“It’s official,” I told Amy when I got back from the shower. “I’m going to be a girl.”

 

“Oh,” she said, and then she came over and sat next to me on my bed. “Are you going to be okay?”

 

“I... I think so. It’s something to have the uncertainty out of the way. I don’t know how much longer it’s going to take before I have to start wearing bras and, um, and tampons. And start noticing boys.” Or maybe girls, but that wasn’t likely.

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You Could Go Home Again

part 3 of 16

by Trismegistus Shandy

This story is my "Valentine Divergence" setting, like my earlier stories "Butterflies are the Gentlest", A House Divided, and "Nora and the Nomads". I've tried to write it as a stand-alone, but if you find it confusing, reading those earlier stories first, or at least "Butterflies are the Gentlest", might help.

Thanks to Unicornzvi, epain, and Scott Jamison for their comments on the first draft.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. So are my last several stories posted here, although I forgot to put the CC license notice in some of them.

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By the end of my second week of school, I was sure. The puffiness behind my nipples was too marked to be my imagination, and I was pretty sure the pee-hole between my legs was getting longer if not deeper.

“It’s official,” I told Amy when I got back from the shower. “I’m going to be a girl.”

“Oh,” she said, and then she came over and sat next to me on my bed. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I... I think so. It’s something to have the uncertainty out of the way. I don’t know how much longer it’s going to take before I have to start wearing bras and, um, and tampons. And start noticing boys.” Or maybe girls, but that wasn’t likely.

“I wish I could help more, but... I don’t really know what you’re going through. I’ve never worn a bra or had a period. I guess our blooming is kind of similar, but it’s only once a year, not once a month.”

“For Raleigh rabbits it’s every six weeks. One advantage we have over old-style humans.” I laughed nervously.

“Probably Rob or Sarah can help you.”

“Yeah. I’ll go talk to them — when Rico’s not around.”

---

But first, I got up and ate breakfast early, when the dining hall was almost empty, so I could go by the clinic before Biology. Katie Cartwright was sitting in the waiting room, a bloody makeshift bandage around his hand.

“What happened?” I asked, sitting next to him.

“Freak accident,” he said. “I cut my hand trying to open a package of batteries. How are you settling in? Ah — Joel, right?”

“Classes are going pretty well, and I’ve met several cool people.”

“That’s good. You join any clubs yet?”

“No... I wanted to make sure I’m able to keep up with my classes before I get involved with anything like that.”

“Probably a good idea. Don’t study so hard you forget to enjoy life, though. What are you here for?”

“Um, I haven’t decided on my major yet —”

“No, I mean in the clinic,” and he waved his bandaged hand.

“Oh.” My ears twitched. “Uh, just a general checkup. I haven’t had a physical back home in quite a while, and I’ve never seen a doctor who was familiar with Raleigh rabbit biology, so...”

“Yeah, better let them check you out. No telling what growing up in isolation might have done to you.”

The nurse called him back then, and I waited a while longer, studying, before she called me.

“What seems to be the trouble?” she asked, starting to check my vital signs. She was a Greensboro tiger.

“Well... my puberty was delayed because of growing up in isolation from other Raleigh rabbits. Now that I’m here, it seems to be finally starting, and I wanted to have you check and make sure it’s working right.”

The nurse drew several vials of blood, weighed me, and measured my height. I’d put on half an inch and several pounds since the last time I measured myself back in Hebron.

When Dr. Mathers came in — a female Raleigh rabbit — she listened to my story, then asked me to change into a hospital gown so she could examine me. She felt the puffiness around my nipples, and looked carefully at the space between my legs.

“You look like a child of about twelve or thirteen who’s developing into a girl,” she said. “If you were a child, I’d expect you to have your first period in three to six months. But at your age... I can’t tell. I want you to come in once a week to have your height and weight measured, and for blood tests, to make sure the hormone levels are right.”

“Okay, I will. Is there anything else I need to do?”

“Not yet. Once your vagina is fully formed, you should start wearing a pad just in case your period starts sooner than we expect. And once I have two or three weeks' worth of blood test results, I may decide to start you on hormone shots if the levels don’t look right. I’ll order an ultrasound in about a month to see if your internal organs are forming correctly. But for now let’s see if nature takes care of everything.

“Another thing. I don’t think it will be safe to put you on birth control until after you’ve finished puberty, or at least until we have more data on how your puberty is proceeding. So if you want to become sexually active soon after your vagina is fully formed — which I don’t recommend —”

“I won’t,” I hastily interrupted. “I’m not planning to date, much less have sex, until at least a few months after I finish puberty.”

