Then the real fun began, picking out skirts and blouses and a couple of dresses. I was eager to finally try on something that was right for me, but worried that, until I got my body fixed — and who knew how long that could take, if it was even possible these days? — this stuff wouldn’t look right on me, even if it felt right to my Twisted mind.

---

Twisted Throwback

part 5 of 25

by Trismegistus Shandy

This story is set, with Morpheus' permission, in his Twisted universe. It's set about a generation later than "Twisted", "Twisted Pink", etc. A somewhat different version was serialized on the morpheuscabinet2 mailing list in January-April 2014.

Thanks to Morpheus, Maggie Finson, D.A.W., Johanna, and JM for beta-reading earlier drafts. Thanks to Grover, Paps Paw, and others who commented on the earlier serial.

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---

On the way home, we stopped at a huge mall in Marietta. We ate lunch together at the food court, and then Uncle Jack parted from us as we entered one of the department stores, saying he’d join us later.

“I wouldn’t be much help right now, helping y’all pick stuff out,” he said. “But call me if you start accumulating so much stuff that you need me to help carry it.”

“I’m sure we will,” Mom said.

I was excited and apprehensive in equal measure as we made our way to the girls' and women’s clothing section. This was the stuff I was supposed to be wearing, I knew it. But... the salespeople and other customers would look at me and think I was a boy. Would they call mall security, or even the police, if I started asking to try those things on?

No, as it turned out, though I did notice a few raised eyebrows.

Mom said: “I’ve been thinking, honey... what size breasts do you want?”

There were a lot of aspects of this girl thing that I hadn’t thought through yet. “I’m not sure. In proportion to the rest of me, I guess? Not too big and not too small... I’ll have to talk to the doctors about that, when Dr. Oldstadt finds somebody who can —”

“Yes, I’m sure, but I mean now. You’ll probably want some sort of artificial breasts under your dress or blouse, to make things look right. I’m not sure what we should use for that — bags of birdseed, or something custom-made... but either way, something on the smaller side is less likely to cause problems, I think. Less likely to get messed up while you’re wearing them.”

“That makes sense.”

“So, probably a large A cup?”

“All right.” I was a little vague about bra sizes. I thought Laura Weller had been a B cup, but I wasn’t sure... still, I trusted Mom’s judgment.

“You could use my bras, I guess,” Mildred said. “It’s not like I’m going to be needing them anymore.”

“I think Amy will need some with longer straps, even if her cup size is the same,” Mom said, “but we can try and see.” She took us to the women’s underwear department and said to a saleswoman, “My daughters have just gone through their Twists, both of them, and they’re going to need all new things. Can we get them measured for their new sizes?”

“Your... daughters?” the woman said doubtfully, looking from me to Mildred with imperfectly concealed distaste.

“My daughters,” Mom said firmly. “Can you measure them, or direct me to someone who can, or should we go to another store?”

“Certainly I can measure them,” she said. “But... perhaps you would prefer to borrow the tape measure, and measure them yourself? Especially the, ah... young man. Your former daughter, I suppose.”

“Whatever she may look like, Amy is a girl,” Mom insisted. If she didn’t see a need to correct the woman’s assumption, I didn’t either. “But if you won’t measure her, give me the measuring tape and I’ll do it.”

So the woman gave Mom a measuring tape, and directed us to the women’s dressing rooms; Mom took me in and measured me. She had me take off everything but my underwear — it was horribly embarrassing — and wrapped the tape around me in various places and stretched it out along my arms and legs.

“I see you took the hair off your arms and chest too,” she said. “When was that?”

I told her. She nodded. “We’ll buy you some depilatory cream for your legs before we go home. Now let’s see about some padded bras, first thing, and... do you want to wear panties as well?”

“Yes,” I said impulsively, and then: “Maybe... I want to, but I’m not sure they would fit. I mean, I’m not shaped right — down there... would they fit?” I was blushing hotly all over.

“I’m not sure either,” she said. “I vaguely remember hearing about men wearing panties, so it’s certainly possible, though it looks as though it would be uncomfortable... Let’s get you just a few pairs today and let you try them and see if they work.”

So I got dressed again in those boy clothes, hopefully for the last time, and waited while Mom measured Mildred. When they came out, Mom said to Mildred: “Do you want to look around on your own a bit, honey? I think Amy’s going to need my help just now, a bit more than you do.”

