Alma Mater
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

Oliver Furness came to me in 1898 – I remember that it was the year that the Spanish American War ended. He had a scholarship to the University, or thought he had. He saw that my boarding house and health clinic offered lower rates for “students with refined manners” and considered that described him well enough. He was a slightly built young man, seemingly ready to study, as I had been at the same age.

I have always run a proper establishment, the dining room, lounge and day clinic on the first floor with young women residing on the second floor where my rooms were, and young men on the floors above. Residents of both sexes could breakfast together if I was at the table, but otherwise not. But I quickly came to realize that Oliver was intent on breaking the rules of propriety, so I considered it my moral duty to take steps to protect the honor of young women in my care.

The University also had high moral standards for the recipients of scholarships. Who could not approve of that? It is noble to allow those of limited means to study and achieve in this great nation of ours, but to give that privilege to the immoral or depraved is to reward sin, and we cannot have that.

Young Oliver came to me in some distress not long after he moved in before the college semester commenced. I may well have chosen to close my heart to this youth, but that is not my nature. I am not that kind of landlady. In fact, I invite all those who stay with me, because they are so much younger than my “middle age” to call me “Mother”, and that was how Oliver addressed me.

“Oh, Mother, what am I to do,” he wept real tears in a very unmanly display. “I am too ashamed to head home but without the scholarship I cannot remain here. All of my future is lost.”

Well, it was, and because of his lust and indiscretion. How pathetic he seemed to me – a man in bed but so much less than a man in the business of life. I had but one course to commend to him.

“I can get you a scholarship with my alma mater,” I explained. “I have influence with the Board of Deans and there are funds available. My old school is attached to the University and you can do most of the courses that you enrolled for, but you will need to do a few others. There is only one drawback and it means that you will need to make a sacrifice.”

“Anything,” he said, with disarming alacrity.

“It is a school for young women only, so you would need to attend as a woman, but I could help you with that.” I just said the words and then leaned back to let the idea sink in. I could see a whole bunch of thoughts running through his head starting with surprise, then effrontery, and passing through consideration, and maybe even a thought of mischief.

“How do you think that I could pass as a woman?” he asked, with a trace of indignation.

I replied – “That hair of yours is long enough to draw up and we can use hairpieces to affect a woman’s style. We would need to pluck out your beard, but the rest of your body will be shaved. It will all grow back in time, but we will need to work on keeping the skin smooth and soft. And corsetry will do the rest – corsetry and a concealment device between your legs.”

“A concealment device?” he said.

“To conceal your maleness and allow you to function as a female,” I explained. “I just happen to have such a device in my possession. It is essential to conceal your true nature.”

“And I continue to live here, as a student?” he enquired.

“You may, and at the reduced rate that I offer to female students,” I said. “Being a past scholar myself, I wish to encourage academic pursuits among the fairer sex, and that is a sex that will include you, should you wish to get an education such as you desire.”

Right then and there he agreed, although he did waver a little when he saw the contraption I pulled from my old portmanteau.

“This will allow you to pass water as a woman must,” I explained to the shocked youth. “And to pass stools, and to receive enemas.”

“Enemas?” he said.

“I should explain that after my studies, sponsored by the Seventh Day Adventist Church, I was employed by the remarkable Dr. Kellogg at his Battle Creek Sanitarium. We experimented with a range of herbal enemas and the incredible healing and body improving properties that they revealed. I consider that a course of regular enemas is essential to be able to cope with your time at college, in the status that you have accepted. I am happy to deliver that care without cost. You may be aware that Dr. Kellogg demands considerable fees for his health-advancing treatments at Battle Creek.”

“I have heard of him,” Oliver remarked, examining the device. Clearly he was concerned that the course I had prescribed would be arduous and uncomfortable, but he needed to weigh up his options. I waited for a moment displaying some impatience. As I say, the boy had brought his predicament upon himself, and needed to decide whether to abandon thought of education or accept my offer.

He was smart enough to understand that he was ill-suited to manual labor, and unwilling to accept a life as a low level clerk given his propensity for study. He accepted my proposal, as I hoped he would.

We resolved that he would be known as Olivia, and that he move down to the second floor and the room next to mine which had a connecting door and my own bathroom. I was able to assist in the preparation of his body to become for all intents and purposes, her body.

