This has to be one of the fastest pieces I've written so far, the whole process, writing, editing, proofing took less than 90 minutes.

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Life is different in 3015, with a few thousand credits, you can have a vacation on one of many worlds Earth's people have settled. I'd decided several months earlier that I'd go to Pentalia VI, a planet that is very similar to Earth, but with nine continents instead of seven and an equatorial circumference of just over 27000 miles. The smallest continent is a bit smaller than Australia on Earth and the largest is about 85% as big as Asia; with two yellow suns in close orbit to each other, the planet is located about 1.8 astronomical units from the twin suns.

I had landed on the continent of Arlakin three days ago and had settled in to relax, the beaches here are gorgeous white expanses of sand. The water is safe for swimming, the only large oceanic creature that could harm humans is quite gentle and usually keeps to deeper waters.

I'd spent most of the last two days on the beaches, either swimming or using a rental surfboard, and I was acquiring a rather nice tan.

My hotel suite had two bedrooms, I hadn't even entered the second one yet, so I decided to take a look. Simple curiosity, you know?

The room itself appeared fairly normal, but there was a closet in the room, which was a bit odd; my room only had a bed, dresser and night table. I opened the closet, and found quite the assortment of women's clothing. A dresser near the bed had a variety of women's underwear and lingerie. There was a large mirror standing on a frame next to the dresser, and what looked like a vanity beside the mirror.

I sat down and thought about it for a moment. Why were these clothes here, had someone left them behind. They looked like they might fit me.

With a shrug and a brief smile, I shucked my clothes and spent several minutes putting on a bra, panties, pantyhose and a pale green dress. I stepped over to the mirror and was looking at myself when the door behind me opened and a young woman walked into the bedroom.

When I turned my head and saw her there, my surprise was such that I stumbled back three steps and tripped, falling onto the bed.

She calmly walked over, offered her hand and gently helped me to stand again, then beckoned me to follow her.

"I apologize for walking in on you like that," she remarked, "but you were not in your room or the living space, you had to be in here."

"I was simply curious about the second bedroom, as you can see, I found these clothing items in there," I replied.

"I noticed," she responded as she led me to the computer on a small table in the corner of the main room, then turned it on and entered some sort of password before tapping in a galactic web page address, which soon showed the laws of the planet Pentalia VI.

"I apologize again," she stated, "but when I found you like that, some laws here automatically came into effect over you."

She took a moment to scroll down the page, stopping at a set of paragraphs numbered as 137a, b, c, etc.

I leaned down to look at the paragraphs, then read them, this place was far stranger than I had ever imagined.

The main clause was pretty clear:

"Any male who is found wearing the clothing of a female shall, from that moment forward, be considered under our laws to be a female."

There were two subclauses that made my stomach fill with acid, the burning sensation was enough to make me somewhat nauseous.

"Any new woman will be completely trained in the arts, ways and manners of women until their actions and reactions are automatic."

That was one of the two, but it was the other one that scared the heck out of me:

"Suicide is not allowed, no new woman may have anything that could be considered as a weapon for at least five years or until a team of three psych officers has given an assessment that the new woman will not pose any risk to herself or to others, whichever time period is longer."

By the way they've worded that, if they think a person might be unstable, they'll keep a close eye on the person for as long as necessary.

There have been many medical advances over the last thousand years, many diseases have been cured, major injuries corrected through cloning of limbs and organs, and the lifespan of a human is much, much longer, averaging about 500 years nowadays.

The oldest living person is a woman aged 612 years, still in reasonably good health considering her very advanced age.

The young woman smiled at me and said, "I went through this almost 42 years ago, dear. My life after I was caught was sooo much better than it had been. You'll go to the clinic tomorrow to have both testicles removed, and you'll get your first shot of NuEstro, much more potent than basic everyday estrogen. Why, thanks to NuEstro, in a few months, you'll be a whole new woman, absolutely gorgeous and utterly feminine!"

She giggled as she swayed toward the exit, then spoke again, "Have a lovely life, dear! Ta ta!" Then she was gone.

I was only being curious, I'm a male, I've never wanted to be female. Now it looks like I no longer have a choice thanks to this planet's laws.

Five hundred years, maybe more, in a body I don't want? Just because of a bit of simple curiosity?

'Oh, shit!' was his last coherent thought as the shock and horror rolled through him; he was unconscious before his body hit the floor.

Two medical robots entered the suite and quickly examined the new girl, then placed her on a stretcher and led it out of the suite.