’m sorry. I forget sometimes that it would be almost as hard on you to transition as to stay the same.”

I cry a few bitter tears, again with the crying, and just sit there miserable for a few moments.

“I want you to seriously consider having a talk with your parents this next weekend. This can’t go on. They need to come around, and fast, or you’re not going to be around much longer. Tell them everything that happened. I think they’ll understand.”

I’m not convinced by her words, but I try to put on a smile for her sake. It doesn’t look like she’s convinced. We schedule an appointment for Tuesday and I leave the office.

The weight of once again being Cray sinks into me as I go out to my car. Everything passes in a blur as I drive. I have no clue where I’m going to, and sort of slip into autopilot. My surroundings only really register on me as I’m sitting there looking down at my dresser and the two golden hearts that are calling to me.

Physical pain is nothing to the ache in my heart, and I simply push the posts through my now healed lobes. I then strip off all of my Cray clothing and slip into the dress. It doesn’t fit right anymore. I actually consider ripping it off, but I carefully remove it and put it into my closet.

I again hand wash my only pair of underwear and lie down on my bed. The texture of the ceiling changes as the light does. It is such a slow process, but it is a process. The light slowly fades and still I lie there, naked on my bed. I have no desire to be. I’ll just lie here until I die. I can do that. No one will notice I am gone for a few days.

The depth of my depression masks the quiet sounds of someone else in my house. I feel arms around me and I just cry. Angela says nothing to me, and I fall asleep in her embrace. If any woman could get me there, I think it is Angela.

Too bad she’s not a lesbian.

I awake alone, and again just stare at the ceiling. I wonder if the ‘minder can record dreams. Usually it is off while I sleep, but the thought makes you wonder.

The plan, for as far as I am planning right now, is to lie here forever. Maybe Angela will miss me, but I can’t go on.

My stomach betrays me as the smell of bacon wafts through the air. I head out to my kitchen to find her cooking for what seems to be an army, but is probably just two people. I sit down at the table, but she pushes me out of the room.

“You’re mother is coming, so get dressed.”

I get the only thing I know fits me, my kimono. It is so feminine, and I feel like myself when I wear it.

If I survive the week, I simply can’t be Cray anymore.

I never really want to admit it, but Dr. Waters does understand the situation more than I sometimes give her credit for.

I’m sitting there staring at the table when there’s a knock at the front door. Angela goes to answer it and my mom comes in and has a seat.

“Why haven’t you removed the nails yet?” she asks me.

“Mrs. Allenwood? I think there’s something…”

“Are you two sleeping together? Are you pregnant Angela?”

“Mom, I’m straight, okay? I wouldn’t sleep with Angela…well, I wouldn't have sex with her,” I amend as I think about two nights recently.

“You’re…wait…”

“Liadan is a woman, Mrs. Allenwood.”

“You’re old enough to call me Miranda I think, Angela. Mrs. Allenwood just sounds so…”

“Stodgy?” Angela supplies.

“Not what I would have gone for, but it’ll do.”

She appraises me for a few moments in silence. I begin to feel uncomfortable under her scrutiny. “This is all so sudden…” mom begins, but I cut her off.

“No, mom. It’s not. I’m under mental health probation and have been for almost two years.”

“What? Only crazy people…”

“I am crazy, mom, or at least a danger to myself. I stepped in front of a bus and almost got myself killed.”

“You need to pay more attention…”

“You don’t understand, mom. I did it intentionally.” There is no emotion in my voice as I say this. I’m neither angry nor sad nor happy nor whatever. Dr. Waters has called it ‘without affect’ in the past. The stress is on the A not the E.

I think it’s that complete lack of emotion that really gets to her. It’s like I’m some sort of machine just repeating words that have been fed to me.

“I’m sorry, I need to think about this, Liadan. I need to wrap my head around this mess. When your sister suggested that we let you be a girl for the wedding, I never knew…but she did, didn’t she.”

“Liadan is one of my best friends, Miranda, and Kate is my best friend. Kate and I talk almost as much as Liadan and I do.”

“And you’re sure…” my mom begins, but at the look of shock on both of our faces she stops.

“So, you’re gay like Jeff said?” my mom begins again looking at me.

“No, mom. I like guys.”

She begins to open her mouth and then stops. A look of comprehension dawns on her, and she begins to smile.

“Of course you like guys. You’re straight. And straight women are interested in men.”

