Constructing Eva
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

I worked in construction because I had a background in it. My grandfather worked in wood and he had a full workshop in his basement with a bench router and a wood-turning lathe, as well as a band saw, planer and drill press. He had me make little things in wood from when I was small, and when I was older I helped him to build a scale model of a house – just the framing. I wanted to build the real thing.

I was never a big person, but that does not have to stop you. A builder’s most important tool is the ruler, and that takes a precise hand, not a heavy one. It meant that I led a team, and most of my work was checking the plans, measuring and then remeasuring. I used to get a hard time for being small and weak. Sometimes the guys used to call me “Girly” for a laugh, but you can’t fight this sort of thing. I just did my job. I ran a good crew and we always got things right.

Getting injured is part of the construction industry. I was always safety conscious, but things happen out of the blue. It was not a serious injury, but it did take me off work for a few weeks. The problem was that it was in the groin. An injury to a man down there seems to draw more laughs than sympathy. But it was more than that – in my case it was jibes about how close I had come to being turned into a woman. Had that sharp edge been an inch to the right it would have slashed away my genitals and left what Brett called “a wound we could all fuck”.

It is the kind of coarse talk that serves for humor in the construction industry, and to some extent it was Brett making light of the fact that he was the cause of accident. But as I lay recuperating, I have to say that his words led me into thinking about things. The thing that you realize from such a close call is just how small the barrier is between male and female.

The fact is that the human body is just a shell - like a framed building. A woman has some different internal fittings and external cladding that makes her better to look at, but the fundamental structure is the same. Men have hard edges and extra bulk to their cladding, but underneath the frame is more female. If my genitals had been ripped off, then without intervention my body would have slowly changed to a neutral framework state – closer to the feminine form.

I started to imagine what it would have been like if I had lost my genitals like that. I went on the net looking for emasculation injuries. The outcomes are never good. Reattachment is unlikely, and even if successful, the injured person could never function sexually without phalloplasty (a reconstructed penis), and artificial tools to achieve what could serve as an erection. Any prospect of reproduction was gone. Sex was not real for the repaired man.

There was some brief mention of “sex reassignment” as a possible treatment in some places. It was not a subject that I had any interest in before, but now suddenly my close call had me looking into it in some detail, given that I had the time to spend while in discomfort.

At first it seems like a crazy idea. So, living as an inadequate man is one thing, but learning a whole new gender? And then there is sexual attraction – presumably you are a lesbian, but what about if men are attracted to you?

The fact is that when you are recovering from injury, even if is not serious enough for your fellow workers to be concerned about, gets you thinking. Perhaps it was the painkillers, or the boredom, or a mixture of both.

And what did not help was that I was recovering at my sister’s house, because I needed to have some attention that I could not get at home alone. She put me up in her spare room which she used as a sewing room, and as a store for her old clothes in the closet. They were the clothes that she wore before she had kids, when she had a body as slim as mine, and she liked to show it off.

It was a crazy idea, I know it, but with all that was going on in my head, I just felt that I should try something on. The truth is that with the bandaging it was hard to wear pants other than the baggiest of track pants, and a dress just seemed like any other garment, except cooler in the warmer temperature. I told myself that if I was worried that it was weird then I had to be insecure about my sexuality, and I wasn’t. Well, that was what I thought, anyway.

And then I was wearing it, and a strange sensation came over me. It was like I was truly comfortable. For anybody who thinks that this was a kinky feeling, it was not that at all. There was nothing sexual in it. All of a sudden, my legs came together, or as much as they could with the bandage and the catheter. It was like understanding that you should not sit down in a dress with your legs apart. It was sort of instinctive.

When my sister got home, I just sat there in her dress and said – “I hope you don’t mind, it’s just more comfortable.”

She said – “You go for it, Evan. I wish I could wear those clothes in the sewing room again, but I doubt I ever will.” But she smiled. She was happy. She had a man, although he was on deployment, she had the kids. It seems easier for women.

Her clothes fitted and I was stuck at home, so I could dress as I liked. It should be that simple, and nothing about me should have changed, but something did. I came off the painkillers so it could not be that. The catheter came out and the dressings went down to something small, but I was still not right down there. I seemed to be leaking, just a little, so I tucked back my penis. The doctor asked about erections and I told him that I had not had an erection since the accident, which was true. It seemed to me that even though I was pronounced fully recovered, I was different somehow.

I thought that I looked different in the mirror, I looked drab and colorless, which is not how I felt. I think that it started with me just tying a colorful bandana around my head, holding back my blond curls that seemed to have grown like crazy during my recuperation. I was not trying to look feminine, but that was the effect. I know that now. Somehow, I started off down a path away from being a man.

When I was set to go back to work I somehow decided that things were going to be different. I knew from contact with the guys that I was going to be mocked about losing my nuts, which had not happened – but that didn’t matter. I decided that since I liked dressing this way, why not go along with it? On my first day at least, I would turn up at work in a dress and bandana, with my work boots and tool belt on.