I was late to Biology, so I didn’t call Aunt Ellen and Uncle Tyler with the news right away. After English, I told Amy, Radhika and Rob what the doctor had said.

“Welcome to the club,” Rob said, and gave me a hug. “Do you want to go shopping again this weekend?”

I hesitated. Did I want to start wearing girly clothes just because I was developing girl parts? “Let’s wait a few weeks,” I said. “I’ve already grown half an inch and if I buy stuff now it won’t fit when I’m finished growing.”

“You’ll probably have to buy new things several times in the next two or three years,” she said, “if you grow as much as a young teen does and at the same rate.”

“Well, I’m going to keep wearing what I’ve got while it fits. When I outgrow it, we can go shopping.”

“Deal!”

---

That evening, I left Amy studying in our room and went out for a walk in front of the dorm. When I was out of earshot of anybody, I called home.

“Joel? How are you doing?”

“Pretty well, Aunt Ellen. I — um, I went to see the doctor today, at the school clinic. She examined me and did some blood tests, and... she said I’m developing into a girl.”

There was a long silence at the other end of the line. When I was about to fill it, Aunt Ellen said: “Oh, Joel, I’m sorry. I know you wanted to be a boy.”

“It will be okay,” I said. “I’ve got friends here who will help me through it. One who’s been through the same thing — well, not the long delay and isolation part, but she was a boy until the Divergence and then she developed as a girl a few years later.”

“I’m glad you’re making friends there, Joel. I wish we could come see you, but...”

“I’ll see you at Christmas. Maybe I’ll be wearing bras by then.”

“Remember what I told you. I can’t make you do something you don’t want to do, now, but I think you’ll be happier if you listen.”

“I will, Aunt Ellen.” I’ll try, I thought. But maybe once my new girl hormones got through with my brain, I’d find it hard to remember and pay attention to Aunt Ellen’s warnings about boys and sex. Or to my own observations of how boys — Lincoln bison boys, anyway — acted around girls.

She called Uncle Tyler to the phone and we chatted for a few more minutes before I hung up and went back inside.

---

Two weeks later, I’d grown another half inch in height and a couple of inches in the hips. Some of my shirts were getting tight in the shoulders, and there was only one pair of pants I could fit into anymore. I had to go shopping.

Rico gave Sarah, Rob and me a ride to the mall again. Amy didn’t come with us; she had a test to study for. Rico dropped us off and said he’d meet us for supper.

“Come on,” Sarah said. “Macy’s is having a sale, let’s start there.”

At first I just got a few T-shirts that were too big for me, but not ridiculously big; stuff I could grow into. I tried on some blouses that fit better, but I didn’t want to spend that much money on stuff I’d probably outgrow within weeks at the rate I was going. But when it came to covering my legs, Sarah and Rob had good arguments for going with skirts.

“If you buy a pair of pants, they’ll be too tight on you pretty soon. But a skirt that’s long on you now will be just right when you finish growing; you can adjust the waist.”

When I still balked at it, they pointed out that some Raleigh rabbit males wore skirts — a lot of adults who transformed soon after the Divergence refused to change their clothing style just because they’d changed sex, and the custom had started to spread to some of the neighboring change-regions. I’d never seen a man of any neospecies wearing a skirt in Hebron or Lincoln, but if it was okay around here, okay... besides, I was soon going to be a girl now and should get used to it.

So I wound up with three ankle-length skirts, which were a little loose and needed a belt, and then bought a discounted pair of tennis shoes (my old shoes were starting to pinch by then). I ditched my too-tight pants and wore the denim skirt out of the store. I bought new panties, too; I didn’t need bras yet, but it probably wouldn’t be much longer.

“You’re looking kind of cute there, kid,” Rico said when we found him at the food court a few hours later. “I might say pretty if my girlfriends weren’t standing right here.”

Rob swatted him on the arm; Sarah rolled her eyes. My ears were twitching something fierce; I sat down opposite him. Were his eyes glancing at my little baby breasts? I’d noticed boys doing that to girls back home, but... now it was happening to me. I felt like I was going to cry, and I didn’t want to do it in front of Rico.

“I’m going to the restroom,” I said, and walked off. Rob came with me. I hesitated between the restroom doors, and then followed Rob into the ladies' room.

