The final frontier...

Cruisin’ — Chapter 8 - New York, New York

By Nick B
 © 2008

My heartfelt thanks to Kris for giving this the once over for me, making me think and ending this the way it should be ended.

Hopefully now, these poor folk can stop trundling round and round in circles and can finally put their feet on dry land. It's been entirely too long coming and the retail outlets on board ran out of Sea-sickness tablets around Christmas, so well, without further ado...

---

I have looked at my situation and precious little else for over two weeks and now, as we near New York, I can’t help feeling that I could have or should have done something different. I never wanted to be a girl in the first place and having lived my life as one for the better part of three weeks, I can honestly say, I’m not sure how I’m going to find going home.

Doctor Corcoran keeps telling me not to worry about it, but I KNOW things are happening inside me. I KNOW things are changing and as much as he is telling me not to worry, in just over under three weeks, my nipples have got bigger and according to Lucy, I have small breasts too, though to be fair, she may just be winding me up.

I rather thought that the doctor might have been a little more sympathetic, but instead, he has proved to be just like every other doctor and if not downright dismissive then just lacking in a decent bedside manner. He’s supposedly giving me something to keep the symptoms at bay, but I can’t say they’re having that good an effect, or if they are, God alone knows what this would be like. I wouldn’t mind, but every other day, it’s the same thing. I tell him the morning sickness and nausea are no better and he tells me not to worry about it. You try that with your head stuffed down the lavatory.

“It’s down to the dosage of hormones, he said. It’s classed as an overdose.”

“Can you overdose on hormones then?” asked Lucy as we walked back along the scrubbed deck.

“Apparently so.” I said, gingerly feeling the spot through my skirt where doctor Corcoran had given me another shot to help reduce the side effects of the hormones. “It’s what’s messing my head up.” I could feel the water works coming on again.

“What’s wrong?”

“See, I don’t even have to do anything and off I go. It's just ridiculous.”

Lucy put her arm about my shoulders. “Don’t worry, I’ll look after you.”

I felt better, but at the same time, worse. I didn’t want a big sister. I wanted her to love me — romantically, not platonically.

Now I know nothing about sex change issues, but I do know that people have done it–I’ve seen Jerry Springer after all, but how long does it take to change from one sex to the other? I would have thought just a little longer than three weeks.

I know about the changes to the physical side, but I didn’t know I would feel changes in my head too. I lie in bed (or rather, on the sofa) going over the day and cringe at what I have said to Lucy or to others that we’ve met. It’s made me understand how it is that no-one has suspected that Kim is not a girl’s name in my case. I mean I'd take me for a girl if I didn't know me.

Worst of all, I have enjoyed it. Well, mostly.

Of course, Lucy is half the reason I am finding it easier than I expected to take all this, but I’m unsure about how she feels. Until yesterday at any rate. I think she let EVERYONE know how she felt then.

It all started in the breakfast bar.

Somehow, we got parted and by “we” I mean all of us. Pete and Gil were up front in the queue and about three people behind was Lucy, with me bringing up the rear about three behind Lucy–-metaphorically speaking since there were people behind me too.

I was in a world of my own and was I suppose, dawdling, but as the queue moved forward, I heard someone behind me.

“Hey isn’t that the girl you were dancing with?”

“Dunno, it was dark–-hang on.”

The next thing I knew was this hand on my bum, giving it a good squeeze.

“OY!” I yelled, but the hand didn’t move, continuing as it did, to stay on my rear as I spun round to come face to face with some pimply, smiling Herbert from the disco a couple of weeks ago. “Do you mind?”

“What’s up darlin’?” he asked, sliding his hand up from my bum to my waist until he almost had his arm round me. “Weren’t like this in the disco were you? Couldn’t keep yer hands to yourself could you?”

“That’s not true and you know it. Now GET OFF!” I said, though I don’t think he was taking much notice. Before I knew what was happening, Lucy was there, a look of thunder on her face.

“You heard her. Hands off.”

