I’d had a late night writing a short story. The idea had gripped me and I hadn’t wanted to leave it to go to bed whilst it was still clear in my mind. I’d finally got enough of the outline drafted on my laptop by about two. It wasn’t by any means finished, but the story was down and safe from loss due to an erratic memory after sleep. I didn’t want to wake Clara my wife, so since I’d been working on the settee with my laptop on the coffee table I pulled the throw over myself and crashed out.

I’m not too sure what time it was, certainly gone three, when I got up for a coffee. I’d not slept at all well because I’d been suffering from restless leg, also known as Willis-Ekbom disease. I get it from time to time, sometimes in just one leg, some times both. It’s not something you can describe as painful, but it certainty isn’t pleasant. If you look it up it doesn’t sound too bad, trust me it’s grim, especially when you’re tired and want sleep, and it usually hits you at night.

I knew I wasn’t too well because I made my self a white coffee, instant coffee, three sugars and cold milk all into boiling water. I normally drink it black with no sugar and only drink it white when I’m ill. When I’m well the idea of drinking white coffee would make me ill. I drank my coffee watching my legs twitch and jump wondering whether I was going to get any sleep at all when I felt decidedly ill.

I decided a visit to the lavatory might be a good idea as my stomach had started churning and I didn’t feel like being sick. Only the night before I’d read the Chinese government had confirmed two cases of bubonic plague in Beijing. All sorts of silly ideas were floating round in my head; I mean the Black Death wiped out an estimated sixty percent of Eurasia's population taking out possibly two hundred million people. I knew what I’d got was more akin to cholera than bubonic plague which wasn’t much consolation. I’ve never had cholera, and if it’s worse than what I suffered I don’t want to. I can understand why people die from dehydration. I thought it was over, and had taken two steps when I went back for a second appointment with hell. I reached the top of the stairs before returning for my third interview and the bottom of the stairs before my fourth. After that I started threwing up my toenails just for a bit of light relief.

By the time whatever it was that had had me at it’s mercy for what felt like days, and was probably about an hour, had finished with me my restless legs had gone. My legs like the rest of me felt like a cross between a limp rag and a jelly, and as far as I’m aware neither limp rags nor jelly have nerves to twitch. Seriously weakened, I went down stairs and took two Loperamide tablets and drank a stubby [short wide bottle] of two point six percent Lidl French beer to boot. I was thirsty, and I keep the low strength beer for hot days when I’m doing a bit outside. It’s the lowest strength beer I know of other than the alcohol and taste free stuff, and the taste isn’t bad. After a wash in the kitchen sink, I opened another stubby just in case.

Eventually I fell asleep to wake up at I guess about nine staring at the untouched beer on the coffee table. I went for a pee outside, to discover I now lacked the where with all to do that. Over the years, I’d often speculated what I would do if that ever happened to me. I’ve been writing off the wall fiction, a lot concerning identity issues, for years and my first thought was, “Fuck me!” which I hastily dismissed, it being a little too close to something I wasn’t ready to face for comfort. Trust me the reality of sitting down for a pee for the first time at my age is nothing like speculative fiction would lead one to believe. As a life long member of the shake dry community being transformed into a member of the drip dry community is initially soul searing, even if I did remember to wipe.

When I told Clara my wife, who before she retired was a midwife, she was ok about it, but wanted to see, which I thought was fair enough, after all I’d seen hers often enough over the years. “Well, you’ve certainly got everything I’ve got and in all the right places.” She produced a speculum and said, “Welcome to the club, you’re about to have your first internal, but I love you, so I’ve warmed the speculum.” A couple of minutes later, “As far as I can tell, internally you’re just the same as the rest of us. Give it a month or two and we’ll know whether you’ve had your menopause or not. Despite your age, I suspect not. What the hell do we do now, Simon?” As I said I’ve been writing trans and other identity issues fiction for years, and obviously that means I’ve been considering the implications of such events for years too. It has always seemed to me the most pressing issue is establishing one’s identity and having a right to access one’s own money.