As I expected, she made a remarkably attractive young woman. I had arranged for her to present herself at my alma mater on her first day with another female student also staying at my establishment, and to sign up for the “well-being” courses in addition to the subjects in the original major. My alma mater had been established with the sponsorship of my church which places great emphasis on the health of the body as well as that of the mind and the soul.

Ladylike behavior is something that is readily acquired by being surrounded by women in an exclusive school and by women in a segregated boarding house. Young women from the country have also been known to display crude behaviors but to learn sophistication through association and the occasional correction by the lady professors of my alma mater.

Olivia was ready to learn and became very comfortable with her fellow students. It made me very comfortable with all I had done, to see her fit in so well. It seemed to me that as a man in an aggressive and competitive environment she would never have been able to achieve, but among women who are by nature co-operative and supportive, she developed.

But so too, she developed in other ways. She came to see me about it, in a state of some distress.

“Mother, I am growing breasts!” she said, with a trace of those tears again. “Breasts like a woman!”

I examined them at her insistence. They were quite beautiful. They were nowhere near as large as mine, but then I have been growing mine for a long while, but I knew that hers may well grow even larger than mine, given what had appeared after only a few months of the herbal colonic irrigation.

“Praise God, you are being assisted in your pretense,” I said. “This may be an indication of divine assistance in our endeavor. We should look to consider some other clothing which might take full advantage of this. Don’t be concerned about your body. You have never been healthier, I can assure you. Any unwanted features will disappear over time.”

Olivia seemed reassured to some extent, but perhaps it was the new dress that displayed her new form that made it easier to cope with what was happening.

The fact is that Oliver had been a young man with sexual appetites, but those had waned as a part of the treatments he was receiving regularly. It was all part of the work I had done with Dr. Kellogg. The purpose was to rid the human body of unhealthy toxins but also to reduce lascivious desires and other unhealthy appetites. To a very large extent we had succeeded due in no small part to my being a volunteer in those early years.

I suppose that we had learned that some herbs have effects that make them unsuitable for men, and that when delivered directly through the walls of the colon the effect is multiplied and immediate. It just so happened that given Olivia’s position, this was just what was needed.

The changes had resulted not only in the breast but in the softness of the skin, and the softness of the sexual organ, minimizing the discomfort of the concealment device.

But sexual desire is not just rooted in the genitals, but also lies in the mind, and is mixed with the other sins of covetousness and envy. The fact is that with her new increasingly sexualized appearance, Olivia was becoming the object of considerable admiration by men of my establishment and of the university and was responding to that admiration as might be expected of any young woman.

By the end of her first full year at my alma mater, Olivia Furness was for all intents and purposes, female. Her hair had grown long and soft and she wore it up in the style of the time. Herbal therapy and corsetry had reshaped her body completely, and her restraint meant that she not only carried out her ablutions only as a woman could, but that she could, if she wished, engage in a form of fornication that while sinful, was satisfactory to her and from the man’s point of view, entirely natural and in preservation of a guarded chastity.

I cannot be judgmental given that I had used the device in the same way at Battle Creek years before. I was happy to hand it down having reached an age when such activities are no longer so important to me.

Olivia never completed her degree, but nor did she return to life as Oliver. That did not surprise me either. Ours is a world where achievement is still dominated by men, but where comfort and happiness can be more often achieved by finding the right life as a woman.

There was a wealthy man involved. She was swept off her feet. She writes to me occasionally. She is happy and I am happy for her.

I have never begrudged Dr. Kellogg for the experiments in those early days at Battle Creek Sanitarium. He believed in experimentation and taking advantage of the results. We would never have the cornflake without that.

He was shocked by what had happened to me and he moved on to other herbal compounds, but I found my place. I also found a man, and I even married him and took his name, but he has passed on. Obviously, we had no children and yet I consider myself a mother with a huge family.

In some ways I think of myself as a human alma mater. It is Latin, as you will be aware. It means the mother who nurtures. I have the breasts and I can even lactate, but that is not what I am talking about. I am a mother to my residents and those who come to me for care. I help to nurture and develop their inner person, and if that person is female, then (with my assistance) that will come out.

The End

© Maryanne Peters 2024

Author’s Note: From an idea from Erin