“Ooooh a feisty one. I like a bit of gumption in a woman.” he said looking as though he had no intentions of removing his grubby mauler.

“Gumption this!” she said and I almost had sympathetic tears coming from my eyes as down he went, her knee finding its target–-right in the fork.

She put her arm around me protectively and drew me away while the Neanderthal, still on his knees tried to draw breath and mumble something about “‘effin’ lezzies” as two uniformed crew made their way purposefully over to him and his mate.

Up until that moment, many of my reservations were centred round Lucy, of whom I have grown very fond. No, let’s face facts–its love. It’s not just a mere liking or even an infatuation, but full blown love. My heart skips a beat when she’s near me and when she looks at me, I can’t help it; I go all dreamy, cow-eyed and stuff. It’s weird and most unlike me. In fact, that’s not me at all. Now of course, that’s increased tenfold.

See that’s one of the things I don’t like about this. I’m not particularly fond of the cross-dressing, but even less fond of the change in my personality. I get weepy at the least provocation and I’m starting to think about how I’m dressed, does my bum look big in this skirt and all the while, my inner male is screaming “get me out of here!”

Of course, having Lucy near at times like those is quite the comfort. She went ballistic when she found out I was a boy and no amount of explaining seemed to mollify her, although the episode in the breakfast bar kind of straightened that out.

I wonder whether she has come to terms with it or perhaps there’s something else, but I’m finding this change in her behaviour towards me odd, as when at first she wasn’t prepared to explore the idea of a girlfriend and I mean G~I~R~L~F~R~I~E~N~D. It’s silly really. I think she thinks I was pulling the wool over her eyes, when all it was, was a difficulty in finding the right time to tell her something I wasn’t sure she should know in the first place. Adding insult to injury, we slept — and I do stress SLEPT — together that particular night, which was a comfort, but since then I have been relegated to the sofa in the main cabin.

The sofa means it’s a straight line to the loo and frankly I think that’s a good thing at the moment. These hormones are causing me to suffer what pregnant ladies call “morning sickness”. Trouble is it’s not just the mornings. If I’m not being sick, I’m feeling sick and if it’s neither of the former, then I just want to go to sleep.

---

I’m panicking at the moment.

There are just two days to get myself together for docking at New York and whilst Pete and Gil have assured me that there’s nothing to worry about, I can’t help being scared at having to face the big, wide world as Kim… the girl.

Honestly, it’s a nightmare and why does everyone think there’s nothing to worry about when they’re not the ones dressing as a girl when they should be a man are they?

Lucy has been trying desperately to console me, but somehow, I can’t seem to get it through my head that I’m under her uncle and his partner-in-crime-prevention’s guard and therefore, it’s going to be alright.

They’re getting nowhere with Doctor Weintraub, so how do they know it’s not all going to turn to rat-shit? I guess it’s because they think the people actually pulling the strings are no longer on this tub, which I suppose is fair comment. I DO feel a lot safer now that Donna’s gone, but really I just want to go home and forget the majority of this happened. Trouble is, I can’t see it being that simple. Then again, I suppose I AM being particularly pessimistic.

I don’t think it’s without good reason however.

Here I am trying to enjoy my holiday, won through a competition–which should make me happy, but instead, I have been fed female hormones, had my clothing thrown overboard and found myself forced to wear girl’s clothes, act like a girl, live like a girl and now I have to face getting off this oversized bath-tub into a foreign country, as I am. Apparently, I have no choice in the matter. As for getting off the plane in England–that’s when the problems really start.

“It’ll be alright, Kim.”

“I know, but I can’t just switch off the fear. I don’t know what I’m going to be walking into and that’s the bit that scares me.”

“That’s fair.”

Later that evening, I was standing out on the deck as the moon rose and way off in the distance was America. The deep blue of the sea glinted silver as the clam waters crested in tiny waves. Lucy joined me as I leant on my elbows looking out across the vast ocean.

“How you doing? You’re going to be alright. Pete, Gil and I will make sure of that.”