“I’ll help too,” Mildred said.

So Mom and Mildred led me along to the underwear section, and got me one package of panties to try out, and a larger selection of padded bras in different colors. Then the real fun began, picking out skirts and blouses and a couple of dresses. I was eager to finally try on something that was right for me, but worried that, until I got my body fixed — and who knew how long that could take, if it was even possible these days? — this stuff wouldn’t look right on me, even if it felt right to my Twisted mind. Mom and Mildred pulled out and put back probably a dozen blouses, skirts and dresses — almost all of which looked wonderful to me — for every one they let me take to the dressing room to try on; they held them up and sometimes asked me to hold them up in front of me and then explained why they didn’t suit me. I listened carefully and tried to remember everything.

Finally I took a few things into the dressing room, along with the panties and bras which Mom had already paid for. Mom told me to get the panties on and then call her. Keeping my back to to the mirror, I stripped down to my socks, shuddering and half-closing my eyes when I saw the thing between my legs that I’d been so complacent about until a couple of days ago, and then opened up the package and pulled out a pair of panties. They fit over my legs easily enough, and over my butt, but getting them to fit over my thing wasn’t easy; I tried a couple of different ways to arrange them, and neither was comfortable, but I still felt better, emotionally, once I got them on. I called Mom and told her I was ready, and she came in and helped me with the bra — picking out a blue one that would match the blouse I was about to try on. It fit, in the sense that the straps reached around my shoulders and chest without stretching, but the cups just slumped there limp and kind of sad-looking.

“We’ll fill them with something plausible soon enough,” Mom said with forced cheerfulness. “Now let’s put something over them. First the skirt —”

A couple of minutes later, I was dressed, except for shoes. My excitement had reached a peak without the apprehension ever lessening by a jot. If anything, it had increased. Despite the nagging discomfort where my extraneous bits were shoved into underwear that wasn’t designed for them, I felt better than I’d felt at any time since my Twist. But at the same time, looking down at myself, at the limp crumply bra-cups under the blouse, the unfeminine hips, the hair showing on my legs between the hem of the skirt and my socks — I knew I had a long way to go before anyone would look at me and see the girl I knew I was.

When Mom stepped back and looked me over, and her mouth opened, and she didn’t say anything for several long seconds, I felt a little worse. Or a little less great, maybe — I was still excited and happy to be wearing clothes that were right for me, but also sad that I might not be able to wear them again — except maybe at home, with people who understood me — for a long while, until I got my body fixed.

“I look ridiculous, don’t I? It’s not going to work until —”

“No, no,” she said. “I’m just — surprised, that’s all. I didn’t expect you to look so good.” She hastily went on: “I mean, I knew you would look great once we got you fixed up — but I thought we’d need at least breast prostheses; I didn’t think just putting you in the clothes your Twist makes you comfortable with would make such a huge difference.”

“Thanks for being nice, Mom,” I said. “But I need you to be honest with me. Is this going to get me beaten up if I go to school like this? I think I could stand to just wear this around the house, and wear my old clothes to school, if I have to. Until the doctors get me on hormones and they start having some effect, I guess.”

“I’m not just being a mom. Really, you look great! Turn around and look at yourself in the mirror — huh.”

I did as she’d asked, hoping she was right — but I looked just as absurd as I’d feared, a boy in a skirt who hadn’t even bothered to stuff his borrowed bra. Mom looked from the mirror to me and back again, shaking her head. “That is really odd.”

“What?”

“Your reflection doesn’t look like you!”

“How’s it different?”

She paused, and finally said: “It looks — how you were afraid you would look, I suppose. But when I look straight at you — you’re more feminine. Not dramatically different, you’re still you, you’re the same height and your hair is about the same length — maybe half an inch longer, but it’s styled differently so it’s hard to tell. But your waist is just a little narrower and your chin just a little rounder and your breasts look real. Several small changes that add up... And your voice — you’ve been pitching your voice a little higher this afternoon, I’ve noticed, but in the last few minutes you’ve gotten it sounding a lot more natural. — Come on.”

And before I could protest, she’d opened the door and was pulling me out of the changing room. Mildred wasn’t where we’d left her; she’d gotten bored waiting on us and started looking through the blouses. Mom looked around, found her, and called her; she looked up and started toward us.