I smile at her, but it’s a sort of sad smile.

“Straight guys aren’t interested, though.”

“They will be, honey. You were beautiful on Friday, and this coming Saturday you’ll be beautiful again. We’ll figure this out.”

“What about dad?”

“We’ll figure this out. You always did borrow too much trouble for your own good. Either he accepts you and he’ll be a part of your life, or he doesn’t and he won’t. That's his loss, not yours.”

“But he’s your husband…”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t disagree. Now, I don’t agree with divorce in most situations, and I have no plans right now to divorce your father, but I want you to know that if it’s necessary for your safety, then it will happen.”

“But mom…”

“Don’t ‘but’ me, young lady. It’s not proper to argue with your mother.” She says this in a sort of proper snooty way that reminds me of her mother, my grandmother. Not that my grandmother was snooty, she just loved to ‘put on airs’ for the humor of it.

It seems that I am from a long line of strong women, who I’ve been letting down with my behavior. I adjust the kimono and sit up straight.

“There you go, much more ladylike. Your grandmother would be proud.”

“Would she really?”

“I think so. She told me many years ago that you weren’t like other boys. She never used words like transgender or anything like that, but I think she understood.”

My grandmother had been the first one to tell me that I should let my hair grow long. She’d also been the first one to sit with me and brush it out for hours. I’d talk to her as she brushed it, and I just felt so content. When she’d died I felt so lost.

The same thought occurred to my mother.

“Two years…that was shortly after my mother died, wasn’t it?”

I nod, and shed a couple of tears. Mom moves the seat around the table and sits next to me with her arms around me.

“I don’t know why I’m so emotional this weekend. Every little thing seems to be setting me off.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were a little hormonal,” Angela says and the two of us look at her, shocked.

No, it can’t be. I can’t be hormonal, can I? A little smile plays across my lips.

“We need to get you into a hospital to get you checked out, young lady.”

“I’m not all that young, mom, and I have a hospital in my head,” I say as I tap the induction plate behind my ear. Well not exactly tap it. It’s under the skin, grafted to my skull, like they all are, but you know what I mean.

“You were chipped?”

“As part of the whole probation thing, mom. Yes.”

“I’m so sorry, sweetie.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s actually kinda cool. I always know exactly what time it is, I never forget anything I really need to remember, and I have a calendar of events with me always.”

“I’d wondered why you suddenly became a bit more thoughtful and called my on my birthday the last couple of years.”

“I’ve been considering getting it upgraded to include a phone.”

Mom looks at me a little shocked before I crack a smile to let her know I’m joking.

I’m much calmer after mom leaves, and spend time watching old movies with Angela and crying my eyes out. I’ve seen them before, but for some reason they just hit me harder right now. Angela spends the night holding me again, and I feel the love.

Monday is work. I leave the earrings in because I am tired of playing a role, and as ome of the owners of the company there’s not much my boss is going to say about it.

I stick the connection pad to the side of my head and interface with my computer. We’re in the middle of a new project, so I spend some time zipping from one update summary to another. No, I’m not actually in the machine, but the ability to type at the speed of thought is quite handy. That and the fact that I just have to think about opening a file or folder and it does.

I don’t play the games we make anymore because they’re too easy. Even with the whole sight/sound interface that most gaming systems use, they still have a controller of some-sort.

With my ‘minder I am the controller. When my employees found out they sort of banned me from the weekly office death match tournament.

Not that I mind, much. We’re working on a game right now that caters to the chipped. It’s a lot more difficult to program than we thought it would be, but that’s fine. My company has more money than even I do.

After checking on the progress that’s occurred over the weekend, I sit back for a moment and think about things. My life is perfect, or as close to it as some people would ever wish for. I’m well off. I have a loving family. I have more money than I could comfortably spend.

Even with all of this success, I feel empty, and know that without that one not so little thing my life is meaningless.

I call my partner into my office through the company chat system.

“Hey, Cray, What’s up? Love the nails and earrings by the way,” Steve says as he enters the room.

“Um…”

“Oh, sorry, let me change this a bit. Wow, Cray, what’s up with the long nails with that very flattering shade of blue on them. Are you wearing earrings? What’s going on?” The stilted, almost melodramatic, manner he delivers these lines in has me laughing. He smiles at me in a way that makes me blush.

“Steve…”

“I know, you’re a woman, and about damn time you started showing it.”

“What..?” I begin.