Thanks Lucy. I don’t know what I would have done without you. I know I didn’t do some things right, but under the circumstances, I had no experience of how to react to all this.”

“I think you’ve done really well. I’m just as guilty as you for messing up.” She squeezed my hand and for a moment I really DID feel safe again. “Shall we go back to the cabin?”

“You go on, I’ll be back shortly.”

It didn’t happen that way.

I remember a sharp pain on the back of my head and then nothing . . .

---

“Where’s Kim?” asked Pete.

“Standing outside looking over the railings.” replied Lucy.

“Well, she needs to be in here packing her stuff away.”

“You’re doing it again, Pete.” said Gil.

“Doing what?” asked Pete, holding his hands out.

“You called Kim “she”.”

“So?” Gil raised an eyebrow and Pete blushed to the roots of his hair. “Shit. I keep forgetting. Would you go and grab her, I mean him please, Lucy?”

Lucy went outside, but came back very quickly indeed. “He’s not there.”

“Well, where is he?”

“I don’t know. He said he was going to follow me back in a few minutes. That’s–Oh my G–that was an hour ago.”

The three stood in something akin to suspended animation. Had he thrown himself overboard, fed up with the prospect of having to deal with the after-effects of the hormones, the stigma of having to return to England through America dressed as a girl?

The phone rang in the cabin and Lucy, Pete and Gil all jumped, bringing them back into the present and their three worried faces turned and looked at it expectantly.

“Is someone going to answer that?” Asked Gil, who was admittedly, furthest from the desk where it was placed. Pete almost threw himself at it.

“Hello? Yes… What??! Okay, we’ll be there in a minute.” He put the phone down, his face ashen. “Kim’s been attacked by someone. He was found on the deck, unconscious. He’s in the infirmary.”

All three rushed to the infirmary and were pretty well puffed out on arrival.

“Doctor Corcoran, is he alright?” asked Lucy breathlessly.

The doctor smiled benignly. “He’s had quite a nasty blow to the back of his head, but I’m sure it’ll be fine. To be on the safe side, there’ll be an ambulance at the dock waiting when we arrive. For now, I think it’s best he stay here, don’t you?”

---

The captain wanted to see Pete and Gil. It was the last time they were going to be able to speak before docking.

“I’m sorry to hear about that young man.” he said.

“Yes, he doesn’t seem to have had a very pleasant time of it. I understand that an ambulance has been arranged, so he should be alright.” replied Pete

“I’ll make certain of it. What about that old doctor?”

“That’s down to the authorities on this side of the pond now. Hopefully, there will be no problem in extradition, but you know as well as I do, it’s down to the governments to decide now.”

“Shame. I thought you were getting somewhere.”

“Only geographically, more’s the pity.”

---

Everyone was out on deck when the huge passenger liner approached New York. It seemed that almost as many people were waiting dockside too. Having packed all their own and Kim’s possessions, they went to the infirmary. Kim was awake but groggy.

“They’re going to take you off separate to the passengers. There’s apparently going to be an ambulance waiting. I know it sounds corny, but did you see your attacker?”

“Not a chance. I didn’t even get a chance to say “OW!””

“That’s what I thought. Still, won’t be long and you’ll be back home and you can put all that behind you, can’t you?”

“I hope so, Pete. I really hope so.”

---

Pete, Gil and Lucy joined the happy throng on deck and Lucy was fidgety.

“Why don’t you go with Kim? I’m sure he’d appreciate the company.” She was off like a greyhound after the stuffed hare.

“Do you think they’ll let her aboard the ambulance? She’s not family.”

“She’s as good as now. Anyway, it’ll take her mind off things. If she has to come back, she has to come back.”

“Does it upset you that we didn’t apprehend the culprits?”

“Not really. We did stick a bomb up their collective backsides though didn’t we?”