My sister said that it was a great idea - he just wished that she could be there to see it. She suggested a couple of small additions – tidy my eyebrows and wear a little mascara and lipstick, and pack some in my tool belt pouch “to refresh as needed”. We both giggled at the prospect.

So, I turned up for work. Every morning we would start with what we call a toolbox meeting, and I just sauntered up and said that I was ready to get back into it, leading my team. I just stood there while everybody stood around with open mouths.

Somebody said – “What happened? We thought that you were fully recovered, like you did not lose anything?”

I said – “I am fully recovered. What is wrong with you guys. Can’t a guy dress for comfort at work? I have safety footwear on. I have my heels in my bag for after work.” That last bit was a stretch. I had no heels. I was just pushing these guys – the guys who had called me “girly”.

Everybody just grinned, except for Brett. I could see that he was worried. I had always taken the view that I would never blame him for the accident, and as long as he thought I would never be affected by it, I guess he just forgot about it. Now, he seemed to have doubts that I would ever be the same again. As it turns out, he was right about that.

People had always called me Ev at work, but now that became Eva. It was my game, so I was happy to play along. I had fund with it, like the time that the guys were wolf-whistling a girl across the street for our project, and I told them to cut it out, but not because I was offended. I said – “Hey, why don’t you guys whistle at me like that?” So they started doing it when I walked by or bent over -0 I should have expected it. I know that these whistles objectify and demean women, but I have to say I liked being whistled at.

I can say now that I never thought this would last, but how was it supposed to end? One week or two weeks? I grew into months. The weather got cold and the dresses were no longer the reason to dress the way I did. They were replaced with jeans, but my sister’s jeans, and a feminine top. My underwear was hers too, and my penis remained tucked above my panty liner. And when I got home I would slip into something crazily feminine, just because I wanted to. It was just the way things were.

I had recovered from my injury but the doctor said that I might be suffering from “repressed gender dysphoria”. It was not something I had heard about. He asked me whether I had considered hormone therapy – he said that it worked for some, even without anything else. I am not sure why I agreed, but I did. It made me feel good.

The time came around for our Christmas break which always included knocking off work early and then heading to a local bar where the company had laid on a few drinks. I decided that I would get changed into something nice, and even show off my new assets with the assistance of a good underwire bra and some padding. It was really the first time that I had gone full-out girl, but the truth is that I had practiced at home in front of the mirror for quite a while.

The guys were impressed, but it was Brett that stood out again. He looked troubled and he started throwing back the drinks from the very start, trying to get drunk as quick as he could. I had fun with everybody, but Brett did not seem to be taking part. As a team leader I felt that I needed to go over and talk to him.

He said – “Ev, sorry, Eva, I feel this is all my fault. People said it was not as serious as all this, but now look. You are no longer a guy. I have wrecked your life.” The guy was genuinely upset, but also drunk – like what they call melancholic drunk.

I said – “Hey, do I look unhappy to you. Seriously Brett I am happier than I have been maybe my whole life, and I don’t know why. I don’t blame you. I never have. Shit happens. But look at me now, what do you see?”

Then he really spilled his guts. He said – “I see a woman. I see the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and she works alongside me and drives me crazy. I think I have fallen for you, Eva, big time.”

What is somebody to do when they hear that? I just felt that I should hug him. It is easy for a woman to do that, and somehow that made it easy for me. I guess he got the wrong idea and he started to kiss my neck and slur what he thought was sexy chatter in my ear. I had to push him away, but I told him that when he was sober, he could ask me out on a date.

It was like I had made all his wishes come true. He was very happy, although before the night was out he had fallen asleep draped across one of the tables and the boys had to get him home. It was time for me to leave them to it. Boys will be boys, and I was not one.

So, Brett and I have dated since then, and I had to explain to my parents over Christmas dinner why I was dressed like a woman and why I was dating a guy. The strange thing is that I really can’t explain why. I said that it just happened.

My grandfather said – “It can’t just happen. Buildings don’t just happen. There is always a plan. It seems to me that somewhere along the line your plan got lost, but now it has been found and you are complete.”

I like that.

The End

© Maryanne Peters 2024

Erin’s seed: “A young man gets a job on a construction crew - he's a hard worker but small and slim and some of the stuff he just can't do. The guys give him a hard time, and at first it seems just joking but at least one of them takes things a bit far. He ends up getting hurt and is off work for a bit, but the teasing about him being girly and not a real man still stings. While off work he experiments with crossdressing and discovers that he passes pretty well so he studies up on the internet to improve his presentation. First day back on the job he wears tight fem jeans with padding up top and other fem touches and the guys don't know what to make of him, the bully from before got fired for causing the accident but seems to have a different interest in the new girl…”
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