I was sixty-seven, and Clara sixty-nine. We were both drawing our state pension, so the first thing was to get some sort of documentation as to what had happened. I rang my GP for an appointment. I still looked like me, but sort of feminised in the face like a woman in her early fifties, so convincing him I was me was no problem. What he had to say blew me away. It seems I was by no means the first this had happened to. I was his eleventh such patient, and it had been happening for fourteen months. He said it was a global occurrence and that my DNA and body would take time to finish changing, so he would take samples now, so as to provide evidence that the central medical authority dealing with the matter could use to help me over any issues at a later date. He told me there was a legal mechanism to deal with it all, and he would inform them, so they could send me forms to fill in for the legal transfer of my assets, including my pension once I had decided what I wished to be officially named, which required a new kind of deed poll document they would send me with everything else.

He also said if I followed the path the others had my body could take up to six months to finish changing, and physiologically I would probably end up as a woman of about thirty in perfect health and I would most likely look like one of my female relatives. My mother and her mother were slender women of moderate bust and hips which I thought would be ok, but my dad’s mother was considered to be the epitome of Island beauty, the ideal shape to build haycocks behind so one could pile up enough hay to get it heavy enough not to blow away in the wind: approximately a cube somewhere between five foot two and five foot six a side, which would not be so good.

He asked me if I would like him to send my details to others like me, so they could contact me. I agreed to that, and to seeing him once a fortnight for DNA samples, so my identity could never be challenged by any of the private pension companies I had funds with. Apparently initially there had been a lot seeing opportunities to avoid paying out to their investors. He said after the first legal challenge had resulted in a heavy fine and a heavier compensation award that had now stopped, but it was as well to be on the safe side.

Clara and I decided that Simone would be ok and not difficult for me to get used to. She carried on calling me Sigh, or that’s how she said she spelt it. Initially my own clothes fitted, but that didn’t last as I soon lost weight and height, narrowed at the waist and acquired enlarged hips and a bosom. Shoes were a problem as my feet seemed to have dropped from a men's size eight [US 8½, EU 42] to a ladies’ size four [US 6, EU 37] overnight. Clara’s clothes wouldn’t fit because she was a big lady, so we went internet shopping to get a ‘starter outfit’ so I could go out shopping for clothes with her. To my delight, my diabetes disappeared, as did all the other undesirable quirks of my body, both those due to age and those not. Restless leg, carpel tunnel and middle age myopia were all gone. The severely astigmatic and nearly useless right eye I’d had since early childhood now had perfect sight.

A month after my transition Clara started to lose weight and age too. We went to see our GP together. He said it’s now a commonplace occurrence for women married to someone like me, and she would probably end up looking like she did when thirty. He asked if anyone else lived in our house because it’s likely it will happen to them too. Fortunately not. The surprising thing to us both was he said that once at thirty as far as anyone could tell we wouldn’t age. It wasn’t long before Clara’s arthritis, heart arrhythmias due to inherited long QT, vertigo and metal allergy disappeared and she was in perfect health too.

We’d talked about our relationship, and wondered what would happen to our interests. I was always a handy kind of bloke and had a well equipped workshop, and as far as I was aware was still interested in such matters. Clara had only stopped dress making and knitting due to her arthritis, but was knitting for the first time in years. We wondered how many this was happening to, and what was going to happen to society if it became mostly women in their thirties. Interestingly the first recorded case in the US was a hard line baptist preacher in Abilene Texas who had been reviling the entire LGBT community from the pulpit for years. One has to wonder what the consequences will be if this sweeps through the bible belt in the States.

Clara and I decided that we had too much invested in each other to change, and if that meant a lesbian relationship so be it. For the foreseeable future we had no interest in further children. This morning I was invited to meet with others like me and I asked if Clara could come too. I was told certainly, apparently this had been the death of most marriages, but we are determined to make ours work come hell or high water. I seem to be starting to look like my mum which is not much different from what Clara looked like at thirty. We’re hoping to be able to borrow each other’s clothes. All told it’s not been a bad experience, though I still struggle fastening my bras behind my back, and though sex is different neither of us have enjoyed it as much in years. However, I’m still not sure whether a few days of PMS a month is worse than shaving every day or not, but as Clara put it, “Now we’ll know for sure what the other is undergoing, won’t we?”