“This is a real concern Amanda. The conditioning your son has been under has changed him dramatically. This conditioning was essential however. I suggest that you look at this as a starting point with your daughter. Things will not be the same as they used to but that’s the price that is paid with this treatment.”
"There is nothing that can be done to bring back all the good things about my son? Is he lost forever?” Amanda pleaded.
“Yes, I’m afraid so. If he were to remember his former life now it would be deadly. His mind would not be able to cope and he would be irreversibly damaged. That is why the bi-weekly check-ins were so important. The program could have been stopped at any time during the first quarter if you wished.”
The two ladies helped Jessie into the car. He was able to walk on his own with some assistance. His mind was cloudy. He drifted in and out of thought. He knew that he was in trouble but could not phantom what to do about it.
“Everything is going to be ok sweetie, just relax ok?” Amanda tried comforting her daughter.
“Umph, isth zumph” Jessie tried responding only to produce gargled words.
As they headed to the clinic, Jessie drifted in and out of consciousness. He heard his mom and grandma arguing with each other. They seemed very frustrated. He wasn’t sure how long they had been driving but it seemed like an eternity. The next thing he realized was that he was sitting on a padded table…wait, it was a in a doctor’s room.
“Hey there Jessica, are you there?” Some strange woman in nurses’ scrubs asked.
“She’s pretty out of it. We gave her the needle.” Susan replied.
“I see. Yeah, you can understand me right Jessica? She is able to comprehend what is going on around here but the tranquilizer is pretty powerful. She is in a dream-like state right now.”
“Yeth, itz hett” Jessie replied trying to form words. No use!
“Ok, well Dr. Katz will be in here shortly. He is anxious to see her development. Go ahead and help her out of her dress and get her into this gown. She can keep her panties and bra on but will have to take of her pantyhose.” The nurse instructed.
“Alright. “ Amanda replied as she helped Jessie to his feet.
She unzipped his dress and let it fall to the floor. She then grabbed either side of his pantyhose and gently pulled them down and had him step out of them.
“What a beautiful girl. She is absolutely perfect and nothing like that awful boy who used to be there.” Susan stated.
“Please don’t mom. This is hard for me and you know it.” Amanda griped as she helped her daughter into the pink gown.
“Hello there, I’m Doctor Katz. Nice to see you again Susan. This must be Amanda and of course Jessica. How are you?”
“I’m worried about my daughter. She was very distraught this afternoon.”
“Yes, well that happens at the finish of our program. It is the start of the final stage. Can I have a look at you Jessica? Don’t worry, these tranquilizers will weaken soon.”
Jessie felt the doctor open up his gown. The room was very cold.
“The body is very well developed. Could you help her out of her bra mom? I’d like to see where we are.”
Amanda reached around Jessie’s back, unsnapped the clasps and guided the straps through his arms. He had larger breasts than she did.
“Breasts are very advanced in comparison with girls her age. You have done well with the hormones.” The doctor replied as he physically checked his boobs. Jessie felt uncomfortable with the strange man feeling his chest like that. Since when did he have that sense of privacy concerning his chest?
“Ok, now let’s lay you down Jessica…good girl. I want to see how you have progressed.” The doctor said and he nudged down Jessie’s panties. He probed his miniscule penis and nether regions.
“She has excessive atrophy of the penis. This amount of shrinkage is rare but will not adversely affect anything.”
“Can I ask what happened to his testicles?” Amanda asked.
“The high dosage of female hormones that have doused Jessica’s body over the last several months have an amazing effect on creating the secondary female characteristics. The penis and testicles need testosterone to thrive and exist. They could not survive in the ultra elevated feminine hormone levels.”
“So what is going to happen now?” Susan asked.
“Well, Jessica is ready for the final stage. We will perform the sexual re-assignment surgery and give her a functioning vagina. This will complete the physical transformation and set her mind at ease. The next three weeks will be spent resting here at the clinic while completing the end stage of the mental conditioning.”
