“I’m not sure, but I think I may have a clue about why your condition is somewhat different from many of my earlier patients. It seems to me that you may have Twisted based on your idea — much more accurate than it had been a few hours earlier, but still somewhat oversimplified — of what transsexuals are like.”

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Twisted Throwback

part 20 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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It was around one-thirty when we got to Stone Mountain. We drove into a residential neighborhood south of the mountain, not where Uncle Jack and I had gone.

“I think the clinic’s back that way,” I said.

“We are not going to the clinic,” Dad said. “As it is the weekend, the receptionist and other support staff will not be there. Dr. Underwood invited us to meet him at his home.”

A few minutes later we pulled up in front of a big two-story brick house, with its front door approached by a long handicap access ramp from the left and by three steps in front. Dad rang the doorbell, and a minute or two later Dr. Underwood answered the door.

“Come in,” he said. “You must be Emily’s parents and sister.”

“Yes; I am Oswald Harper, and this is my wife Katherine and my younger daughter Mildred.”

“Call me Kate,” Mom said. “Only Oswald calls me Katherine.”

Dr. Underwood’s brows rose, but he didn’t say anything about this inversion of the usual pet name/formal name pattern.

“It is good to meet you, Dr. Underwood,” Dad continued.

“Please, call me Tom.”

Dad looked slightly embarrassed. “Alas, I fear that my own Twist compulsions will not allow me to be quite so informal as that. May I call you Thomas?”

“I suppose so. I know what Twist compulsions can be like; your daughter is not the first Twisted I’ve treated. Come on in, have a seat here in the living room. We can chat informally for a few minutes, and then I’d like to speak with Emily privately, and then with the two of you privately, and then the three of you together. Can I get you anything to eat or drink?”

He brought us tea and cookies, and sat down in a straight-backed chair near the sofa me and Mildred had sat on, across the room from the one Mom and Dad had chosen. “Did you have a pleasant trip here?”

“Indeed; traffic was light, and we had a pleasant lunch with an online friend of Mildred and his mother.”

“He’s Twisted like me,” Mildred said; “well, not exactly like me, but he doesn’t look human anymore either. We met at the Twist clinic and we’ve been chatting online.”

“That’s good,” Dr. Underwood said. “Emily, have you spoken to others like you? I’m afraid most of them are either in their fifties and up, or not native speakers of English —”

“I’ve been on a forum for people with gender-related Twists, and I talked to a guy who Twisted into a girl and doesn’t like it — kind of the opposite of my Twist, really. She — or he — lives pretty near here, in Lithonia, and we’re probably going to meet for supper. But, uh, no, I haven’t talked to any normal transsexuals.”

Dr. Underwood nodded slowly. “I could talk to some of my old patients, ask them if they’d be willing to talk to you sometime. Would you like me to put you in touch with them?”

“Yes, please.”

We chatted for a few more minutes — Mom and Dad told him about the delays in getting one of the puberty blockers Dr. Park had prescribed, and Dr. Underwood said he would talk to Dr. Park and see if he could help. Then Dr. Underwood and I took our glasses of tea and went into another room, a smaller den or office. There was a desk with a swivel chair, but Dr. Underwood sat in another straight-backed chair and let me have the small sofa.

“So, tell me how your week has been. Anything in particular on your mind?”

“I went on a date with Rob,” I said. “Two dates. The first time was a double date with a couple of other friends; we ate dinner and saw a movie at the theater... The Left Hand of Darkness.”

“Ah! An appropriate choice, perhaps — it shows sensitivity to your condition, if not deep understanding.”

“Yeah, Rob meant well. He didn’t know — I wasn’t sure yet, and didn’t tell him beforehand — my Twist seems to have made me uninterested in fiction. On our second date, he came over to my house and we watched a documentary on the founding of Spiral, and that was a lot more interesting. But we didn’t kiss as much that time.”

“As much?”

I thought back, and blushed slightly. “I think we kissed two or three times during the movie, maybe? And then once more when he took me home. The second date, just once, after the movie was over... He said it was because documentaries don’t have romantic scenes. Um, and we held hands, but that’s all.”

“That’s good, I suppose. I’d be a little worried if you were moving faster than that. Would you like to go out with him again?”

“...I’m not sure.” And I told him how I’d overheard Vic, and how confused I was about him since then.

“So... you’re attracted to Vic as well, and you think he may be attracted to you?”

“Um... kind of. I mean, Vic isn’t much to look at, not like Rob, he doesn’t turn me on the same way... but I like him a lot. He’s my best friend, and if he could be my boyfriend, if I could be his girlfriend... I think it would be better than with Rob. If it works at all. But I’m afraid to try — if it doesn’t work it could mess up our friendship.”

