Something Feels Strange…

"Kris," she says with hope in her voice, "I do like you–a lot. I would prefer to have you as a male friend, but I like that we are going to be able to spend the summer together after all. It will be a unique summer. I'll just miss the making out!"

"Me too," I say sadly as we share a sisterly hug.

Laurie's tears have changed to tears of relief.  I find myself crying too, for the identical reason.

Chapter 13: On the Road Again–Finally

"Your makeup's a mess," I observe with a smile after we break our embrace.

"Yours too," she laughs. "You really need to fix it. I never thought I'd have to say that to my boyfriend!"

I never expected to hear it either, at least applied to me. 

Moving on to my next great concern, I realize that I am not doing a very good job of acting like a girl. It's only been a day and a half since the transformation and there is the fact that I have been kept so busy on other things in that time.

"Laurie," I ask, "can you help me figure out this girl stuff? I'm supposed to act as if I've always been a girl around the Jeffers and I'm not doing very good at it. I don't want to stand out as a freak."

"Teaching you is part of my job," she says brightly.

"I'd rather you do it because you're my friend," I say sadly. I thought that we had just established that I am not just a work project anymore.

"I didn't mean it that way, Kris. I was just trying to lighten the mood. I took the job of helping you BECAUSE I'm your friend. I WANT to help you," she says giving me a reassuring hug. "There's not much we can do about our makeup down here. Shall we go up to the cabin and get away from these mosquitoes?" The pesky insects have been circling us just outside the short range of the repellant.

As we get up to head back inside, I call into the woods, "Thanks fellas!"

A unquestionably female voice calls back, "We're not all 'fellas', but you're welcome anyway."

"Oops... Sorry!" I call back in apology.

Back at the cabin, the two older women are waiting for us.  There is an awkward silence in the room until I decide to break it.

"Thanks for giving me the time to think," I say gratefully. "I really needed that. I feel much better now so what's next?"

"That's okay, darling," Aunt Jen replies. "We're sorry for pushing you so hard. You've let us know that we should slow down some and we are trying to listen. Really we are. It's just that there is so much to do and so little time." She gives me a reassuring hug.

By now it is mid-afternoon and–it turns out–I really messed up the schedule, but nobody seems to want to talk about that. It appears they are handling me with kid gloves now.

Laurie makes a suggestion. "Mom, Mrs. Harrison? Can we skip the technical briefing and focus on helping Kris learn a few basic girl skills?  She could really use it before she makes too many more mistakes in front of the Jeffers."

This proposal is greeted with a questioning look between the two older women. Mrs. Harrison just shrugs her shoulders and says, "I was planning on catching an early flight home in the morning. I guess we don't have enough time for me to finish my training today anyway, so it looks like I'll have to delay my return a day. What do you think, Jennifer?"

"It will take a rearrangement of the schedule," says Aunt Jen, "but I think it's a good idea."

With everyone on the same page, we start with makeup lessons. Both of us need to fix our faces anyway. None of us have the full kit with us, but between the four purses, we put together enough makeup so that I can practice.

I soon discover there are different opinions about makeup styles.  Each of the three women do it in a slightly different way and there are varying opinions about what is appropriate for various conditions. Apparently, every woman develops her own style as she gains experience.  The style is influenced by age and current trends.  I am assured that I'll develop my own style fairly soon.

To make a long story not quite so long, the general consensus is to keep it pretty simple.  They have me practice with foundation, blush, eye shadow, eye liner, mascara, and lipstick.  I have to apply and remove it all multiple times before it is acceptable to the quality control team.  They try to explain to me the theory behind colors and the different products. They also teach me about the major brands.

When they see my increasingly befuddled look, they decide to just focus on a small subset of the available products and colors.  The general idea being that it's better to be a modest expert in a few things instead of totally clueless about everything.  Thank you!

A short burst of automatic weapons fire nearby reminds us that we are on an active military post. Looking out the window, we don't see anything so the action must be happening in a nearby training area.

Next we spend time on my hair; they have me brush it, then arrange it in different ways.  Again, they keep it 'simple' by focusing on only a few basic styles.  I'm assured that there is much more that I can do with it later and I should observe how other girls are wearing their hair for ideas. The magazine research will help.

I  put my hair up into a high pony tail at least a dozen times until they were satisfied that I can do it with the ease of a reasonably competent young girl.  We also experiment making some simple styles using barrettes.  I do each of these several times before I can do a passable job.

Around 4:30pm Aunt Jen receives a call on her cell phone from the Major requesting that they bring me to the field house a little after 5pm for our run.

As we get ready to go I ask, "Shouldn't I change before we go?"

"No, I don't think so," Mrs. Harrison replies. "They have a pretty nice locker room at the field house. I used it this morning when I went for my run."