“Three weeks?”
“Oh yes. Jessica is at a very volatile stage. She is dependent on the tapes. The three weeks of mental conditioning will solidify her thoughts so that she will no longer need the tapes. She will be complete.”
Amanda grew distressed.
“Doctor, I’m having concerns about this. I know my son needed a change. He was on a destructive path that needed intervention. I don’t miss the behavior but I miss my son. I miss his personality and although he had his quirks, they were his. The program has taken away any trace of my Jessie. I am left with a stranger.”
“Oh Amanda…” Susan replied rolling her eyes.
“This is a real concern Amanda. The conditioning your son has been under has changed him dramatically. This conditioning was essential however. I suggest that you look at this as a starting point with your daughter. Things will not be the same as they used to but that’s the price that is paid with this treatment.”
"There is nothing that can be done to bring back all the good things about my son? Is he lost forever?” Amanda pleaded.
“Yes, I’m afraid so. If he were to remember his former life now it would be deadly. His mind would not be able to cope and he would be irreversibly damaged. That is why the bi-weekly check-ins were so important. The program could have been stopped at any time during the first quarter if you wished.”
“Bi-weekly check-ins? We never got any check-ins.” Amanda replied confused.
“Of course you did. It is an essential part of the program. If the progress is too extreme hormone levels can be adjusted as well as the tapes.”
“I didn’t want you bothered with those details Amanda. I handled the calls and everything was fine.” Susan responded trying to defend herself.
“You never told me about any of this mom.”
“It wasn’t anything I thought you should be concerned with. I kept a close tab on the communication with the clinic.” Susan snapped back.
“Well, according to the charts, Susan did keep close communication with the clinic. I will get you the file to look over.” The doctor replied.
Amanda wasn’t sure what to do. She began to feel some betrayal by her mom and felt very ignorant in her son’s condition. Was the doctor correct? It was too late wasn’t it? Could she live with every aspect of her son lost forever? Did she have a choice?
“I’m going to have to ask the two of you to have a seat in the waiting room while we prep Jessica. We will call you back in shortly.”
“You’re not operating right now are you?” Amanda asked with her voice quivering.
“No ma’am. We are getting him ready though. We will need some paperwork signed off on before we proceed.”
The two headed out of the room.
“Ok Jessica, let’s get you prepped up.” The nurse said as she popped the head cap over his hair.
“Everything is going to be great in a little bit. I know you’re feeling groggy right now but soon you will be in fantastic shape!”
Jessie felt a prick in his wrist and saw the small needle being taped. The tiny tube led up to a bag full of liquid. He recognized it as an IV bag.
He heard some clanking coming from the bottom edge of the bed. The nurse was busy doing something.
“Ok, I’m going to attach your legs in here. I warmed the metal up so I hope it’s not too cold.”
Jessie felt the nurse’s hands around his right leg. He felt his leg being lifted and his knee being bent. Wow, that was pretty cold he thought. His right leg felt elevated and splayed to the right a little. The nurse did the same with his left leg. He then felt a strap wrap around his ankles keeping his feet firmly in place. The position he was in felt odd. He was lying on his back. His legs were hoisted high and spread apart…oh no! It dawned on him what was going on. He was in stirrups. The kind of stirrups they use on women…he was going to become a woman! His heart raced as the nurse placed a mask on his face.
“Ok pretty girl, just breath easily and count to 10. There ya go sweeeettttttyyyyy.”
Darkness.
Comments
Aww..poor thing. Great
Aww..poor thing. Great story, I've been hooked since chapter 1!
Stopping it
I don't think the mother will sign the papers. It should be Jessie's choice whether to complete the change.
This has been an enjoyable if disturbing story.
Hilltopper
I Wonder If That Evil ****** Of A Grandmother
Did the same thing to Jessie's mother? Does that ***** have something against free will?