“Well... has Vic given you any hint that he’s attracted to you, other than the ambiguous statement you overheard?”

“Um... he’s said a couple of times that I’m pretty. At least once to my face, and that time I heard him talking with Lionel. And he didn’t like it when I told him I was going out with Rob, and looking back on it now I think it might be because he’s jealous. And — in this game we’re playing...” I told him about Kiera and Oscar in Phantoms of Phobos. “I’m not sure if that means anything. I didn’t think so until I overheard him and Lionel, and now I’m not sure.”

“It may be that he is refraining from making any advances toward you because you are currently dating Rob. Or it may be that he is in conflict about his own feelings — has he ever shown any signs of being bisexual?”

“No...”

“Then perhaps he is conflicted about being attracted to you by your appearance, and by your newly feminine personality, while knowing that underneath your trick your body is still the same. Part of him knows you are a girl, but another part may still think of you as a boy, and that may be upsetting.”

I thought about what I knew about him and how he’d been acting lately. “I think that’s probably it.”

“Whereas Rob, on the other hand, is apparently comfortable with you as you are... Have you spoken to him about your transition?”

“Yes. He says he’s okay with it. And he said he was already attracted to me before my Twist, but didn’t say anything because he knew I was straight, and then he wondered I might be into guys after my Twist and thought it was worth taking a chance asking me out... What do you think I should do?”

“Let me think about it some more. What else has been going on? I had a note from Dr. Oldstadt about your trick testing and some things it revealed about your compulsions... have you figured out any more about that since you saw the Twist specialists?”

“Um, what did he tell you? I guess we figured out that I have a compulsion to wear girl’s clothes, not just a preference for them. And I don’t think I’ve figured out any more than that since. I have made a little progress making people see the feminine me in a mirror, though.”

“Excellent! Has that increased your self-confidence?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Anything else?”

I thought. “I guess I’m a little worried and discouraged about not being able to get that other medicine. Is that going to happen with the hormone therapy too, and the surgery?”

He sighed. “I hope not. But I can’t say for sure. The officials who consider and approve requests for medical treatment, like the medical professionals they regulate, have gone through a generational change since we started treating transsexuals prenatally; we may have a hard task ahead of us to re-educate them and remind them of policies which, though they have not been applied in decades, are still valid. I will speak with Dr. Park and your pharmacist, and find out who in the Medical Bureau is handling your case, and talk to them about your condition and your need for this treatment.”

“Thanks.”

“It may be a few weeks before we see any results, since next week is a holiday. But I assure you we’ll do everything we can for you. How do you feel you’re doing with living as a girl? Are you socializing with other girls at school, for instance?”

“Yes, I’ve made several friends — Sarah Kendall, who I’d just asked out the day before my Twist, has been helpful, and she introduced me to her friends Morgan and Olive. And since then I’ve hung out some with Morgan and Olive when Sarah isn’t around, and gone over to Sarah’s house to study with them a couple of times, and ate lunch with them about half the time — the other half with my old friends, Lionel and Vic. And I’m going shopping in Chattanooga with them tomorrow...” I told him about Medea, how I’d helped Morgan get back in touch with her and how she was going to meet us in Chattanooga Sunday.

After that, he asked me: “How are you feeling about your body? Is your physical dysphoria getting worse, or better, or staying about the same?”

“I can forget about it most of the time when I’m dressed, except sometimes when I see myself in the mirror. But whenever I have to use the bathroom or shower... I can’t get away from it.”

He wrinkled his brow. “Is there no fluctuation from day to day? I remember when I was about your age, the physical dysphoria was usually not as bad as the social dysphoria; and it tended to be worse some days than others. Sometimes it would just be a mild frustration, and sometimes it would be a deep self-loathing.”

I thought about it. “No, I think it’s pretty constant — when I can’t avoid thinking about my body, when I have to do something that reminds me how wrong it is, it’s just disgusting.” I shuddered just thinking about it. “I want to get it over with — peeing or showering or whatever — as fast as I can, and the feeling lingers for a minute or two after I get dressed.”

“My sympathies. It may help to remind yourself that this condition is temporary. Sooner or later — I have good reason to hope it will be sooner — we will get your body corrected. Tell me something else,” he said, seemingly at random; “what did you know about transsexuals before you started researching Erin Ann Pendergrass for your history class?”