Brain central comes screaming out of nowhere–just when I was thinking it had gone to sleep. THE GIRLS' LOCKER ROOM? "There is no way that you can go in there," it tells me. "The girls' locker room is definitely off limits to boys. There will be WAY too many naked females in there!"

Alright, I've been in a girls' public restroom. I've examined my female self naked. I've even seen my natural mother stark naked–I still feel awkward about that–so, you ask, what is the deal with the girls' locker room?

Here I am, not even forty-eight hours of girl time under my belt and influenced by sixteen years of male training. Even with the week that brain central has had to ease into the idea of becoming female, a room full of naked women has just not been figured into the programming. My dang morals are kicking into gear again.

Mom had warned me that this would happen, but so soon? Give a guy–girl?–a break!

"Ah...," I stammer, "I don't think that I can do that."

"Why not," Laurie grins, "isn't it every boy's dream to peek into the girl's locker room? Besides, the women there don't have anything that you don't have."

"They've just had it a lot longer than forty-eight hours," I point out nervously. "I think I'll freeze up if I go into a women's locker room by myself. Besides, I don't know how girls conduct themselves in there. I've no idea what standard practice is."

"I don't suspect that it is much different than in the boys’ locker room," Laurie says, "but I wouldn't know. How about having Mrs. Harrison go in with you and show you around? She knows the layout and then you wouldn't be on your own."

"I'm here to help you," Mrs. Harrison said. "I think that I'd like to try their pool anyway."

"Ah... thanks," I say, "but I am still nervous about being around all those naked women."

"I don't think that it will be as bad as you think," Laurie points out, "as it is the end of the day and before the evening workout crowd shows up. There shouldn't be that many women there. Besides, I think they'd be more nervous than you if they knew about your past."

That last comment doesn't help. I have visions of being beaten to a pulp by a thousand angry naked or nearly naked women.

"Relax," Aunt Jen says quickly when she sees the panic in my eyes. "Laurie is probably right about the low turnout. There is no way that anyone will suspect that you were once a male.  You are physically 100% female now. You'd have a lot more problems on your hands if you decided to use the men's locker room. Besides, lots of girls are shy about their bodies, even around other females, so your nervousness will not be totally out of place."

"I know this will be difficult for you," Mrs. Harrison adds, "but it will also be good experience for you. At least you are a transient up here. This will be as anonymous as it gets and I'll be there to help you. It is good training for when you get back to California."

"I don't know," I say, "I could use some more time to get used to the idea."

"I know, Kris," Aunt Jen encourages me, "but it would appear strange to back out now. Bill knows how bad you want to go running and we've already told him that you are coming."

Backed into a corner again.  These folks are so good at it!

"I'll try, but please don't leave me alone in there." I plead.

Laurie and her mother leave for the Jeffers' house while Mrs. Harrison and I head for the field house.

We arrive at our destination in hardly anytime at all–too fast for my liking. The Major is not there as we walk into the lobby.

"Hey, Kristina!" I am greeted by a young woman in army fatigues. I've never seen her before. "I'm Helen. Major Jeffers asked me to lookout for you. It's too bad that you made a mess of your skirt hiking around the lake, but it should clean well. I'm glad to see that you fixed your makeup, it was looking pretty bad last time I saw you."

Okay, so Helen must have been with the camouflaged soldiers. I realized her voice sounded familiar.

"I didn't recognize you without your camouflage." I remark dryly–not that I would have recognized her with it.

"The Major said that you're pretty quick," she observes. "I see that he was right. We were out there honing our protective detail skills. Those macho jerks that I work with can't stand to see a young girl crying which is why they broke cover to see if you were alright. You know how guys get around 'helpless' crying girls."

"Protective detail?" I ask.

"Yeah, we have to do that kind of work from time to time so some practice is needed," she said. "Major Jeffers sent another team out to try to kidnap you but we stopped them after you went back inside the cabin. You probably heard the weapons fire. Too bad–it would have been fun to see how you would've handled a good kidnapping. We were hoping that you'd stay outside for the fun. As it is, your hike around the lake made us pretty nervous. We weren't planning on that, but, then again, neither were the bad guys. We were spread pretty thin trying to keep you covered."

"You were shooting at each other?" I ask. "Isn't that dangerous?"

"Yes, we shoot at each other, but it’s not dangerous if you're shooting blanks," she responds. "Anyway, the Major will be a few minutes late so he asked me to be your guide. He is chewing out the kidnapping team for their failure to capture you. I don't think he wanted to show you around the women's locker room anyway. Well, maybe he did, but the women's locker room is off limits to him and he'd probably just get lost anyway."

Looking at Mrs. Harrison, I ask, "Did you know about this?"