“Yes, I know you’re a woman. When I first started realizing that I was attracted to you, I thought I might be bi-sexual.”

“You’re…”

“Let me finish, woman,” he says with this smile that takes the sting out of it. “It was only after I realized that you were the only ‘man’ that I was attracted to that I started really paying attention to you. You may look like a guy…most of the time…but you’ve never really acted like one.”

My heart skips a beat as he looks at me in that way again, and my breath catches in my throat.

“Now, just to let you know, I find you attractive, but I’m not sure it will work out between us.”

“Because I’m a guy…”

“Because you’re my business partner. Seriously, Cray…”

“Liadan. If you’re going to refer to me as a woman, then you might as well address me as such.”

“Ok, Liadan.” He says, and again my heart skips. The smile on his face just melts me. I'm so lost in the shape of his lips that I can hardly miss when he starts talking again, “it just won’t work. This whole thing only works because we respect each other enough to disagree with each other when it really counts. You keep me moving in the right direction, and I do the same for you. If we ever had a relationship…”

“It would end up about the same way and you know it. What you’re afraid of is if this whole thing falls apart. Admit it. I mean, having my ex, here, working with me could get very awkward, and what would the employees think if their bosses were sleeping together…”

He blushes bright red, obviously embarrassed by my open manner of speaking.

“Look, Steve, we’re not dating. Not saying we can’t if a big lump would be the gentleman and just ask me out damnit, but we’re not currently dating. I know it would make things…complicated here at work, and I’d prefer not to date you looking like a guy, but we could make it work, if you wanted to.”

I’d been steeped enough in the culture to know how guys react to social situations, and while there are some guys who don’t mind the girl taking charge, Steve isn’t one of them. For a moment I think I might have been a little too forceful about it, but then Steve gets a smile on his face.

He starts walking toward me, and I panic and try to back up a little.

“What are you doing?”

“Something that I’ve thought about for a very long time now.”

I freeze as I watch him moving toward me. I want to tell him to stop, or part of me does, but part of me is cheering him on, and feeling, suddenly, very feminine.

My heart races as he draws closer, and then his lips touch mine and the world goes away for a little while. I can feel his stubble against my smooth face, and the press of his lips against mine. I so want to continue, but I need to stop and I turn my head.

“Steve!”

“I really like you, Liadan. And I’d like to date you. Hell, it almost feels like we’ve been basically dating for five years now, what with all the time the two of us spend here alone.”

“I never knew you felt that way.”

“Which is part of the reason I never pushed it. That and half the time I thought I was imagining things, and I was so afraid that if I brought it up you’d reject me.”

“But why me?”

“Because even when you look like a guy, you’re sexy as hell to me.”

I blush. I can’t help it. These damned, I assume, hormones are really playing havoc with my mind.

“So, did you just want to kiss me, or was there another reason why you called me in here?”

He’s still leaning over me, and somehow it makes me feel small and vulnerable, but in a good way. I’m nine inches taller than him, but sitting like this, with him leaning over me, I feel encompassed by his maleness and it takes me a moment to focus my thoughts.

“No, I called you in to tell you that I’d be starting to transition and that I would be presenting myself as female, if maybe slowly at first.” He starts to back up and I quickly lean forward and kiss him before he gets out of range.

“But the kiss was a welcome surprise,” I say when we come up for air. I’d meant for it to be a light peck, but he had other ideas and wrapped his arms around me.

“Well, I’ve been informed. So, we staying in tonight to work some more on the project?”

“Sure,” I say with a smile. For once, I realize what he’s saying when he plans a dinner for the two of us over lines of code and graphical assets.

“We really have been dating pretty regularly for the past few years, haven’t we?”

“Yeah, we have. I’ve tried getting in other relationships, but I keep comparing the girl to you. And no one compares to you.”

He says this last as he’s leaving the room. It hits me hard and I just sigh. I sit there staring off into space gently rubbing a finger over my lips for a few minutes before shaking myself and grabbing my phone.

“Hello? Dr. Carrin Waters speaking.”

“Doctor? It’s Liadan. I think there might be something wrong with my hormones.”

“Oh, Liadan. I was going to call you. Yes, there is something seriously off about your blood work. I need you to come to my office so we can discuss it.”

I sit there shocked for a moment or two. The silence is deafening.

“What’s wrong with my blood work?”

“It’s better if we discuss this in my office. I’m free in about an hour.”

“I’ll be right over, doctor.”