“Oh... almost nothing. I’d heard of them occasionally, in old books and movies, and in our history book it mentioned a few people who were trans, but it didn’t explain a lot. I vaguely got the impression it was a sexual kink,” I blushed, “like, getting off on the idea of transforming into the opposite sex? But then I started reading about Governor Pendergrass, and found out what it really was about — sort of. Not the way I know now.”

“Can you remember exactly what you had learned from the time you started to research Governor Pendergrass until the moment your Twist began?”

I thought back. “I read an interview where she talked about transitioning, and she said it wasn’t about changing her sex; she was already a girl, she was just making her body match her mind. And then I looked for more stuff about her, and about transsexuals, and I read part of a biographical article about her and an essay by a trans activist who was a friend of hers, Marissa Kovacs; she talked about knowing she was a girl, and knowing her body was wrong even before she knew what girl bodies were supposed to be like. And I think that’s as far as I’d read before my Twist started.”

Dr. Underwood was quiet for a moment, and then said: “I’m not sure, but I think I may have a clue about why your condition is somewhat different from many of my earlier patients. It seems to me that you may have Twisted based on your idea — much more accurate than it had been a few hours earlier, but still somewhat oversimplified — of what transsexuals are like. That may account for why your genital dysphoria has been so unvaryingly intense.”

I felt my face burning. I’d brought this on myself by thinking I knew what other people were going through based on reading about them for ten minutes... “I feel so stupid,” I said. “I should have known there was more to it than that... but...”

“Don’t blame yourself; it’s not something you had any control over. If someone had asked you, just a moment before your Twist, whether you thought you understood exactly what Governor Pendergrass experienced, what would you have said?”

“I’d have said no, of course I didn’t understand everything. There’s a lot I don’t understand even now, after researching her life for weeks.”

“We may never figure out how or why your subconscious decided to use the little bit you’d just learned about transsexuals, combined with your unconscious ideas about gender and about the way girls normally dress and act, to form the basis of your Twist. But one thing we do know after three generations of Twisted: it is not your fault.”

“I know,” I said, still feeling irrationally embarrassed. “It just seems so... wrong. Almost as bad as if I’d been watching some old pre-segregation movie and turned into a racist stereotype.”

“It is not your fault,” he repeated. “And, let me be clear: your case is not so totally divergent from that of other transsexuals I’ve treated. But the absence of any genetic markers for gender dysphoria, the entirely female brain, the constant genital dysphoria... well, it gives me a good reason for recommending that we move forward with your transitioning faster than we would have with a non-Twisted patient.”

I leaned forward in my seat. “So... how soon do you think I can start on hormones? Or at least start trying to get the Medical Bureau to approve me taking them?”

He smiled. “Soon. Shall we call in your parents now? Is there anything else you wish to speak with me privately about first?”

“Yes,” I said. “What do you think I should do about Rob and Vic?”

“Do you think that remaining with Rob long-term is a serious possibility?”

“I’m not sure... I guess it’s not very likely. I mean, we’re going to different universities, probably at opposite ends of the country, so there’ll be several years when we’d have to make it a long-distance relationship, and that would be hard.”

“What about Vic?”

“I’m not sure if it will work at all... but if it does I hope it can last. We’ve already been best friends for twelve years. We might go to the same school, and if not, we’ll just be a couple of hours' drive away from each other.”

“Then perhaps it would make sense to break it off gently with Rob... and then see if something develops with Vic. Give him a few days; he may ask you out soon after he learns that you’ve broken up with Rob. Or you can continue sounding him out, and get a better idea of how he feels about you, and decide if you want to make the first move... or just remain friends.”

“That makes sense. I’ll think about it, but that’s probably what I’ll do.”

“Very well. I’ll speak with your parents for a few minutes now, and then call you back in.” He rose, opened the door, and said: “Oswald, Kate, come on in... Emily, please wait with your sister for a few minutes.”

“How’d it go?” Mildred asked as I sat down beside her.

“Pretty well. He said I might be ready to start hormones soon. But he’s not sure how long it will take to get the Medical Bureau to approve the puberty blockers, much less the hormones or surgery.”

“If they balk at it, let’s go camp out on their doorstep,” she said, and hugged me. “The news cameras will love me even if the stupid kids at school don’t.”

I tried to read the Theodore Sturgeon story I’d started last night — I’d read about half of it during the drive down from Trittsville, before and after lunch, but my mind kept wandering and it took me several times as long as reading the same wordage of nonfiction. Before I’d caught the thread of the story again, Dr. Underwood opened the door and called me back.

I sat down next to Mom on the sofa and looked expectantly at Dr. Underwood.