"Yes," she says, "but Jen and I wanted you and Laurie to act is if it was the real thing if you got caught. Part of your training today was supposed to be about how to deal with such situations even though we think that the possibility of your being harmed is pretty remote. It's probably a good thing that the kidnapping team was unsuccessful since we didn't get that far with our training today."

I notice that nobody likes to tell me anything–still. I am going to get a paranoia complex if this keeps up.

"Are you Kristina's mother, Ma'am?" Helen asks Mrs. Harrison.

"No, unfortunately," Mrs. Harrison replies. "I'm just a friend of the family. My name's Susan."

With the formalities out of the way, Helen checks us in at the desk then leads us into no man's land.

Mrs. Harrison sees the panic starting to stir in me and squeezes my hand reassuringly. With a knowing look, she lets me know that she is with me. 

I take a deep breath.

"A little shy still?" Helen asks noticing my hesitancy. "I was that way as my body was developing. Don't worry, Kristina, everyone is nice here."

Fortunately Laurie is right; there aren't a lot of women in the locker room and most have some clothing on. Helen leads us to a far corner of the room, explaining it will be slightly more private back there. She shows us where the showers are. Unlike the men's showers that I have seen, these are semi-private with individual stalls, so this might not be so bad after all.

I undress quickly while both the other women do the same. I slip on a pair of cotton panties and my black running shorts. I then struggle into the black sports bra. As I get ready to slip on my yellow running shirt, Helen stops me.

"Here, Kris," she says, "the Major asked me to give you this. He says that you should have one. I estimated the size after seeing you out by the lake. It should fit."

She passes me a gray T-shirt that says 'Airborne' across the chest in a curved black swatch and yellow letters.

Noticing my running necklace which is still hanging around my neck, she says, "Where did you get that great necklace? I'd love to have something like that."

I pull the shirt on and find it to be a little loose but it feels good. It hangs down to about crotch level. I like it.

"I picked it up at a store in California," I tell her. "A friend picked it out for me. I have to say that it's my favorite necklace." Not that I have a lot to choose from!

I have studiously avoided looking at my two keepers while they dress.

Mrs. Harrison dons a racing swimsuit and heads for the pool saying she will meet up with us in about an hour. Helen is wearing running clothes similar to mine.  I guess that she is going with us.

As Helen and I enter the gym to stretch, I realize suddenly that I don't know the capabilities of this body. I don't know how to run in it which could be embarrassing.  I don't know how far I will be able to run and I'm supposed to be an experienced runner in this body.  I guess that I can use the excuse of new shoes to limit the distance if things don't go well. I am more than little nervous.

Helen and I begin our stretching exercises.  Though I have stretched a million times on my own I decide to follow her lead. I am surprised to find that my new body is much more limber than my old one. I get a kick out of stretching in ways that I never could before. Interesting.

Helen gets chatty and asks about my running experience. I down play my former abilities not knowing what I can do now. To deflect her questions, I ask about her abilities. She tells me that she is training for a marathon that is scheduled for late in the summer. Uh-oh, I think, I won't be able to match her!

I notice that she avoids talking about what I am doing here, but I can sense that she'd like to know what I am being trained for.

The Major joins us as we are stretching. He appears to be in excellent shape. He is wearing an 'Airborne' T-shirt that matches mine. Helen snaps to attention.

"At ease, Private," the Major says. "We are just out for a friendly bit of exercise. Good work today, by the way. At least you didn't break cover like the rest of your team. Your team was lucky to win today after that stunt."

"Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir. I don't think that it will happen again, Sir," Helen replies and resumes stretching.

"So, Princess," the Major says to me. I get a strange look from Helen. "I hear that you had an interesting afternoon. Did you and Laurie get things worked out?"

"I think so," I reply. "Thank you for your advice last night. You gave me a lot to think about and it's helped me deal with my problems."

"I'm glad to help," he says. "So, do you mind if we keep the run short today? Polly will have dinner ready pretty soon and I'd hate to be late. She'll skin me alive if it gets cold."

"Sure," I say, "I'm breaking in new shoes anyway. How far do you want to go?"

"How about five miles?" he suggests. "We'll keep it slow so that your feet will adjust to the shoes."

Helen agrees with the plan, but requests to be allowed to go further when we are done. She needs to get a full training run in. The Major is alright with that and so am I–one less person to worry about in the locker room. Mrs. Harrison can be my security blanket there.

As we start the run, I notice that this new body does not move the same as my old one. I hadn't noticed it before, but the wider hips make the legs feel out of place. I expected that the extra motion on my chest would be an issue–and it is.  The bouncing requires some coordination of stride to keep things in harmonic motion. It's a good thing that my breasts aren't any bigger than they are. The swaying of the pony tail was also distracting. The strangest sensation of all is between my legs. I am used to the extra equipment down there.  The new parts of the replacement equipment kind of stretch and move a little and the muscles are different.  It is hard to describe. It feels as if the various parts of my body were all trying to go their own way.