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
Amanda Should Have Stood Up For Her Child
Amanda still failed to stand up for her child. If I had been in that room, I would have gone ballistic when I found out my mother kept me completely in the dark, but she calmly just let the b***ch off without doing anything to her. I would have whirled around and knocked her out and clocked the doctor that did this, but NO she let her weak backbone show again.At least she feels some remorse, but in the end, she failed her child. When will she figure out that her mother is pure evil?
story
This clinic is on a highly ilegal program no matter what paperwork is signed. The mother failed her child the moment she went with the program. To take away the choice,reasoningand mental identity of a person is the same as killing them. A person cchanging comes from their understanding of themselves and effect it has on others...without this we would be robots...Thats the reason we are here is it not. Its a good story .I hope for the best but am fearing the worst now.
Honestly, now ...
... by this point in the story, shouldn't one of the keywords be "horror tale"? Even if Jessie's mother pulls his fat out of the fire at the last minute, that is what this surely is.
In Defense Of This Fantasy
I have been following and enjoying this story since it first appeared on FM. From the earliest chapters I could tell it was destined to become a classic of the BB2GG genre. I began to look forward to each short installment with increasing pleasure. The pacing, the dialog, and the character interaction of AshleyTS' mildly sardonic prose all worked together to create a fantastic (and by that I mean in the realm of fantasy) take on this particular motif (i.e. the females in the family of a nasty young male force him into feminism). It quickly became my favorite serial - TG or otherwise*.
I was thus very happy to see TSOJ re-emerge on Top Shelf, the best managed, best edited and classiest TG Fiction site on (or off) the internet. Now, I hoped, this great story would get the treatment that FM could not afford to give it.
I. personally, believe the biggest villain in this story is Jesse. He was a horrible person who is only truly redeemed as a human being when he is transformed into Jessica, who is a wonderful girl. She's beautiful and intrinsically feminine and she'd make a great mother someday; you just know she'll contribute to society in a way that Jesse could never. As for the 'free will' argument, I don't buy it: what if they don't turn him into a girl and that vile boy murders someone innocent? He sure is on track to do something evil. 'Why a girl?' you have asked, 'why not just modify his behavior and make him a better boy?' Well because the cosmic design of this story (after all it is a BB2GG) has decided that Jesse would be better off as Jessica. Would you despise the SRU wizard's gender bending? Would call the Judge in Ovid a horrible villain and detest him for not letting his 'victims' choose their gender?
In real life, yeah, that would be awful if a mother brainwashed her son into going against his gender. I understand how this concept particularly riles the TG community who must survive in a society that, in a very real sense, attempts to brainwash TG folk into behaving like a gender with which they can not identify. But this is fiction and one must suspend one's disbelief to enjoy it. We can question how possible or probable it is to brainwash somebody with tapes or we can accept the plot device. We can question whether his mother and grandmother have the moral authority to make this decision or we can accept that they simply facilitated the inevitable metamorphosis that the title of the story dictated.
Mostly, however I am making a comment on this site for the first time ever because I wanted to assure you. Ashley, that I have faith in your ability to spin a great yarn, no matter which way you take it from here, and I bet there are probably hundreds like me out there who love your writing, have followed you from FM to BC, but for one reason or another have not let you know how much we appreciate Jesse's softening. I can see that sometimes you are susceptable to suggestions made in the comments, so here's my two cents: trust in your instincts and keep up the good work.
(*especially after that other shining jewel 'Being Christina Chase' went on hiatus - yeah, Admiral, I'm one of your more than 3 fans)
you have a point
you make a wonderful point that alot of readers seem to have forgotten about in chapters 1 and 2. to be fair, that was a lot of chapters ago.
BUt now that Jessie has changed, shes alot more caring and understanding. he was willing to work things out with mom but his grandmother seems to have her own plan and hid it from his mom, doesnt care about her objections or feelings. hopefully she will get hers and Jessie mom will boot her out of her daughter/sons life or have her arrested.
Very well put.
Very well put.