“What is it, Mom? Where’s — Cyrus? I mean, Amy?” She stared at me, her mouth open. “How’d you do that?”

“I just helped her with the fastenings,” Mom said. “I think she’s doing that herself.”

“Oh!” I said, realizing that I’d discovered my trick. Mildred stared at me for several more seconds, and started crying.

“What’s wrong, honey?” Mom said.

“I’m never going to look that pretty again,” Mildred said. Mom moved to hug her, but I was faster. I held her tight and whispered to her,

“Don’t say that. You don’t look like you did, but you’re still beautiful, maybe even more than before.”

“Stop lying, you’re just making it worse,” she said between sobs. Mom took her from me and led her toward the dressing room. I followed and called after her, “Bobby thought you were pretty, too. You don’t think he was lying, do you?”

Mom gave me a thumbs-up before she closed the door of the dressing room. I looked around and decided to check out the rack of blouses, to see if I’d learned anything from Mom and Mildred’s quick lesson. If I looked down at myself, I still saw the outline of those crumpled bra-cups, and the narrow hips and thick waist, and a few inches of hairy legs — but I knew from what Mom said that to everyone else I looked feminine, and from what Mildred said, even pretty. I felt wonderful, and my compassion for Mildred only put a slight dent in that wonderful feeling.

I stayed close to the dressing room, though, and when Mildred came out wearing the blouse she’d been looking at when I startled her, I swooped in and said, at random, “That looks great! The color really complements your scales.” I had no idea if it complemented or clashed, but I wanted to boost her ego, to repay her for the wonderful boost she’d given mine. Apparently I’d guessed right, because Mom said:

“I think solid colors like this will work better for you now, honey. We might can find patterns that work well with the pattern of your scales, but most of them won’t.”

Mildred hugged me. “Thanks,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Did Bobby really say I was pretty?” she whispered. “I thought he just said I wasn’t ugly.”

I tried to remember his exact words. “Maybe you’re right. But from the way he was acting, I think he thought you were pretty but he was too shy to say so outright. He couldn’t sit quiet and let you say you were ugly, though.”

“He couldn’t sit quiet, period,” she said, and giggled.

“Girls,” Mom said, with a smile, “we need to try on a few more things and go if we’re going to get home at a decent hour. Amy, do you want me to help you with the next set?”

“It might help. Thanks, Mom.”

I tried on several more blouses and skirts, and two dresses. All of them looked good on me, Mom said, if she looked straight at me; but I could tell, and so could Mom if she looked at me in the mirror, that a couple of them didn’t fit right. They fit even less well than the others, that is. Mom kept going back and forth from my dressing room to Mildred’s, giving her opinion of this and that. Then we moved on to the sleepwear department; I got a nightgown and Mildred got some pajamas that would fit her taller body. I got a cute purse that went really well with one of the dresses and okay with the other, and one new pair of formal shoes; I wanted to get new tennis shoes as well, but Mom finally balked, and talked me into getting some girly shoelaces for my old tennis shoes (which weren’t all that old, or all that masculine for that matter).

Finally Mom phoned Uncle Jack and asked him to meet us at the checkout counter and help tote our purchases to the car. Mom delegated me to return the measuring tape to the lady who’d been mean to me and Mildred; I enjoyed the look on her face when she saw me, and after puzzling over me for a moment, finally connected me with the apparent boy she’d seen a little while ago and had refused to take the measurements of.

---

Uncle Jack walked into the store while we were at the checkout counter. He looked around for us, and spotted Mildred first — she catches your eye at a distance. “Hey, Mildred,” he said, approaching us, and then, seeing Mom, “Hey, Kate. Where’s, um, Amy?”

Mildred and I looked at each other and stifled giggles. Mom smiled and said, “She’s around here somewhere. Oh, and she’s figured out what her trick is, but since Mildred got to surprise you with hers, I’ll let Amy do the same.”

“Great!” I kept quiet, and waited for him to notice me and figure out who I was. I was standing behind Mom and Mildred, and probably at first Uncle Jack thought I was with the lady in line behind us. I was wearing the blue blouse I’d tried on first, with a white knee-length skirt, which Mom had paid for earlier; only my shoes were the same, and he couldn’t see them from where he was standing.