---

Disembarkation was a tedious affair and as Gil predicted, Lucy wasn’t able to stay with Kim as they hauled him off in the ambulance. It was a fairly tearful parting, but that was mainly down to the fact that Kim’s hormone levels were off the charts and it was just another one of those things that set him off. Lucy found Pete and Gil in amongst the throng of people and there was evidence of crying on her part too.

“Don’t worry,” said Gil. “We’ll be able to see him soon.”

They were finishing some formalities before being able to leave the dock when a man in a white crew uniform ran to them.

“Peter Thomas?” he called. Pete swung round and regarded the crewman as he pounded across the tarmac-covered dock.

“I am he.”

“I just wanted to tell you the ambulance is here.”

“Ambulance? The ambulance has gone. It went about ten minutes ago.”

“No sir. The ambulance is waiting at the security gate as we speak, sir.”

“This is not right at all.” said Pete and all four of them high-tailed it across to security whereupon, the fact that the ambulance was there, ready and waiting was all too apparent.

“This is the second, right?” Pete asked of the security guards.

“Yes, we let the other one out about fifteen minutes ago.”

“SHIT!” exclaimed Pete, reddening.

“What’s the matter?” asked the security guard.

“I have a feeling that the ambulance that took our young friend may not have been what it seemed. Now we have no way of knowing.”

“Ah, now that’s where you’d be wrong sir.” said the guard, beaming and produced a clip-board. On it, the last entry was the licence plate of the ambulance that had previously been through.

---

The port authorities had to be informed and before long, a police cruiser arrived.

“What’s going on?” asked the officer.

“We think that an ambulance took a friend of ours, but we don’t think the ambulance or people inside were genuine.” said Pete.

“And you would be?”

“I’m Peter Thomas an agent with the British Department of the Interior and this is my associate Ms Gil Parker.”

“Is that like a spy or something?” the officer asked, his eyes wide.

“Something like that, yes.”

“Wow! A real live James Bond, eh?”

“Look, we’re wasting time. We believe our friend a Mr. Kim Heasman, has been abducted. There has been an investigation on the Paradise in order to uncover a ring that may involve people being abducted and sold in this country or through this country. We believe that Kim may have been taken in that capacity. We need the occupants of the ambulance to be apprehended in the pursuit of this investigation.”

“Why didn’t you say?” said the officer and strolled back his cruiser and got on the radio.

Moments later he was back. “If it’s out there, we’ll locate it.” said the officer.

“Oh it’s out there alright.”

---

Pet, Gil and Lucy were escorted to a building downtown and asked to wait. There were agents from the FBI who were anxious to meet with them, pursuant to the case. The officer who took them in was even more surprised and pleased with himself for having been involved in a case with a real secret agent.

“Are you going to tell him?” asked Gil.

“Tell him what?”

“That you are neither licensed to kill or a secret agent?”

“Nah. It’d spoil his day.”

They hadn’t been waiting long, when two men in dark suits, dark glasses and the presence of people who don’t like to be messed with, walked in. They took one look at Pete, Gil and Lucy and knew instantly that these were the people they needed to speak to.

“Agent Thomas, Agent Parker? I’m agent Smith and this is agent Jones.”

“You’re kidding right?” asked Gil, incredulously.

“No ma-am. We don’t do humour. Who’s this?” said Smith looking directly at Lucy.

“This is my niece. She was part of the cover on the trip over.” said Pete.

“Please to meet you, Miss. Now if you’d like to come with us.”

They were taken further into the building and to an office. A secretary was sent for some light refreshments and the English trio was made comfortable.

“It’s not everyday we get to work with British agents.” said special Agent Bill Redmond, who entered the office minutes after Pete, Gil and Lucy. “Welcome to the U.S of A.”

“Thank you sir.” said Pete. “I only wish it were under less serious circumstances.”

“Maybe another time.”

“They’re very colourful here aren’t they?” whispered Gil.

It was an arduous wait before any news came forth, but when it did, all three were up and ready to go.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait.” said Bill. “You’re civilians in our country and we don’t want you injured.”