In Defense of Jessie
I have followed this story from its beginning her on BC and have seen it go from something of a comedy to a vivid and very real horror. My feelings on this are sort of mixed. While I enjoyed it as a comedy, the horror aspect of this is tearing at me and how I feel about Jessie. I do subscribe with the author's inclusion that Jessie would be better of as a girl rather than a boy through the elements she had introduced into the story. The reason I am not upset at that is because we, as the audience, truly don't know if Jessie really was a girl inside and rebelled out of unconscious anger at being a boy or if Jessie was a boy hormonally out of control. We just don't know as of yet, and maybe never will. But the turning of Jessie into a girl had some good side effects that benefited and improved the character of Jessie into Jessica.
What we saw when Jessie came back from the fog into Jessica's body is basically Jessie with his core personality modified and molded by all the forces and experiences as Jessica. It is indeed Jessie there, but a much more calmer, emotionally stable child in reference to himself as a person once the initial shock was let down. His irrational behavior from before was gone. Jessie, to me, seemed more at peace being a girl once the situation was realized, rather than a wild return to what he had been before. The thinking processes inside him have changed. If he wasn't a girl before mentally, Jessie is definitely is a girl now.
The cruelty of how this was done still gnaws at me in a bad way even though the end result of Jessie into Jessica feels right to me. It is a little difficult for me to really phrase out why I feel that way, but I just do.
That Jessie wants to stop the process and consider what his options are, that I do defend. Now that his thinking has been streamlined and is much clearer, I believe he should have the chance to see what he could make of his life rather than have it fatally decided for him without a choice. If he is lobotomized into a girl and surgically assigned as a girl against his will past this point, I think my feelings about this story will change. I will still read The Softening of Jessie even if it happens, but I will not have the enthusiasm nor the internal happiness in knowing Jessie had found peace within himself to be the person he should have been because now he would be a puppet of an evil person with no control over himself or his future - trapped in a body not of his own choice. And that is a horror I find distasteful to the extreme.
As for the where this story goes, I do find myself somewhat hoping that Jessie would decide to be Jessica, not because it is too late and his body has been changed - but because he feels natural as a girl, that it all feels right and that is what he was all along, albeit subconsciously and has now been freed to be herself.
I do feel for Jessie whether he wants to be Jessie or Jessica, neither really matters. What does matter to me is that Jessie as a person is happy with whoever Jessie decides to be.
The darkness and real life touch that has now pervaded this story has dampened my light-hearted feeling of this as a "I Love Lucy Serial" to something much scarier.
These are my thoughts pertaining to this wonderful story.
val
Identity death is death!
** Would you despise the SRU wizard's gender bending? Would call the Judge in Ovid a horrible villain and detest him for not letting his 'victims' choose their gender? **
YES.
If you read all the SRU stories by all the various authors, the Wizard comes across as amoral. In some stories he has done good as most see it, and in some bad. The one constant seems to be that he takes pleasure in what he does/has done. What he wants to do seems the main criteria for what he does.
The Judge certainly believes - or would like us to believe that he believes - that what he does is for the good of those he does it to, but isn't it strange that what's good for them is always what's good for carrying out the Judge's plan? (Sort of like pre-Civil War slaveowners rationalizing what they did as for the good of their slaves.) There are hints in the stories, also, that the judge isn't above arranging deadly accidents for those he wants in Ovid and that who remembers a past life is not as random as he would have everyone else believe. The Judge also has no concern for collateral changes when he changes reality to "erase" his transformee - see Ovid 12, The Rescuer.
Susan and especially the Doc are guilty of first degree murder and Amanda is an accessory to the crime. Jesse was tried and convicted and sentenced to death by two people, supposedly for his own good - how can it be for his good if he no longer exists? - and for the good of society, for crimes he had not yet committed. The Doc seems quite willing to do the actual execution if that is what the women who are paying him want.