It wasn’t until Mom finished checking out, and Uncle Jack hefted the heaviest of our bags and Mom, Mildred and I picked up the others, that he figured it out. He started to say, “Shouldn’t we wait for —” and then stopped short, and looked at me, and said: “Well. You clean up good.”

“Thanks,” I said, and Mildred burst out laughing; it was contagious, and I joined in.

He kept stealing sidelong glances at me as we headed toward the car, and then said: “So, your mom said you were going to surprise me with your trick...”

“I already did,” I said, and he nodded.

“That’s wonderful for you. Is it —” He looked around, and said in a lower voice: “Is it all better now? You aren’t going to need, um, those other doctors...?”

“No,” I said, “it’s an illusion like Aunt Rhoda’s.”

“Or mine,” Mildred added proudly.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, and it doesn’t work on my reflection in a mirror. But it’s still pretty neat.”

“So what exactly are you doing to make us see you like that?”

I shrugged. “How do you know which way is north? I didn’t even know I was doing it until Mom told me I was suddenly looking, um, a lot more feminine. And I still can’t feel anything different — I don’t even look different to myself, so I’m not sure what y’all are seeing.”

“Hmm. If it doesn’t work on mirrors, what about cameras?”

“Let’s find out...” But I thought I already knew. Mildred snapped a picture of me with her phone, and gasped when she looked at it.

“It doesn’t look good, does it?” I asked. She shook her head.

“Then delete it without showing it to me, please.”

“Okay.”

“It looks like you’re affecting people’s minds,” Uncle Jack, “not the light bouncing off you the way Rhoda does. If you can get conscious control of that — you too, Mildred — it could be really versatile. You could probably affect the way people see your reflection, too, just for a start.”

We talked about ways to test our tricks and maybe get better control of them on the way to the car and for a few miles down the road. Then conversation lagged, and I got out my tablet and read for my term paper for a few minutes.

Mildred suddenly said to me: “Bobby’s Twisted.”

“So are we,” I said. “What do you mean?”

“I mean — probably the only guys who’d think I’m pretty are Twisted. And the only boys at school who are Twisted, or might turn out to be Twisted, are my cousins.”

I thought about that. “Maybe Twisted are more likely to see straight, and realize how pretty you are, instead of just going ‘ooh, snake.’ But I’m pretty sure some normal guys would, too. And — what about Bobby?”

She thought for a moment, and frowned. “Yeah, he’s kind of nice. But I don’t know his last name, or where he lives, and if I ask the doctors they won’t tell me, because of patient confidentiality and stuff.”

“They won’t just give you his phone number, but if you ask them to pass him a message, maybe they would.”

“You think?”

“It’s worth a try.”

We looked at the Twist clinic site on my tablet and figured out how to send a message to the secretary. Mom looked at Uncle Jack and said: “She only figured out she’s a girl a few hours ago, and she’s already giving her little sister dating advice.” I blushed, and Mildred would have if her scales didn’t give her an unfair advantage.

But that got me thinking, and I realized I was going to have problems of that kind too, maybe just as bad as Mildred’s. I needed to tell Sarah Kendall about this, and I had no idea what she’d think and say. Would she be grossed out, or just not interested in me anymore? And was I still interested in her the same way as I was before my Twist? I wasn’t sure, and trying to analyze my feelings didn’t help, not right away. I started drafting a message to her, but right about then we got into a rural area where Internet access was spotty, and it was just as well; I needed to think about that message more before I sent it. On second thought, it would be even better if I talked to her about it in person.

When we got into Trittsville, we stopped at the drugstore for more depilatory cream and some other things Mom needed. As we turned off the highway onto the street leading to our house, I started worrying: Dad was about to see the new me, and he hadn’t had any warning. As far as I knew... “Mom, did you message Dad about me being a girl?”

“No,” she said with a sigh. “I meant to, but... we’ve been kind of busy. I’m afraid he’s going to be — we were prepared for you to change drastically when you Twisted — at least, I’m sure he was, and I thought I was, but — changing like this two days after your Twist, well. He may be a bit shocked.”

“No ‘may be’ about it,” Uncle Jack said. “He’s as near imperturbable as anybody I know, but this will perturb him. At least a little bit around the edges. He’ll come round, though.”