“Emily, I’ve told your parents a little of what we talked about — about the issues you’re having with getting the puberty blockers, and what we can do about them. I think that, considering your wholehearted and successful effort to live as a girl ever since you realized how you had changed, and the Twist-induced nature of your gender dysphoria, there is no reason to delay your hormone replacement therapy any longer. I will speak with Dr. Park on Monday. It may take some time before the Medical Bureau will approve the therapy, but Dr. Park and I, and Dr. Oldstadt, will do everything we can to expedite the process.”

My eyes were brimming with tears. “Thank you,” I said, and started crying for real. Mom hugged me, and I hugged back, hard.

We talked for a few minutes longer; Dr. Underwood got us talking to each other about how Mom and Dad felt about me being a girl, and how I felt about the way Mom and Dad and the rest of the family were handling my Twist. I cried some more when I heard them say how proud of me they were, and how happy they were that Dr. Underwood had approved the hormone therapy.

As we left, we arranged to meet Dr. Underwood two weeks later, on the first Saturday in December. By then Uncle Jack would be on the road somewhere (maybe in Chicago with Ingrid?), so Mom or Dad would need to drive me. He said he didn’t need to see both of them every time, and if they wanted to have another relative or friend drive me sometimes it would be okay, but he’d like to see at least one of them every couple of months.

“Well?” Mildred asked when we emerged.

“He’s going to have Dr. Park prescribe hormones next week!” I said. “I’ll get them as soon as the Medical Bureau approves them.”

“Let me know if you need me to camp out on their doorstep. I’ve got time now that I’m home-schooling.”

I called Rachel as we were leaving; she said she’d meet us at the restaurant in a few minutes. “I’m already on my way. Where are you?”

“We’re just turning onto Main Street,” I said.

“Okay, I’ll be there when you get there.”

It was easy to spot Rachel; she was sitting in a booth near the front, reading the menu. I approached her, but she didn’t look up from the menu at first, and when I said “Hi, it’s Emily...” she glanced at me and said: “Hi... just a minute,” and went back to reading the menu.

She was wearing a T-shirt tied off in a knot to bare her midriff, and tight jeans. The T-shirt was distorted enough by the knotting that I couldn’t read the text on it, but I thought it might be a band tour shirt.

While I was standing there, at a loss, Mildred and Mom and Dad came in. Finally Rachel looked up from the menu and said: “Hi! You must be Mildred — I remember you from the clinic. And you’re Emily, right?”

“Yes — Hi, Rachel. This is our Mom and Dad.”

“We are pleased to meet you, Rachel,” Dad said. “We shall sit over here, and let you young people have the booth.”

Mildred hesitated a moment, maybe not sure if she was welcome to sit with me and Rachel; I took her hand and looked her in the eyes for a moment before I moved toward the seat and slid into the booth. She sat down next to me, and Rachel across from us, where she’d been before we came in.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t talk to you at first,” Rachel apologized. “I’m kind of obsessed with reading now — I start reading something like that menu and I can’t stop until I finish.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I know what compulsions can be like.”

She was studying me now as intently as she’d studied the menu. “Wow... You told me about your Twist and your trick, but I can hardly believe it, looking at you. You don’t look like a guy at all.”

“You can still see my Adam’s apple in photos,” I said, “but I’ve got my trick working better so it doesn’t show up in mirrors anymore. What about you? Have you figure out what your trick is since we talked a few days ago?”

She shrugged, making her breasts wobble in a way that pierced me with envy. Mine probably weren’t ever going to be that good — they wouldn’t be that big unless I got implants, and in that case they wouldn’t move as naturally. “Still not a clue. The doctors say I must have one, 'cause I’ve got the brain structures for it, but it hasn’t ever kicked in.”

“And your compulsions?”

She scowled. “You can see for yourself how much control I have over them. What about you two? Emily told me some about your Twist, Mildred, but she didn’t say if you had any compulsions...”

“No, not really. Not like y’all.”

“Mine are just as restrictive as yours in a way,” I said, “but they don’t bother me as much as yours seem to bother you. I mean, neither of us can wear boy clothes, but I don’t even want to and you do... or you did? Do you still feel the same way?”

“Kind of. I’m starting to get used to this stuff, I mean how it feels to wear them, but it’s really annoying how guys stare at me.”

“I know,” Mildred said, “but I’d rather they were staring at me for the same reason they stare at you.”

“Ouch. Sorry, I kind of deserved that.”

“Mildred... I know you wish you looked more like her. So do I. But she’s just as uncomfortable with her body as you or me.”