The end effect is that–for the first couple of miles–it is like learning to run all over again. The Major and Private exchange a look that communicates something like: I thought that this girl could run. After a couple of miles, I start to find my pace and begin learn how to coordinate the various body parts. After that, I run more comfortably and the pace picks up. It will take some getting used to running in this new body.

Now that I've found a reasonably comfortable running style, I notice that neither my breathing nor my legs are at all labored. In fact the two major components of running seem as if they are idling.  THIS is cool! What it means is that this body will be a running machine once I learn how to use it and I am not starting from ground zero in conditioning. I am going to need more than five miles to put this body through it's paces once I get comfortable controlling it. I get pretty excited and noticeably pick up the pace as we return to the field house. My running companions appreciate the faster pace.

Throughout the run, my two companions have been chatting away about various things, but I have been concentrating on learning how to run again so most of the conversation passes me by.

The Major and I stop running a couple of blocks from the field house so that we can cool down by walking. I thank Helen for the run before she continues.

"We'll do it again, Kris," she says. "You did pretty good after you got used to your new shoes!"

As the Major and I walk back, he asks about my day, though it seems as if he already knows about it. I told him about the success at the DMV and that Laurie and I are trying to be friends again.

After stretching for a few minutes we head for our respective locker rooms.  He worked up a pretty good sweat. I did too, but not to the same extent. I remember once my sister, Tiff, pointing out that girls don't sweat, they perspire. I did my fair share of perspiring on today's run.

Mrs. Harrison is almost dressed when I get back in the locker room.  I am also happy to see that there is only one other woman in our corner of the locker room and she is not paying any attention to us. I afford her the same courtesy. I am feeling a bit less nervous than when we first came in, but I will still be happy to escape from here.

"How'd the run go, Kris?" Mrs. Harrison asks.

"It was rough until I started to figure out the new equipment," I quietly respond. "This body moves a lot differently when you run."

"Are you okay if I leave you here?" she asks. "I need to go make a phone call."

I am feeling more comfortable now–'more' being a relative term–but think that I can handle being alone here now.

"Sure," I say, "I'll meet you in the lobby."

I noticed that most of the women wrapped their towel around them as they moved between the lockers and showers; only a few just walk around stark naked. The towel idea appeals to me.

I use a technique learned earlier today to put my hair up in a bun so that it won't get wet in the shower and get undressed.  I quickly wrap my towel around myself and head for the showers.

As soon as I am in the shower stall, I pull the curtain and proceed to get clean. The warm water feels heavenly, but I'm in a hurry to get out of here. I won't feel completely comfortable until I do.  Given recent experience, I figure that brain central will take this new experience as input and work it into its programming. Next time I should feel much more at home here in the women's locker room.

When I get back to the lockers, the other woman has gone–as well as Mrs. Harrison.  I am alone in my far corner. I begin to panic a little about being on my own, but manage to keep it under control. This is not as bad as I thought it would be. Quickly getting dressed again, I pack up my exercise clothes and head to the bank of sinks where there are several women working on their makeup.  I do the same. Today's makeup lesson really pays off. While not totally proficient yet, I try to act like this is an everyday thing as I apply a minimal amount with passable results. I also try one of the hairstyles we worked on earlier. None of the other women pay me any attention.

I find Mrs. Harrison chatting with the Major in the entry area.

"There's my Princess," the Major says with a smile as he notices my presence.

"I like what you did with your hair, Kris," Mrs. Harrison comments approvingly. It feels good to be doing something right!

After agreeing to meet Mrs. Harrison tomorrow morning at the field house for an early workout, we transfer what's left of my stuff from Mrs. Harrison's rental car into the Major's truck. I try to climb into the truck in a lady-like fashion, but it is tough and the skirt doesn't make it any easier.

As we head home, the Major casually drops a bomb, "You haven't been who you are now–physically I mean–for very long have you?"

That comment really came out of left field. I did not see it coming. How do I answer that one?

"I can't figure out how you changed, but you act as if you haven't figured out your body yet," he continues. "If I had to guess, you were probably male not too long ago. I'd like to know how the transformation happened but figure that's classified information. I'm sure that it wasn't SRS. The job is too complete and your mannerisms haven't quite caught up with your body. I understand that with SRS patients, the body is usually the finishing touch."

Well, so much for trying to blend in. I wonder who else has figured this out.

---< >---

This chapter was polished by Gabi–twice–and influenced by the numerous comments on prior chapters.
Thanks to all, particularly Gabi.