My gut clenched as Mom parked and the others unfastened their seat belts. I sat there staring unseeing at the article displayed on my tablet for several seconds before my hand moved slowly to my seat belt.

“I’ll go first, and distract him,” Mildred whispered; she got out of the car and was up the porch steps and into the house like a shot, before I even had my door open. Mom opened the trunk and we got out several of our purchases, Uncle Jack carrying more than his share, before we followed her. I trailed along behind Mom and Uncle Jack; when Mom noticed that, she hung back and took my arm.

“It will be okay,” she said. We walked up the porch steps and followed Uncle Jack into the house.

Dad was saying, in a tense voice, “— to your room, Mildred — your uncle and I will take care of this. John, would you be so good as to — Katherine, please stay on the porch for the moment — or — wait, who is...?”

I couldn’t see the snake that Mildred was apparently making Dad see, but from the way he was standing and keeping his eyes fixed on a spot on the floor three feet to the left of the easy chair, his glance darting away briefly to Uncle Jack and Mom and me as we came in and then back to the spot on the floor, that’s probably where he thought it was. Uncle Jack couldn’t see it either, he told us later, but he played along with Mildred’s joke, and said, “Sure, Oswald — you want me to go out and get a hoe from the shed?”

“If you would be so kind.”

Uncle Jack set down the bags he was carrying, winked at us and walked out the front door. I wasn’t sure what I should say or do, so for the moment I said nothing. Mildred said: “But Dad, I haven’t finished telling you about —”

“Not now, Mildred; please go upstairs. Perhaps it will not molest you, due to — but I should not like to — oh. Where did it go?” He glanced around frantically, and said to Mom and me, “Please go out into the yard — I think it must have crawled under the chair or sofa —”

Mildred couldn’t keep a straight face anymore, and burst out laughing. “I was trying to tell you, Dad, I discovered my trick today. Watch!” And Dad reacted to the appearance of another snake visible only to him.

“Another one?” he asked, and then looked at Mildred. “Are you causing these creatures to manifest?”

“Keep your eyes on it,” she said, and then, when he looked back at the putative snake, “Presto!” He looked back up from the vanished snake and said:

“I congratulate you, Mildred, on discovering your trick. Your mother and I will discuss the appropriate punishment for using it in so inappropriate a way later, after supper.” He relaxed just a hair — he was still very formal, but the tension and worry was gone. “Good evening, Katherine. Who is — Cyrus? Is that you?”

“Hi, Dad,” I said. “I kind of figured out my trick, too.”

Dad stared at me for a moment, and said: “I suppose you have a great deal to tell me. Come, supper is on the stove and in the oven; let us begin eating before we talk.”

Uncle Jack came back in then; of course he hadn’t really gone for the hoe, he’d just stepped out of sight on the porch and listened to Mildred’s joke play out. We sat down to eat — Dad had made a roast and baked vegetables. Dad was obviously bursting with curiosity, but he didn’t say anything about our Twists while we were serving our plates and sitting down except: “Your mother informed me, Mildred, that you are now a carnivore; so I prepared this roast chiefly for you.”

Finally, when Dad had asked the blessing and we’d all eaten enough to take the edge off our hunger, Dad said: “If you would care to inform me of what you learned at the clinic today, I must confess I am curious.”

Uncle Jack, Mom and Mildred looked at me, and I took my time swallowing a mouthful of potatoes and carrots and taking a sip of tea, thinking about what to say. “Well, Dr. Oldstadt and Dr. Wentworth figured out I have a girl brain now. And when they told me about that, I realized what all those vague feelings I’d been having meant, wanting to look different and wear something different. And about things people said being wrong. I need to be a girl physically, too, only that’s going to take a while because the doctors who used to fix people like me are all retired or dead, and I need to wear girl clothes. And it felt wrong when people called me ‘Cyrus’ or talked about me saying ‘he’ and ‘him’. I’m still not sure what my girl name should be but I’m going by ‘Amy’ for now because that feels, well, less wrong than any of the others Mom and I talked about.”

Dad took that in, and instead of asking me all the questions I was expecting right away, he turned to Mildred and said: “Mildred, your mother informed me that you are now a carnivore, and you demonstrated your trick. Did you learn anything else of note today?”

