I accepted magic to fight evil and it turned me into a girl, but I don’t think I really mind?

Jennifer Shannon

Chapter 7

It took a couple of days for me to calm down, but Daniel kept checking on me to make sure I was OK. Today we had been chatting for hours about various things, and he must have finally judged me to be well enough to pick up the topic of my fight.

“You know, you have some admirers now among the girls from the gay bar you saved. Maybe some of them are bi and you could impress them as your superhero self,” he said, smiling.

No, that wasn’t going to happen. Daniel might still be girl-crazy, but I was still demisexual, and I didn’t know any of these admirers. Plus, letting people actually see me like that was terrifying.

“I don’t really think that’s going to happen,” I answered.

“Why not? Don’t depress me by saying something against bisexual people.”

“No, it’s nothing like that.”

I paused to collect my thoughts. I knew he wasn’t homophobic, so I could probably get away with telling him the truth. Part of it, anyway.

“It’s actually that I don’t know these girls. I’m demisexual,” I ventured.

“Oh! I’m sorry, but I haven’t heard of that one before.”

“It means I can only be attracted to someone if have an emotional bond with them first.”

“Well, now I’m really sorry for pushing you to talk to strangers all the time when we were out. Since we’re sharing, I’m strictly heterosexual.”

“I’ve noticed your interest in the opposite sex, Daniel.”

“Yeah, I guess you must have, huh?” he laughed.

That “strictly” stuck in my mind a bit. I had only been attracted to a few people in the past, who were all girls, but I’d usually been closer to girls at the time since the boys were often attacking me. I didn’t feel like I could honestly say that I’d be “strictly” attracted to women in the future. That uncertainty bothered me somewhat, but I couldn’t do anything about it. Potentially discovering that I was attracted to men too wasn’t something I could control, so I’d just have to live my life and see how things play out. And there was no reason I had to tell anyone that. I could safely hide that, as long as I didn’t act on it, so I didn’t have to worry about being attacked. In my discomfort I adjusted my shirt, which of course wasn’t fitting right anymore, just like the rest of my clothes, since my changes were continuing. Daniel looked at me in concern.

“You seem to have lost weight around your belly. You haven’t been skipping meals since your panic attack, have you?” he asked me.

“No, this is from those changes Bran mentioned would happen after accepting the power. I’ve been getting leaner, mostly.”

No need to mention that my clothes weren’t looser all over. They still weren’t any looser around my chest and hips. I couldn’t figure out what was going on there. I also carefully didn’t mention some other changes I had noticed. Daniel didn’t need to hear about my finer features or that I could go longer without needing to shave. Thankfully, Bran was right, and other people weren’t noticing anything strange yet, but if things kept on this way, I’d have to come up with some sort of explanation for people not in the know. Bran said things would be mostly explicable without bringing up magic, but I hadn’t figured out how yet.

“Your hair’s longer too. It’ll suit the ancient warrior look you have in your costume.”

That made sense. I nodded like that was intentional. That wouldn’t explain some of the other things, so I hoped he wasn’t going to be too observant.

“Well, I’m glad you’re doing better now. I’ve got to go. I promised Amy, I’d join her and Lanelle in helping out with fixing the bar,” said Daniel, getting up to leave.

I paused. I felt guilty about having contributed to the damage. I should help out, but the thought of being caught at a gay bar made me uneasy. I guessed I could say I was just there to help out, like Daniel. He was straight, and would be there. It should be safe enough.

“Hold on, I’ll come too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I helped damage it, so I should help repair it, right?”

“That was hardly your fault.”

“I’ll feel better this way anyway. Let’s go.”

On the way, I received a few confused looks, but since they passed quickly, I just tried to ignore them. I wasn’t sure why they were happening, and that bothered me. But, once we reached the bar, those looks stopped for the most part. But, when I introduced myself, someone asked what my pronouns were. After a moment of confusion, the question became multiple choice as I was presented with options, from which I chose “he/him”. I didn’t understand why I’d choose anything else since I wasn’t transgender. That just wasn’t possible. Also, once I had arrived, some new looks had started. These ones seemed more appraising than confused, and they were mostly coming from a group of tall women that would occasionally go off to chat alone. I guessed that I must be becoming better looking, as expected, but given I was helping out at a gay bar, or rather a 2SLGBTQIA+ space as I was informed, shouldn’t those looks have been coming more from other men? It was also strange that one of those tall women looking at me was Lanelle. I knew she was Amy’s girlfriend, but maybe she was bi, I guessed. One of those times that group went to chat alone, I overheard something about “letting her come out in her own time”. I wondered who they were talking about, but it was none of my business. This time, though when the group dispersed, Lanelle came over to me.

“You know, if you need to talk to somebody who understands, you can come to me,” she said.

“Uh… Thanks?”

I had no idea what she was talking about. It’s not like she was fighting an ancient evil. I was sure I’d have noticed another superhero.

“And if you don’t know me well enough, Daniel might not understand it as well as we do, but he’s proven he’s OK about things like this.”

Well, I was already talking to Daniel about the big thing going on. But what did she think it was? No one knew it was me fighting that creature.

“Yeah, I know he’s cool. Don’t worry; I think I’m all right.”

I wished I could be more certain that I really was all right.