The waiting went from plain arduous to positively unbearable as the three sat in the office with an agent who neither smiled nor spoke and certainly didn’t try and put the trio’s collective minds at rest and much to both Lucy and Gil’s disgust, Pete had taken to pacing.

“For God’s sake, sit DOWN Pete. Nothing’s happening right now and when it does, they’ll tell us.”

Two hours later, the news came in that they had apprehended two people and rescued a third from an ambulance that crashed in upstate New York. They knew it was the people they were after as there seemed to be some confusion about the patient.

“She won’t back down, keeps telling us she’s a he . . .”

“That’s our Kim!” said Gil.”

---

It was another week before Kim and the others were ready to leave for England. In the meantime, Kim had a full workup done on blood and a physical; the culprits were spilling the beans on the set up and others that were involved and there was a surprise waiting for Pete and Gil.

“We wanted you to know who the mastermind was.” said Bill Redmond and showed them to an interview room where sitting at the table in the customary orange jumpsuit, was none other than Miles Corcoran. Further down the corridor, equally nicely dressed for the occasion, sat Donna and in a third room, Margaret. Both had apparently been picked up after trying to leave the docks after coming in on a trawler.

It wasn’t all good news however.

It transpires that Corcoran was a research biologist and had not been feeding Kim with something to help calm the effects of the hormones, but had actually been injecting him with something that would speed up the transition.

The drug was in its test phase and although the doctors at the hospital had managed the get the majority of the implants out, hadn’t removed them all and had had to give Kim the bad news as regards his condition.

“You’re healthy, but the effects of the shots you’ve been being given have had rather more of an effect than we would normally be accustomed to at such an early stage. Some things like your shape and the breast development will probably never go away entirely. We would suggest that you continue as you are for the next couple of months, but obviously without the shots the doctor was giving you and take it from there. Very regular check ups are desirable to ascertain the ongoing effects. ”

The upshot was that Kim was going to have to stay feminine-looking for at least the next two months, perhaps longer.

“How do you feel?” asked Lucy.

“Pissed off. I at least can go back to wearing my own clothes, but then the issue will be looking like a girl in men’s clothes.”

“It could be worse.”

“How?”

Lucy couldn’t answer that one.

As she was about to leave, something struck her.

"If it's any consolation, Kim,"

"What's that?"

"I love you just the way you are."

---

So, was it all well that ended well?

Well that depends upon how you look at it.

Doctor Corcoran is now serving time for kidnap amongst other things and probably won’t see the outside world for at least twenty-five years probably more, as his connections have led police in New York and other states to believe that he was much more deeply involved than they first thought. They don’t seem to mind the idea of adding a few more years onto his sentence as the information comes to light.

As for Donna and Margaret, well their failing dating agency was the British connection.

They are presently awaiting extradition along with Herb Weintraub. It was Weintraub who put the idea into Donna and Margaret’s heads and helped out with some of the less palatable jobs. Their sentences have still to be decided.

So for them, no it didn’t at all.

Just one final thing.

Pete received this about four months after their return from the States . . .

Dear Pete and Gil,

I hope this finds you well and I can’t thank you enough for what you two did for me on that horrible cruise. The help you arranged has been invaluable and I am putting it to good use, with some help.

I’m not a bit disappointed as it turns out, I would just liked to have made my own mind up, but suffice it to say, Kim the boy is nowhere to be seen and I feel a lot better for it. I’m learning and still have a lot to learn, but Lucy is helping there.

Yes, we’re still together, learning how to get on as a couple and I know who wears the trousers in this relationship!

Will I go the whole hog and have the op? I have the finances to do it now (thanks again), but I’m not sure. No-one questions that I’m not a girl and since the hormones stopped, I do have some use of–well, I’m not sure Lucy would be too pleased if I lost certain parts, let’s put it that way.

Seriously, I don’t know. For the time being, getting used to being a girl in the real world is hard enough, but I’m in no rush.

Thanks again,

Kim & Lucy.

PS

Stop being a dick and make an honest woman out of Gil. You know you want to.