Identity death is as much death as if the victim had been physically killed; the unique individual who existed before is gone. If Jessica has no memory of ever having been Jesse, with no hope of ever remembering - which is what, if I understand correctly, the Doc is now going to insure - and has memories of growing up as Jessica. There is no more Jesse; he has been destroyed. He will not benefit one bit from what has been done to him, only his replacement will.
ACLU Jezzi
BE a lady!
Radical Solution
I think part of the problem we have is believing that Jessie is irredeemable as a male. For the most part we only got a summary of how bad Jessie was without having to experience it first hand. In addition, there are some things that just don’t seem to add up, such as Jessie’s involvement in sports which is unusual with "troubled" youths.
In part one it seems that the idea of feminizing Jessie was sprung on Amanda shortly before they started.
"Amanda dear, you said it yourself that Jessie is a lost cause. It is 6pm and he has not come home yet. He could be dead or in jail for all we know. Extreme situations require extreme measures. Would you rather have a son who is in jail by the time he is out of high school? A son who has no respect or love for his mom or anyone else? A son who has no future? Or would you rather have a daughter who functions as a successful member of society? Give it some time dear...think about this one."
Amanda was taken aback by all this new information. Her son becoming a girl? The thought was absurd...but what options did she have? She had already tried counseling, punishment, threats...nothing worked. Just then Jessie came storming into the house with a new skateboard in his hand.
This seems to indicate that Amanda wasn’t given much if any time to evaluate the program and consider other options. It's not even clear if the program was ever fully expained to Amanda. I'm suprised the doctor's would have agreed to take on Jessie as a patient without discussing things with Amanda.
It also says:
According to the consultation and scores Susan received for Jessie, he was off the charts
When and by whom was the evaluation done? This is described as an experimental program so how certain are they of their evaluation standards?
Also once they start, all we ever see is a very compliant Jessie, willingly taking the drugs and listening to the CDs. After the first night Amanda was pleased with the “new†Jessie. This seems to imply that Jessie doesn’t require the radical changes of the full program.
"I think I may like the new Jessie," Amanda exuberantly told her mom.
When Doctor Katz at the clinic hears that Amanda was unaware of the bi-weekly check-ins he should have immediately stopped everything. This a strong indication that there was no informed consent for the process and a good chance that there is going to be legal problems.
“Bi-weekly check-ins? We never got any check-ins.†Amanda replied confused.
“Of course you did. It is an essential part of the program. If the progress is too extreme hormone levels can be adjusted as well as the tapes.â€
“I didn’t want you bothered with those details Amanda. I handled the calls and everything was fine.†Susan responded trying to defend herself.
“You never told me about any of this mom.â€
“It wasn’t anything I thought you should be concerned with. I kept a close tab on the communication with the clinic.†Susan snapped back.
There is also a discrepancy in that Susan is supposed to be Amanda’s mother but in part one we are told that she went thorough all of these problems with Jessie’s father, implying that she is the father's mother not Amanda’s.
Susan, on the other hand, had seen this all dozens of years before when she was being called into the principal's office when Jessie's dad was his age.
Michelle B
A possible twist
I agree 100% with all of what is being said. However I still believe that maybe the reason that Amanda was so insistent on it was that she had done it before. Maybe the reason the doctors were able to do things with out Susan's permission is because Jessie's real mother died early or something and Susan is really Jessie's dad. We never really hear what happened to him other than he went to jail what if Jessie's mom was killed while Jessie was still a newborn or something because of his dad and Amanda decided that Jessie needed his mom so he turned his dad into Susan and made him think he was the mom and not the dad. In this process she could've been told to obey Amanda and trust her decisions. Therefore subconsciously she would have no choice to not protest what Amanda was doing.
My 2 penny-worth
I love the story, have done since I first came across it... would just like to say that it is a fantasy, an outrageous conceit... it'd be nice to see Jessie taken all the way to wonderful womanhood... as the story is not real, I don't know if you can judge the actions of the characters... it's a dream.
But thank you so much for posting it