Rachel sighed. “I don’t know. My body isn’t bothering me as much as it did at first, when I was having my period. It’s still kind of jarring sometimes, when I first wake up, or see myself in the mirror, but not as much as at first. But I really hate the way people treat me now. Guys see the way I’m dressed and they jump to conclusions about what kind of girl I am.”

Mildred said: “I kind of feel that way too. I mean, I’m getting used to having scales and being cold-blooded and eating only meat, but I hate being stared at and hearing people whisper about me and stuff.”

I asked, “If you still think of yourself as a guy, why are you going by Rachel? Why not keep calling yourself Richard, to tell people you haven’t changed that much inside?”

She stared at me in consternation. “I never thought of that. Aunt Moira said I’d need a new name now that I was a girl, and I procrastinated about picking one for several days, but I never really questioned that I needed to change my name. Maybe I’ll try that... but even if I called myself Richard, I’d still have to dress like this, and there’s no way I could get most people to treat me as a boy when I look like this.”

“Are you seeing a counselor about this stuff? Dr. Oldstadt referred me to Dr. Underwood; he’s really great.”

“I’ve gone a couple of times to see this lady Dr. Oldstadt referred me to. She thinks I’m in denial about my compulsions, and about my whole Twist... she thinks my compulsions are proof that I’m a girl deep-down, and I just need to relax and go with it.”

I thought about it. I couldn’t prove that counselor was wrong from my own experience — pretty much everyone in my family was happy with their compulsions, except maybe Ryan (I didn’t know him well enough to be sure); even Aunt Wendy was surprisingly cheerful most of the time when I visited her. But I had identified with Rachel on the basis of both of us being unhappy with our bodies, and I took an instinctive dislike to her counselor. She went on:

“...And the people on the forum are nicer about it, but some of them are saying the same thing. Relax and enjoy your compulsions, as long as they’re not hurting you or anybody else.”

“I think maybe you should get a second opinion,” I said. “I don’t know if Dr. Underwood can help you, he kind of came out of retirement to help me, but he said he used to treat a few Twisted like you, too.”

“Is he Twisted too?”

“No...” I hesitated, and decided I shouldn’t tell her he was trans. I still wasn’t sure if it was public knowledge. “He used to treat people like us, people who were unhappy with their bodies and the gender identity other people imposed on them. A few Twisted but mostly norms, back before they started detecting and fixing those kinds of problems prenatally.”

“Huh. You said Dr. Oldstadt referred you to him? I wonder why he didn’t send me to him too. This counselor I’ve been seeing, Dr. Ibiza, she’s Twisted, but not like us... she got a whole set of compulsions, and she mostly sees patients like me who aren’t happy with our compulsions.”

“That sounds like it would be useful... and I don’t know if Dr. Underwood has a lot of experience with Twist compulsions. But I could ask him if he could see you sometime.”

“Thanks.”

I made a note on my tablet about that. Right about then the waitress took our order, and we talked about other things as we ate. Mildred was starting to get a little hungry by now, and she and I shared an order of hot wings. “I can’t eat spicy food anymore,” Rachel said; “I can’t figure out why... it’s not like it’s connected to the rest of my Twist.”

“Things aren’t always that connected, I guess. I mean I don’t know why my Aunt Rhoda has better lungs and has to always wear white and has an illusion trick; what’s the connection between those?”

That got Rachel talking about her family, especially her Aunt Moira and her grandmother, who’d changed like her but unlike her had apparently gotten used to being girls pretty quickly. “Aunt Moira tried out for cheerleading about a week after her Twist. She didn’t make it, but she wound up dating one of the cheerleaders who wouldn’t look at her when she was a guy... And she’s trying to be patient and supportive, but I can tell she’s disappointed that I’m not jumping into girlhood with both feet.”

“What about your Grandma?”

“Grandma Carrie, the one who Twisted like me and Aunt Moira? She died a couple of years ago. Her wife, Grandma Betty, is still around, but I haven’t seen her since my Twist... we’re going to see her for Thanksgiving, though.”

“That’ll be good. We’ve got several out-of-town kinfolks coming to Trittsville for Thanksgiving...”

We talked about our families for a while, and about how people at school were treating us, and even about clothes — she was jealous of me being able to wear skirts, oddly enough. “I can wear skirts, but not loose comfortable ones like you’re wearing. I’ve worn tight skirts once or twice, but pants like these don’t restrict my movement as much.”

Finally we had to go. We promised to keep in touch online, and get together for lunch again sometime, maybe next time I was in Stone Mountain to see Dr. Underwood.

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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