“I’m cold-blooded,” she said, looking away from him at an empty corner of the room. “They said I might go into hibernation if I don’t keep warm enough all winter. And I can’t go outside in the winter in just a coat and hat and gloves, I have to stay in warm heated places as much as I can. And I might get overheated in the summer, but that’s less likely than freezing in the winter; they think I can probably stand temperatures that would kill a normal human. Um, and if it wasn’t obvious, I can use my trick on one person or several people at once, and it doesn’t always affect all of them the same way — they might not all see the same kind of snake in the same spot.”

“I see. John, would you be so good as to help me inspect our insulation this weekend? Perhaps we should also install additional heaters in Mildred’s room, and the young people’s bathroom.”

“Sounds good,” Uncle Jack said. “I’m in.”

Dad was silent for a few moments, and then turned to me. “Ah, Amy. I gather that your mother took you shopping for clothes on the way home from the clinic?”

“We stayed under budget,” Mom said, and added under her breath, “barely.” And then: “We just bought a few days' worth of things today; we can wait until after their Twist stipends come in before we buy everything else they’ll need long-term.”

“I was afraid they wouldn’t fit,” I added, “the girl clothes I mean — and they don’t quite, but then I discovered my trick, and I can make it look like my clothes fit me better than they really do, so that’s pretty cool.”

“Indeed. A trick that ensures you are always well-dressed is a valuable thing to have.” He smiled. “But is that the only effect of your trick? It appears that — well —” He wasn’t at a loss for words very often, but for a few seconds there he seemed to be. Then he found the words he was looking for, and went on: “You seem to be different physically as well.”

“I’m not,” I said. “It just looks that way.”

Mom said: “It’s not so much that the trick makes it look like her clothes fit her, it’s more that it makes her look like she has the figure for the clothes.”

“And it doesn’t work on mirrors, or on me,” I said. “So I don’t really know what I look like to you, except from how you describe me. I’m not even sure if I look the same to everybody who sees me; it might be like Mildred’s trick.”

“Similar in what way?” Dad asked.

“If I make two different people see snakes, they might not see the same kind of snake,” Mildred put in. “We should test that later.”

We did some more tests after supper. Of course the camera couldn’t catch Mildred’s snakes either, not that we expected it to. She could make snakes appear in the mirror — but the “reflected” snake didn’t match the “real” snake’s coloration or movements. That was when Mildred realized she could make somebody see more than one snake at a time.

About that time, Dad told us we needed to get to bed. “I see no reason that both of you should not return to school tomorrow,” he said. “I spoke with the appropriate persons in each school’s office today, and tentatively planned to return you to school tomorrow, depending on what you learned at the clinic.”

“Do I have to?” Mildred said. “Mom said you might home-school me, or —”

“I said we would consider it, but that you should try going back to school first, at least for a few days,” Mom interrupted. “Please give it a try, honey.”

“I will meet with the assistant principal tomorrow and inform him of your dietary and thermostatic requirements,” Dad said.

“Are you going to talk to the high school about me?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if I wanted them to, or just wanted to deal with the teachers and the other students in my own way.

“I suppose we should,” Dad said. He said to Mom: “Katherine, dear, do you suppose you could take — Amy — to school tomorrow and meet with someone in the office before the day’s classes begin?”

“Sure,” she said.

When I got ready for bed, it was a relief in a way to get out of those panties that were too tight in the crotch, but I felt gross, seeing that thing between my legs even for a few moments. I felt a little better after I got into my new nightgown, but it still took me a long time to get to sleep, worrying about how people at school would treat me, and whether I’d ever be able to get rid of that thing down there.

---

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I'm planning to post chapter six next Monday. However, if I get more comments on this chapter than on the last few chapters -- let's say six or more comments from six different people other than me -- I'll post the next chapter a few days early, probably around Thursday (assuming Internet problems or other obstacles don't intervene).

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If you've enjoyed this and the other free stories I've posted here, you may also enjoy these novels and short fiction collection -- available from Smashwords in ePub format and from Amazon in Kindle format.

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes	Smashwords	Amazon
When Wasps Make Honey	Smashwords	Amazon
A Notional Treason	Smashwords	Amazon
The Weight of Silence and Other Stories	Smashwords	Amazon