It was the first time I’d entered a ladies' room. I’d always used the men’s room back home, and for the first few weeks at college — though the restrooms in the dorm and some of the others on campus were unisex. But my breasts were getting just big enough to notice; I couldn’t hide the fact that I was becoming a girl.

I managed to avoid bursting into tears until I was sitting in a stall. The stream of pee was getting wider and messier every day as my pee-hole widened and deepened; I needed more toilet paper to wipe than I used to. It was another reminder of what was happening to me.

“Are you okay, Joel?” Rob asked from the next stall.

“I guess. No, not really. It’s just too much all at once.”

After we flushed and washed our hands — and I’d washed my face — she put her hands on my shoulders and turned me to face her. She looked me up and down and said: “You’re going to be a beautiful girl.”

I started to cry again. She went on: “And it’s going to be awesome. You’ll really like being a girl once you get over the shock. If you don’t have two or three boys asking you out within a week after you start needing bras, I’ll buy you a new dress.”

“I’m not sure I want that,” I said. “I’m — maybe it was a mistake to come here. I should have gone to school in Nebraska where I’d be safe...”

“What are you worried about?”

“Being attracted to boys. Not being able to control myself. Sex. Getting pregnant. STDs...”

She hugged me. “You’re seeing a doctor at the clinic every week, right? Ask them to prescribe you birth control before your system’s finished changing. And be sensible, make sure your guy’s protecting you. You’ve nothing to worry about if you take reasonable precautions.” She took a tissue from her purse and wiped my eyes. “And if you want advice about boys, once you start feeling attracted to them, you know who to ask.”

“Thanks.”

“Come on, let’s go back and eat.”

“I — okay. But can you punch Rico in the arm if he looks at my breasts again?”

She laughed. “I’ll make him regret it.”

---

A couple of weeks later, Dr. Mathers was able to get a speculum several inches into my new vagina. She sent me over to Raleigh General Hospital for an ultrasound, which confirmed that my ovaries and uterus were forming and looked normal. What wasn’t normal was how fast this was happening; after a slow first couple of weeks, I seemed to be going through several years' development in a few months. I needed A-cup bras by Halloween, not to keep my breasts from wobbling but to keep the nipples from showing. As with some other girls including Rob, my lower breasts were a little bigger than the upper ones, but not (not yet anyway) a full cup size difference.

I still wasn’t feeling any attraction to boys, and I knew there was a slight chance I might end up attracted to girls; sometimes I’d look at the people sitting in front of me in class, or at the next table in the dining hall, wondering “Is he attractive? Is she?” I could tell that some people were good-looking, but none of them made my nipples hard or my crotch wet any more than a beautiful butterfly or a beautiful waterfall.

One Saturday near the end of October, I went shopping again with Amy and Radhika. Rob and Sarah were going somewhere with Rico, but Radhika had a car. It was so old it had a steering wheel and an emergency switch to operate it manually if the self-driving software failed. I was outgrowing some of the stuff I’d bought a few weeks earlier, including my new shoes. And worse, I was getting too tall to use my cane without leaning over; I needed a longer one. With puberty changing the shape of my hips, my old injury was aching worse than usual and I really needed the cane all the time, not just on rough ground or stairs.

A couple of days later, I met Katie coming out of the library. “Joel? Is that you?”

“Yeah,” I said self-consciously.

“I see you decided which way to go. You look nice.”

“Thanks,” I said. I wondered what he meant by “decided” and decided it was a joke.

“Have you thought about joining any clubs yet?”

“Yeah, I went with the science club on a trip to the natural history museum weekend before last.” George had gotten involved with the science club his first day, and had invited me to join; I took him up on it after I got my first couple of exam grades and decided I could afford to take some time from studying to socialize more.

“Well, the science fiction and fantasy society is having a Halloween party Thursday night. Costumes, of course, but they don’t have to be fancy. You might enjoy that.”

Was he inviting me on a date? Rob had predicted that guys would start asking me out soon after I started having to wear bras.

“I might come,” I said, and we stood there looking at each other for a few more seconds before he said: “Well, I’ll see you around if I don’t see you there.”

So it wasn’t a date per se, or he’d have been more definite. But I decided I’d go to the party anyway.

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I've gotten locked out of my Gmail account, so my old Gmail address doesn't work anymore. If you've sent me email to that address in the last couple of weeks, please send me a private message on BigCloset so I can send you my new email address.

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Four of my novels and one short fiction collection are available from Smashwords in ePub format and from Amazon in Kindle format. Smashwords pays its authors better than Amazon.

The Bailiff and the Mermaid	Smashwords	Amazon
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